In todays art input we discussed how many people think that they cannot draw or think that they cannot do art. When in actual fact, making a simple mark on paper is an art from.

We read part of a story called “The Dot”, which tells the tale of a young girl who thinks she cannot draw until she realises she can make amazing pictures out of simple dots on the paper. It was her teacher who encouraged her to start with one single dot, which then inspired her to create more art work using dots, which then became her own individual style. Here is a video of the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5mGeR4AQdM

I think this story made me realise the importance of inspiring children to be adventurous with art and help them to realise that art can be created out of any kind of mark made on paper. It is important to encourage them and make them realise that anyone can be an artist.

We then went on to experimenting with mark making ourselves.We started off by using different toys such as lego dipped in ink to see what kind of prints we could make.

 

We then went on to dipping parts of our hand in ink and randomly printing them on the paper. We then had to study the marks we had made and turn them into pictures that we saw within the mark. for example, the first mark I made using two fingers and part of my palm and after looking at for a while the shape reminded me of bunny ears, so I turned the image into a habit.

The purpose of this exercise was to show us how an important part of children’s creative process is imagination. According to Eisner  “In the Arts, imagination is given license to fly.” Eisner (2002, p.198)

 

References

Eisner, E. (2002) The Arts and the Creation of Mind. London: Yale University Press.

Reynolds, P. (2010) The Dot. [Online] Available: https://youtu.be/t5mGeR4AQdM [Accessed 8 January 2017]