If you don't know me in person, you may be wondering how I approach mentoring art. You might be wondering why I am doing this. I am an artist, and I want to encourage youth to be artists. *smile*
I began providing art classes in October 2009 when my own son wanted to learn more about art and improve his drawing skills.
As a homeschool mom, I didn't have a lot of reasonably
priced options for my own son, and others were asking about where to go
for art classes without paying an arm and a leg. My classes are very inexpensive for what is taught because I know homeschool families tend to be single-income and need all the breaks we can get. I do have to cover my expenses, though. If expense is a true issue, I may have a scholarship available. Any extra money from fees goes either to buy equipment for more diverse classes, or toward helping others who can't afford full price. Again, I have to cover my costs. Scholarships aren't always available since the fees are low to start with.
I love art, and have a gift for teaching kids how to see things in a way that they can put them on paper. I decided to hold a class and see how things worked
out. It was fantastic, and the kids all wanted to know what we were
going to learn next...
oops...
I hadn't planned that far. I expected them to say, "That's nice. See ya around". They wanted MORE!
I quickly started writing a curriculum to give instruction on various skills htat the kids had mentioned wanting to learn. My art classes are all carefully constructed by me, to teach specific skills. I do use some projects that are similar to those other instructors around the world use, but I create most of my projects through the vision given to me by that first group of kids.
My
initial approach was to teach specific drawing and painting skills
while exploring basic art media. This is how I came up with my Art1,
Art2, and Art3 courses, which take 8 weeks each. I like to work with a
particular medium for about 4 weeks and switch to a different one. This
keeps the youth from becoming disinterested in learning the skills while
giving time to focus on the skills being learned.
I've thought a lot about how kids learn to create art, and believe that they need a foundation of skills that they can translate into their own art. Many skills don't come naturally, and around the time a child turns 10 or so, they want to be able to do more than representational art; they want their drawings to be recognizable as real items. They become frustrated and begin to believe they can't draw, when in fact, they just haven't learned to perceive objects in a way that translates on paper. My philosophy is such that I believe that anyone can be guided into these skills. They just have to be taught.
My method of encouraging drawing and painting skills takes about 1 3/4 to 2 hours of class time per lesson. The first part of the class time is spent demonstrating and practicing the skills to be learned in the lesson. The second part of the class time is spent working on the day's art project. I use still life settings and photo references for most of our art projects.
In my more advanced or specialized classes, we may spend whole lesson times on either learning and practicing skills, or working only on a project based on the skills learned the previous week. Some class projects take 2 or more weeks (ceramics, slab/hand building, pyrography or clay board), or even the whole 8 week class session (papier mache sculpture) to complete a project!
To illustrate my thought process, I will go through Art1, 2, & 3.
Art
1 begins with an assessment day the first lesson. This assessment helps
me to see how each youth works. Some work very quickly, while others
need more time. Some youth are easily frustrated by their perceived
*mistakes*, while others just roll with it. This lesson also allows me
to see if the youth are advanced, or may need extra attention.
Weeks 2-5 are spent learning how to see things to put them on paper, and various pencil techniques. At that point, the youth are enjoying their drawing skills, but getting a little tired of drawing with pencils. I could opt to move on to colored pencil skills, but I really prefer to move completely away from that medium. I believe that processing of the pencil skills continues after specific instruction pauses.
We move on to tempera painting for weeks 6-8. Did you know that Michelangelo used tempera paints to paint the Sistine Chapel? A lot of kids see the tempera paints on the counter when we move on to this section of the class, and think "preschool paints". We quickly learn that this medium is more than meets the eye. We also use the skills that were learned while drawing with pencils to compose our paintings.
The Art1 class session ends with a tempera painting that is done on canvas. These are gorgeous, and I have seen some hanging on the walls when visiting friends whose children have taken my classes!
Art2 picks up with colored pencil skills (weeks 1-4). We discuss what we learned in Art1, and build on those skills while using colored pencils (thus the reason for Art1 prerequisite). We dig deeper into colors and how they work together. We continue to learn how to compose our drawings.
