Regular Contour Drawings

These are some regular contour drawings my students did a couple of weeks ago. Although some of them really enjoyed blind contour drawing, most students let out a sigh of relief when I told them they didn't have to draw with a shield over their hand. I think the blind contour drawing helped them to draw more of what they actually saw, rather than what they thought they saw--even when they were allowed to look at their paper (I did stress, however, that they should be looking at their subject 90% of the time).

Letter to An Artist

Yesterday, each of my students picked an art print from our classroom print collection and wrote a letter to the artist of the painting reproduced.

Here are a few of their letters:


Dear Johannes Vermeer,

I love your painting! The colors brown and red sit very well together. Is that supposed to be you painting in the picture?

I think the way you put such a detailed picture in the background is an awesome idea! Was this back when Spain still hadn’t found America? I think that your painting of another painting was a brilliant idea!

Sincerely,

Jasmine


Dear Mr. Hopper,

I love your work (November, Washington Square). It is a very realistic looking picture. I like how it shows real American life at that time.

This picture is of a city so you should do one of the country out west. I also like how the sky is painted with the blue in the middle. I think you are great at painting cities.

Sincerely,

Carrie




Dear Mr. Monet,

Why did you choose all those bluish colors? Were you sad about someone dying at sea? I like the colors you chose for this particular painting.

Were you angry when you painted this? All of your strokes look like they were done in anger, or in a rush. Get back to me on that, okay?

Sincerely,

Rachel

More Blind Contour Drawings

Here are some additional blind contour drawings done by my students.

Reflections on Teaching Creative Thinking

As I have read further on creative thinking, two characteristics of creative thinkers that have particularly struck me as interesting are: “a desire to work hard and at the edge of one’s abilities and knowledge” and “a belief in doing something well for the sake of personal pride and integrity.” Both of these characteristics are taken from a list developed by Dr. Craig Roland, referring to studies done by T.M. Amabile and D.N. Perkins in the 1980s. I wonder if these two attributes are necessary in order for a student to have the patience to show other traits on this list, such as:

• a willingness to drop unproductive ideas and temporarily set aside stubborn problems
• a willingness to persist in the face of complexity, difficulty or uncertainty
• a willingness to take risks and expose oneself to failure or criticism
• a desire to do something because it’s interesting or personally challenging to pursue
• an ability to concentrate effort and attention for long periods of time

I have always considered the drive to work hard and learn new skills and information, simply for the pleasure of doing so, to be something that people are born with—some to a greater extent than others. As I have worked in the arts, it has also been very apparent to me that doing something well is very satisfying, whether or not anyone else notices.

How, as an art educator, can I help my students to develop these attitudes? It sometimes feels like when I'm trying to do so I am swimming upstream in a culture that seems to teach kids to need instant gratification, a numerical score for so much of their work, and incentives for doing day-to-day tasks. External motivation is all over the place, and as a result, students seem to expect us to reward them every time they stretch themselves in some way. I also think our schedule-oriented society teaches kids that ‘faster is better.’ There are so many times that I feel like my students are racing against the clock to get their work done, and I struggle with getting them to slow down and really take their time on what they are doing.

One suggestion I have read—and tried—is to give students activities that they find intrinsically motivating. Activities that give students many opportunities to make their own decisions are encouraged. This gives the students more of a sense of ownership about their work.

However, there are some students in my classes who do naturally take their time on every single project, careful to produce pleasing results. For these students, it does not matter what the assignment is, or how many decisions they were allowed to make. These students encourage me, but they also challenge me. Why is it that some students exhibit this tendency so much more consistently than others, regardless of the assignment? Shouldn’t I be able to help all of my students develop such an intrinsic desire to work for a long time in order to achieve high quality work?

At this point, one thing I can focus on is breaking projects down into a series of defined steps. Lately, I have required my students to brainstorm ideas on paper before even starting to draw, using tools such as a web chart. This year I have very often required my students to make sketches before working on a final piece--something that I did not do in my earlier years of teaching. I am also realizing the importance of verbally emphasizing how carefully and slowly I like to work while giving demonstrations in class, hoping students will model this when they engage in their activities.

