Teaching Art Was Great!

I was reticent to go into teaching at first, but in my Junior year, after a practicum and Senior student teaching in art education, I realized that my personality was perfect for the job. If you don’t like kids, then it’s not for you! They will tease, cajole and test every fiber of your patience. Especially if you were a “special subject teacher” like I was. The “regular” teachers will too. I was involved in teaching 1200 children art once a week. I was a traveling art teacher for a few of my sixteen years in art. When you go into another teacher’s classroom, it is their domain!
There are special rules that a visiting teacher must follow. Never step on the authority of the classroom teacher. It is very humbling to be a “special”. Some of the children would ask me if art teachers, music teacher, and Physical Ed teachers had gone to college. They’d often ask me if I was a real teacher. After an art/social study lesson on ancient Egypt, my students would tell me that I should be a real teacher and teach social studies. Flattered and yet humbled, I didn’t really know how to take it. Was that a compliment?
After the birth of my fourth child, I received a Masters in Art. It took me twelve years to finish. I was like that bunny that ran across your TV set who just keeps going, and going and going. That’s what it was like.
“Stick to it”. I’d tell my students. “You can do it if you try. Some of us have to try harder, but if you don’t try, you’ll never know if you can do it, or even if you like it.” What if Van Cliburn’s mother never bought a piano? What if Michio Kaku never looked at the stars as a child? You know what I mean?
My art education life was filled with challenges. The art teacher, besides planning and delivering an art program for kindergarten to grade eight, must also be a diplomat throughout the school. There is scenery to be built, decorating the gym for dances and shows, signs for Parent Teacher Organizations, signs for the Principal’s needs for order in the building, helping teachers with bulletin boards, decorating the entire school ‘s windows for changing seasons, judging science fairs, be a guest at child study team meetings to show a particular student’s art, give teacher art workshops, meet with parents, draw circles on the floor for the kindergarten to sit on, pick up classes from assemblies if it is during a teacher’s art class (prep) time, attend assemblies during teacher’s “prep” time, distribute the school’s art supply order, Substitute teach when many teachers were absent. Should I continue? Now do you want to be an art teacher? I had amazing energy, but did get worn out enough to catch the flu a few times during my art career.
When I was pregnant with my fifth and last child, by the way, the Principal called us into his office and told us that they were cutting back on the special subjects and we better have another certification. Well, with five children living on a teacher’s salary, I needed that job! My home-economics friend and I bought the National Teachers’ Exam prep book and studied like fiends. We passed! And I was an art teacher! Amazing! All she did was teach boys and girls to cook and make clothes! Amazing!
She got a job teaching 5th grade and they placed me in the Basic Skills Program since they were conserving money. The Government paid half of my salary. With my masters, I was nearing the top of the pay scale. It saved money for our town. Also, it was easy to place me there since I was starting in November. My son was born on September 15th after I attended the first week of school with a very large belly! I returned to work after a C section and only six weeks maternity leave. Greeting me was my precious new baby boy, four other beautiful children and my stack of material for the four grade levels I’d be teaching. Sleep? What’s that? Don’t expect to sleep when you have a large family and a full time job. All I had to carry now was a handful of books and I taught a few students at a time. I could also wear, “teacher clothes”! Gone were the slacks, smocks and abstract expressionist blouses that had to be tossed at the end of the day! I shared my space with another teacher who kept asking me, “How can you do this after teaching art. Isn’t this hard?” “Well, I have sat daily, checking homework with my own children who are now in high school, and I know the subject matter quite well. Plus, our teaching editions do have the answers, uh, I think I can. I did pass the National Teacher’s Exam after teaching art for sixteen years.” She never said another word about it. I was more than qualified. My new certification was from nursery school to grade eight, so I was covered.
Little did I know how much I was going to love this new job. The best thing was that my job day ended with my childrens’ day. So, in their minds, I could have been home all day. I was there to pick them up at the end of their day. Sweet. Homework with milk and cookies, then some outdoor activity for the children, while I prepared dinner, more homework, nursing, bottles, diapers, diaper bag and stroller, little league, lunches, finally my reading, and then collapsing at 11:30 to do it all again starting at 6am. You can and will get through it because children go through stages. They grow up!!! I think back and cherish every worn out moment!