Weeks 5-8 are spent working with watercolor. We learn about different kinds of watercolor and how to use them, along with specific basic watercolor techniques.
We learn about various quality from one brand to another that we use, as well as the cost of materials. I like the youth to be able to use a variety of quality materials so they can understand why there is a difference in cost and the results. Sometimes they are surprised to learn that more expensive doesn't always mean it is better for their specific needs.
Art3 is dedicated to pastels. We spend 4 weeks on oil pastels, then 4 weeks on soft pastels. We also use hard pastels or conte, on occasion, to accent our art work.
We spend a lot of time working with color in this class. We still continue to learn drawing skills, but the progression is so natural that I'm not sure many realize we are continuing to hone the drawing skills because they are seeing the subject matter differently than they did at the beginning of Art1.
In Art 3, we learn a lot about paper, and what paper is used for what kind of artwork. We learn about choosing paper based on personal preference, and sometimes the students choose which kind of paper they want for a particular project. We discuss projects from previous classes: the kind of paper used, and why I chose the paper for various particular projects.
***
Famous artists' works are looked at during some class sessions. There is not a famous artist discussed for every skill or lesson, but some lessons are greatly enhanced by looking at famous works of art.
Art1: Claude Monet
Art3: Wassily Kandinski, Georgia O'Keefe, Vincent VanGogh
Throughout the three classes I ask many questions and discuss the "hows and whys" of the artwork. There are times that I will purposely make mistakes during the lessons so they can see what happens, and how to correct mistakes. Sometimes I will tell them to do things that don't work so they can see why. In more advanced classes, I regularly have youth ask, "are you setting us up to fail?" when they are skeptical about whether something will work. When they ask, I answer honestly. "Yes, I am", or "No, I'm not". Sometimes, I answer, "Maybe, let's see what happens".
One of my favorite parts of mentoring these classes is teaching the youth to critique, not criticize. I want my classes to be a safe learning environment. Many of us are very critical of our own artwork. we naturally criticize. My method requires us to turn this process around to be positive. We critique! What went wrong? How should I have done this to make it look correct? By keeping it positive, we persevere, and the next attempt looks even better!
I also believe that math, science and art walk hand in hand. Sometimes my art classes go into the mathematical side of learning. It is great to hear, "I like math when it's like this!"
After we finished up Art3 for the first time, I asked the youth what they would like to do next. That prompted several great responses, and we worked our way through the list over the next few years. I have several youth who have done all of the classes available!
I tend to prefer working with middle to high school age youth from age 10 and up (about 5th grade and up), and set class age requirements based on experience with the youth I have worked with and the level of instruction provided. My age limits are somewhat flexible, in that I will take a "mature" youth up to 6 and maybe even 9 months younger. I have a class or two that age is not flexible, though, and I do note that clearly.
What about younger kids?
A couple of years ago, I added some Exploring Art classes, which are more project based, for ages about 8-13 (about 3rd grade through about 6th or 7th grade). There is a lot of variety in these classes. They include instruction as well as projects. Class times for Exploring Art are shorter- 1.5 hours.
See my class descriptions page for details on the various classes we have done.
- If you see only the word "Art" + a number, it is designed tor middle to high school level youth. These classes can be quite challenging to the kids at the younger end of the age range.
- If you see "Exploring Art" + a number, it is for primary to upper elementary level youth. These classes can be quite challenging to the kids at the younger end of the age range.
- I tend to give an age range for classes to help you decide. My age ranges do overlap. Don't let that cause you to be concerned if your child is in the older range of Exploring Art, or the younger range of the Art classes. The difference is the level of intensity for the class. The question you have to ask yourself and your child is, "Do I want a lot of instruction and critique of my work?" or, "Are we looking to learn about artists and do fun projects inspired by those artists?"
If you have any questions, feel free to ask!!!
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