These are small steps toward what seems to me to be very important goals. They are external, and I can only hope that they will affect my students internally. It is my view that developing desires for quality and intellectual growth within students is key to promoting creative thinking.

Turning Curriculum Around

The idea of the ‘Backward’ Curriculum Design Process is a new one to me, even though I’ve been in the field of teaching for several years. An article I read recently on the subject pointed out that many teachers focus on what they are teaching more than what the students are actually taking away with them. They are concerned first with things like materials and what activities the students will do rather than the learning goals. Unfortunately, this reminds me of the way I am used to planning my curriculum.

To me, music and art (at first glance) seem to revolve around activities. In teaching these, my main goal has often been merely to engage my students and help them to improve on a particular skill. This article describes much of what has gone on in traditional design to be ‘hands-on’ rather than ‘minds-on.’ I think a fair amount of my teaching has encouraged my students to actively apply their minds to what they are doing, in order to produce desired results. ‘Big ideas,’ those universal truths which are relevant across the ages, in multiple disciplines, were pleasant highlights that my students and I would happen upon along the journey. However, for most of my teaching career, I don’t think they have necessarily been the focus of my teaching.

Studies have shown that children are prone to look for reason and intentionality behind most things. I especially have noticed this attribute while teaching adolescents. Students’ questioning about the reason behind activity is a good thing, and since much of my teaching has been activity based, I have not often enough used it to my advantage. I have thought it difficult to deal with while teaching students a skill I consider to be intrinsically valuable (especially when they do not at first agree with me). However, it should be something I actively embrace and encourage. Building connections among universal truths and all of the skills I wish to teach in art is a large challenge, but one well worth pursuing. I am realizing more and more that I need to use the universal truths as scaffolding rather than ornamentation.

I am wondering if a large hurdle for me will be picking a new starting point. For example, I deem skills necessary for good representational drawing to be important. I would like to be assured that my students are taught the basic principles of this and other disciplines that fall into the category of visual arts. Focusing on the practical aspects of my discipline seems to be more challenging when I am starting with universal truths. However, his is a challenge I am definitely willing to take on, as I see that it is the universal truths that hold a curriculum together, connect it with other disciplines, and ultimately show the students that it is relevant to life.

Blind Contour Drawing in the Classroom

My students did blind contour drawing for the first time last week. I learned about this drawing method after I started teaching, while reading ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ by Betty Edwards. However, I had been taught to draw using a method that was based upon similar principles but was carried out in a different way.

I understood how blind contour drawing would help my students to focus more on what they were seeing and would help them to ‘turn off’ the verbal mode our brains often naturally gravitate toward when drawing. However, I did not understand how doing this activity would help them draw better in the long run. I was not sure how well my students would be able to control their line quality while doing this exercise. I also could not imagine my students really enjoying this exercise or focusing for very long while doing this.

I did some blind contour self portraits and actually enjoyed seeing the results. I realized that it is possible to capture contours very accurately while doing this, and I actually ended up with some interesting and expressive lines.

When we did this in my classroom, I was pleasantly surprised at my students’ reactions to the assignment. Some thought it was fun, and this exercise was so different from the way that we have drawn before in class, that it really caught their attention. I explained what a contour drawing was, and demonstrated by drawing a student’s portrait. I told that during this drawing exercise they would not pick up their pencils, and how this actually can help you gauge the distance between features (I think so, anyway). I emphasized the importance of slowing down and carefully observing all of the slightest nuances of a single line. I demonstrated this, and the students were surprised at how slowly I was expecting them to draw.

I then chose one student from each table to be a model, and explained what ‘outside contours’ and ‘inside contours were, pointing out that it was important to include both in their drawings, but they could decide where in the drawing they wanted to go from one to the other. The students then drew their models ‘in the air.’ Almost all of them drew the outside contours first, and then the inside contours, according to the models. In the second ‘air drawing’ I challenged them to pick a more unusual point to go from outside to inside contour.

