The Art experience was wonderful. One child, whom I worked with lastly made a stunning picture. She chose to trace a picture from the book, 'Colours of Us'. She selected a picture of a dark woman who wore lovely jewels. The child traced the picture carefully. I guided her verbally, showing herareas which she overlooked on tracing, e.g. side of the face, pupils, contours etc. After tracing she decided on the colours of the tissue to be affixed. Pre-cut tissues which could be cropped further were provided. She chose yellow and carefully affixed them on the face. When I gave her a pink paper, she said that it was too big and cut it smaller to be affixed as a hairband. When she felt that she was done, she turned over the art piece at looked at it with amazement...I was surprised too. I asked her if she would like to use the marker to colour the little details. She accepted my suggestion readily and coloured the nails and jewels. It was awesome. Her friends who saw her picture asked if they could do one too. They were inspired.
The Art experience contained a surprise element...as children would only be able to see the big picture after finishing their work. It exhibited the child's personality when she selected her desired colours and shapes of tissue. The size of the picture e.g. the large face gave the child a bigger space to work on. This experience was a confidence booster for this child who often felt that she could not make beautiful picture like her older sister who was apparently able to create lovely pictures. I had another child who felt unhappy about issues with the size of the tissue papers and felt that it could not be cut to her desired shape and size to make the right fit. As such she prefered to use the marker which she could confidently colour within the boundaries.
Children should be given the opportunity to work with both large and small sized pictures creatively rather than comparing which might be better. They can work with their desired combination of colours to suit their taste as such they need time to think and work with different colour combinations. Exploring their work with a wide variety of light sources is something we were unable to do due to other work commitments at school. We observed our work on the light table which gave them a different appearance. When I photocopied the pictures they looked different too. We could have tried observing the pictures on the wall being reflected by a torch light or even on projector.
Now children are interested in tracing faces... tracing a real image of a photo poses challenges which are different from cartoon pictures with definate lines or borders. We tried it at school. It was a different learning experience.
Sincerely,
Ms Rachel
Nursery 2A and Nursery 2B, 3-4 year olds at 215 EtonHouse Bi-Lingual Preschool in Singapore are making and sharing art with the 4 year olds from Nursery B at Colegio San Patricio in Monterrey, Mexico.
