Learning From Student's Explanations

This week I would like to think about how we learn about what students draw from what they say. I think that it is very important to take the time to listen to students both when they are making art, and after they have finished.

I took the time this week to ask students about their artwork. What interested me was listening to students describe work that is not yet representational. This can be seen in Elijah's work. The viewer most likely would not know what was happening in the drawing and must rely on the dialogue with the student.

Explanation of the drawing:

Me: "Elijah, can you tell me what you are drawing?"

E: "Just eyeballs. He got water on him. Its really really hot."

Me: "What does he do?"

E: "He gives eyeballs to everybody in case they fall out."

Me: "Is he a good guy or a bad guy?"

E: "Good guy but if he gets out of the water he's a bad guy."

Me: "Where does he live?"

E: (pointing) "See where this is? He lives in a stream."

From just looking at the drawing, I would of never guessed that Elijah had such a dynamic story line. Through this example one can see how students are constantly thinking about what they are drawing and have stories to go along with the marks. To the naked eye it may look like a green blog, but to a child, it's an eyeball monster living in a stream.

Jeffery the Art Model

Also here is a picture of Jeffery that I have to post because it is so adorable!

Learning From Others

This week I would like to discuss how students influence other students while working in a collaborative setting.

Students working together or even at the same table can both help, or hurt each others art making. Nonetheless it is clear that students effect each other's work.

One example of this happened last week. Last week's lesson focused on animals and their environments. The students drew pictures of animals either in a realistic or unrealistic environment. One table had very interesting results and made me really think about how students are influenced by other students around them.

Jeffery, Andrew, and Steven sit together every week. When working on their animal environments, the influence they have on each other is clear.

Here are their three artworks.

The top is Steven's

The middle is Andrew's

The bottom is Jeffery's

Just from looking at the drawings, one can see a clear connection. The table was interested in drawing snakes. Each child began by drawing a long snake that was not filled in. From there the students began to diverge. It seems that Andrew and Steven are closer friends with each other than with Jeffery. Andrew and Steven began to color over their snake with a blue color. At first I thought they were just scribbling over their drawings to black it out. After talking I learned that the snake lived under water and this was their way of representing this. I thought this a was really interesting way to do this. More typically I see children drawing the water at the bottom of the page with the snake hovering above it.

Steven chose to only add blue water over his snake where Andrew added more colors to the water. I would like to think this had to do with the assignment to draw realistic or unrealistic environments but I can't be sure.

Differing from Steven and Andrew's pictures is Jeffery's. I like being able to see how students who start with the same concept approach it differently. Jeffery is interested in precision in his drawing. He tediously began filling in the snake with different colors. These small careful strokes were a large contrast to Steven and Andrew's large gestural lines.

Whereas I feel that Steven Jeffery and Andrew's example is positive, another example of peer influence was more negative. This past week Christina and Soomin were drawing in their sketchbooks. Each girl is very interested in Hello Kitty and like to draw her. Christina began to draw Hello Kitty and Soomin, interested in what she was doing watched her. Soomin then proceeded to tell Christina that the drawing was bad and that she was a bad artist. This obviously led Christina to be very upset. Through out the rest of the lesson Soomin was continually interested in what Christina was doing but Christina stopped talking to Soomin all together.

From these two examples we can start to understand how children influence each other when making art both positively and negatively.