Drawing with Children: Lesson 1, Part 2

For our art lesson this week we are still on Lesson 1. The entire lesson would be too much to cover for a typical five-year old in my opinion. I try to aim for thirty-minute lessons. We still haven’t actually gotten into the drawing lessons yet. We’re still learning how to look and identify parts of the picture.

This week I gave Lily her chart for the Elements of Shape. Using the Monart method a picture can be broken down into these five elements of shape.

 

• The Circle Family- anything roundish that is empty with no color. (i.e., the top of a glass, looking through a paper towel roll.)
• The Dot Family –anything that is roundish that is fill in with color. (i.e., a coin, the bottom of a cup)
• The Straight line Family – a line without a bend. (i.e., a yardstick)
• The Curved line Family – a line with a soft bend. (i.e., a rainbow, the letter “C”)
• The Angle line Family- a line with a sharp bend. (i.e., a spider’s leg, a staple)

 

 

Our lesson consisted only of illustrating the different elements of shape. We discussed each element of shape and then spent time drawing it. Throughout the next week we will move around in our environment, look at a picture, and analyze what we observe to see what elements of shape we can find while we look at the objects.

 

 

This lesson was difficult due to circumstances and not content. It is very important to have minimal distractions and I had a baby crawling up my knee and time running against me. I hope to plan better in the next lessons to give us a better experience. I, personally, am impressed at my ability as I begin to draw two dimensional objects by breaking the image down into these elements of shape.

 

Next week I will introduce Lily to a few different warm-ups that we will complete before each drawing lesson.

 

Just for fun, here are a couple of Lily's "pre-drawing lesson" drawings.

 

She drew this looking at the back of a marker box.

This is the bird she drew after watching me do the first lesson for Drawing with Children on my own.