During the session, we were fortunate enough to be joined by guest speaker Isobel Laird who works for South Lanarkshire Council. Isobel brought with her several pieces of children’s artwork to show us from various age groups in primary schools. We then as a year group discussed each image in depth to see what everyone took from the picture. After all, art is a way of expressing our individual creativity, therefore, one person might take a very different vibe/meaning from the piece of artwork than their peers and that’s ok. Furthermore, Isobel discussed why art and design are critical within the Curriculum for Excellence.
Encouragement of representation and ones’ ability to express their personal creativity is an essential part of a child’s mental growth, as discussed by Duffy (2006) as playing a pivotal role in cognitive development. Furthermore, Duffy states that “it is through symbolic representation that children acquire the facility for abstract thought.” (Duffy, 2006, p.10)
The practical aspect of this session was implemented by Isobel. She explained to us what we were to do in a step by step formation. This means that a stimulus or idea was provided and we used our own creativity to create a piece of artwork. This step by step formation, I believe is an excellent way of relaying instructions to children as they are provided with clear, simple instructions instead of a vast amount of information in one go. Also, this type of relaying information to the children allows for less ‘copying’ of the teacher and more room for allowing for a creative process and the development of the individual learner.
The whole class was given the same materials and we had a variety of watercolours and acrylic paint to complete our artwork. This lesson was valuable for us as future teachers, as we all felt that it provided us with great insight into how we can engage pupils during art while allowing for them to express themselves creatively.
After completing our washing lines, we were then each given a picture of a wall to use as a stimulus. All of the pictures which were given were different, some were red, some were black and white and some were wooden which reinforced the importance of all of our images being completely different based on our own personal creativity. The class was very engaged throughout this task and focused on making their own wall ‘just right’. This highlighted to me to fear some children may feel when it comes to art and design.
When children do not fully engage with the Arts due to the fear of making mistakes and being ridiculed, further barriers can be created which the teacher must address. According to McAuliffe (2007, p.27), “as children become more aware of others’ art they can be particularly self-conscious about their work and their own ability in art and design.” This, therefore, makes it essential that teachers have a high level of confidence in both the child’s ability and their own with reference to the subject area of Expressive Arts. When a teacher has confidence in their own art knowledge and abilities, it will ensure that the children will receive a more satisfactory means of support.
We then created a collage by combining our washing line, wall and another piece of paper which we used watercolours to cover in order to make a background. We were not given any instructions when it came to completing our background. This allowed for us to use our creativity to produce an expressive piece. It was interesting to witness how many people went with the classic ‘rainbow’ look or simple vertical stripes for their background. This may have come from many years at primary school being told that that was looked the nicest. This lesson was very useful as it was delivered through a child learner approach which enabled us to understand the art class from a child’s perspective.
References
- Duffy, B. (2006) Supporting Creativity and Imagination in the Early Years. United Kingdom: Open University Press.
- McAuliffe, D. (2007) Foundation and Primary Settings. In: Cox, S., Watts, R., Grahame, J., Herne, S. & McAuliffe, D. (2007) Teaching Art and Design 3-11. London: Continuum.