Mixing Crayon Colors-Grade 1 to Adult

Soon your child will be coloring. Oh no! You can’t find all of the crayons you want. Well, you only need Red, Yellow, and Blue to make Orange, Green and Purple. Black and white crayons will make shades and tints.
Lesson 1. Research the Impressionist painters and gather as many pictures as you can. Van Gogh painted using the primary colors, Red, Yellow and Blue. The Impressionists used their colors in short brush strokes that created texture in their painting. Try putting a short line of yellow, next to a short line of blue. Your eyes will blend them into green. Continue making various lengths of yellow and blue strokes and you will find that you have painted with your crayons and made a beautiful field of grass. You can also blend the yellow and blue to make green.  What about making brown for trees or a path? Blend yellow, blue and red together and you will make brown.  Green, Orange and Purple are called secondary colors because it takes two primary colors to make them. Brown is a tertiary color because it takes three colors to make brown. Did you discover that green and red make brown or a neutral color like brown? Did you discover that purple and yellow make the same neutral brown? Blue and Orange will do the same. These combinations of colors are called complimentary colors and are very bright when placed next to each other. Blended together they are the three primary colors, so they make a neutral brown. Experiment with the primary colors with your crayon drawing and next time I’ll talk about using oil pastels or chalk pastels to blend the primary colors. Have fun!

Primary Grade Art

Did you ever hear of the art “stages of development”? There are stages of development that psychologists use for your child’s growth during childhood. There are also stages of “visual” growth that children need to go through. In my first blog, I mentioned that two year olds universally draw a person as a circle, with lines radiating from that circle representing arms, legs, etc. The more details on that circle represents more features of the human body. Studying that drawing can tell a doctor or psychologist or teacher about the maturity,  intelligence or the psychiatric problems that your child might be experiencing. I will address the early stages of development for the primary grades. At first grade, a child should have a basic idea about a body concept. Teachers and art teachers often ask children to draw themselves. The drawing reveals if the child is mature, or that he or she does not have a concept of self. Introduce the lesson with a little game. Play “Simon Says”. Touch your head, touch your neck, touch your eyebrows, touch your nose…etc. You understand. Your child will be able to feel their neck and trunk of their body so they may begin to draw a simple shape for their body instead of the circle for the whole body. Illustrate what a person looks like. Draw a circle for the head. Then show them that there is a neck below the head that supports the head. Did you realize that when children look up at you they don’t see your neck? Have them feel their own neck and then draw it on their paper. Show pictures from children’s books with illustrations drawn simply. Show cartoon bodies. After a while, your child will begin to draw a head, neck, a shape for the body with shoulders, arms, legs and shoes. Be proud!

Teach Your Child With Art

I am writing this to benefit a parent who has a young child around two. This is when you should introduce your child to art.

He or she will learn that the mark on the paper begins the mark he or she will leave on the world.

This first blog will talk about the materials you will need for your young child. You will need:
blunt scissors
large roll of newsprint
package of colored construction paper
newspaper
roll of paper from a hardware store and discontinued wall paper
poster paints
finger paints
“fat”crayons (the skinny crayons are for older children since they have more mature small muscles in their hand)

Begin with a large 18×24 paper. For a two year old, the first session will be with the fat crayons and let them choose the color. Sit them on the floor in front of the paper. Have them take their chosen color and make a mark on the paper. Tell them to extend the mark into a line. They don’t know what a line is, so when their mark gets longer, tell them that they made a line! At two, your child will eventually draw a universal figure of what a person looks like. All over the earth, give a two year old a crayon or a stick and the figure in the sand will be a circle. This is the universal concept of a person at age two. Be thrilled if your child, at two, can draw a circle. Probably the first attempt will be a line, thinly drawn. Keep the paper until it is filled with lines. Don’t give them a new paper every time. Eventually, the lines will be more aggressive and will be darker and longer. Do not take their hand to make a circle. Show them in the air. Trace a circle in the air and then have them to the same. Then tell them to do the same thing on the paper. Tell them to “fill the paper” with the marks or shapes they have made. They are working the space like all artists. Don’t force your child to draw if they want to stop. The art they create should be theirs, where they have ownership. There are no “right” colors for the objects they draw. Make it fun and keep the time short. Even ten minutes is long for some children. End the session for that day. Hang their “work” on the beloved refrigerator. Tomorrow is another day.

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