We moved on to the actual blind contour drawings, using pencils. I had never thought of using a piece of paper as a shield, to keep the students from looking at their paper. This is something I had used in piano before, but never in drawing. The idea of putting the pencil through the ‘shield’ works very well, and was definitely a new concept to all of my students.

They did one minute, two minute, and five minute drawings. I was delighted to see many of my students fully engaged, trying their hardest to do careful renditions of the portrait models at their tables. Some students were drawing more slowly than they usually do, and my classroom was actually very quiet for almost the entire activity (which isn’t always the case). Many of the drawings they ended up with were descriptive in different ways than their usual drawings were, and were more accurate, in some ways, than drawings where they were allowed to look at their paper.

I think I would like to use this activity in my classes on a regular basis, and I see that as being a possibility since it can be done in short intervals. Our next project will be contour self portrait drawing, and although they will not have ‘shields’ over their hands, I will encourage them to apply the new concepts they learned from blind contour drawings to their self portraits. We will practice some ‘air drawing,’ and my hope is that they will take their time and pay close attention to the contour lines they draw to make their portraits.

Ideas Which Stand the Test of Time

Both students and teachers have asked my why it is important for us to study art. A colleague of mine commented the other day that art is fine for those who particularly enjoy drawing, but it isn’t really for everybody, and he has never understood why it is important for us to study art history. People with his point of view are one of my motivations for teaching art.

A prevailing opinion in our society seems to be that art education is superfluous, which is why it is one of the first programs to be ousted when budget cuts are made. Art is not tested in state and national tests, and I haven’t yet heard of a ‘Monet Effect’ (although statistics have shown that children involved in any of the arts tend to have higher grades and test scores). Some would ask, with such a limited amount of time and resources for to teaching our students, is it really advantageous to devote much of that to art education, especially to those who aren’t ‘gifted’ in art, or naturally interested?

I would definitely say that the enrichment provided to students by art education is vital. After all, our ability and need to work creatively is one attribute that makes us distinctly human. Since the beginning of time, people have used their creativity to make sense of their existence and world around them by describing it, reflecting on it, and asking questions about it. In our exploration, we have produced stories, poetry, plays, games, paintings, mathematical equations and scientific theories, resulting in everything from the Enuma Elish to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. It is important for us to keep asking genuine questions about life and our world, as well as listening and responding to those who have already given us their point of view. This is a significant part of our humanity.

The theme of exploration ties all of human activity together, which is one reason art has strong connections to every other field. We aren’t usually quick to group science and math with art. However, once you realize the common motivation for all disciplines, you start to see that each one is a voice in the same great conversation that has been going on for centuries.

How do we, as art educators, impress this idea upon our students? One of the first principles that has impressed me since I’ve started studying art education this semester is the focus of one main idea throughout a unit or year. A ‘unit’ to me has always been a set of lessons with a common theme, such as ‘The Middle Ages’ or ‘Africa.’ However, I am very attracted to using an ‘enduring idea’ as the foundation for a unit instead. An ‘enduring idea’ crosses over the somewhat artificial boundaries we have drawn around individual disciplines, and is significant throughout time. Basing a curriculum on this shows students (and teachers) that art is relevant to all of life.

Ideas in this category might include ‘the relationships between humans and nature,’ ‘similarities and differences between dreams and reality,’ or ‘the nature of time.' In teaching units based on questions such as these, the teacher should incorporate disciplines other than the visual arts which address the same question. For example, a unit on the relationships between humans and time could include discussing John Cage’s 4’33”, and The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali. Creating rhythm in music and in printmaking could also be explored simultaneously. Lessons should not merely touch on connections among disciplines or tip their hat to the enduring idea, but should be measured by how deeply they challenge students to think about the enduring idea, and by genuine connections made among multiple disciplines.

Putting together a unit based on enduring ideas will take more thought than the units I have been used to, but it is true that you reap what you sew. Such an approach will most likely produce better thinkers, who are more aware of how understanding and creating art is important to every aspect of life.