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How do you easily implement Drawing With Children?


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My dd loves to draw and I'm really excited about Drawing With Children. My problem is that it isn't really broken down into easily planned lessons, and I will have a new baby this summer, so I really need a super simple way to get things done. I'm planning on using "the" filing system so I can spend my pre-baby time planning my tail off and then hopefully things will go fairly smoothly when we begin everything in the fall.

 

Does anyone have ideas for easily implementing Drawing With Children, preferably in a way that can be filed so that I will actually do it?

Edited by infomom
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Okay, so after looking at some ideas from that thread pp posted (thanks, by the way!), as well as some other threads about DWC, I'm thinking I'm going to return it while my return window is still open. Maybe I'll try it in the future but it doesn't seem like its going to work for our family right now. I'm thinking I'll just get some more "How to Draw..." type books. We have a few things like that and dd LOVES them. This way I can just pop a sheet or two into each weekly file and have drawing covered. Voila!

 

Thanks for the replies! :001_smile:

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I've been wondering about this book as well. I think it's funny that there are a billion pages for the sample on Amazon, but none of the lessons. (Or, if there are, I totally missed them, which tells me I wouldn't want to use it.)

 

I'm wondering whether it's really practical for a five-year-old of average drawing talent.

 

I've been looking and looking and I think we're going to go with some Usborne books for next year to get DD interested in actually wanting to follow instructions for her art.

 

I have Usborne's My First Art Book coming. I'm still deciding on a drawing one. I checked out their Art Treasury one from the library. I liked it, but it's for a little older children. The First Art Book is supposed to be for 4+, so I'm hoping it's the same, but a little easier.

 

Never mind me...I'm rambling, talking out loud. I've been researching art all week. LOL!

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I've been wondering about this book as well. I think it's funny that there are a billion pages for the sample on Amazon, but none of the lessons. (Or, if there are, I totally missed them, which tells me I wouldn't want to use it.)

 

I'm wondering whether it's really practical for a five-year-old of average drawing talent.

 

I've been looking and looking and I think we're going to go with some Usborne books for next year to get DD interested in actually wanting to follow instructions for her art.

 

I have Usborne's My First Art Book coming. I'm still deciding on a drawing one. I checked out their Art Treasury one from the library. I liked it, but it's for a little older children. The First Art Book is supposed to be for 4+, so I'm hoping it's the same, but a little easier.

 

Never mind me...I'm rambling, talking out loud. I've been researching art all week. LOL!

 

Usborne are the how-to books that we have and dd loves them! We have the Ray Gibson "I can draw animals" and "I can draw people". We also have his "What Shall I Draw?" book. They're fantastic. In addition to those, we have Scholastic's "Little Kids...Draw!" (I got it during Dollar Deals). That's a goody, too. DD has already drawn (several times) pretty much everything in all these books, which is why I need something more. She's a voracious little drawing-book consumer.

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LOL! Sounds like they're decent then. Thanks! ;)

 

Which one is better..."I Can Draw Animals" or "What Shall I Draw?" If I only get one for now.

 

Usborne are the how-to books that we have and dd loves them! We have the Ray Gibson "I can draw animals" and "I can draw people". We also have his "What Shall I Draw?" book. They're fantastic. In addition to those, we have Scholastic's "Little Kids...Draw!" (I got it during Dollar Deals). That's a goody, too. DD has already drawn (several times) pretty much everything in all these books, which is why I need something more. She's a voracious little drawing-book consumer.
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I have it planned for a third-fifth-grade study. 50 Lessons that are used in conjuction with other resources to reinforce topics.

 

It's on my blog.

 

The point, alone it is difficult to understand. It teaches you to show the kids, provides tools, suggestions, and specific lessons as illustration. For the most part, the book itself is relatively short on the lessons and elaborates on how to plan. Think of it as the guide to art for the elementary years. You may only cover a chapter or the first half of the book. Quality over quantity. :)

 

It is not forced art; it is discovering and learning art.

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I tried to teach from Drawing with Children a year ago and it was a disaster. I just didn't get it and in retrospect needed to have and give a LOT more hand-holding. The book may be enough for some, but not us. That said, I later found this website with lesson plans. It may not have fixed the issue in our house - but yours sounds more enthusiastically artistic.

 

If you do return it and want to try something other than the drawing books once in a while I've bookmarked but never tried these videos from Jan Brett. Might be just the thing for a rainy fall day (assuming you live where it rains in the fall).

 

I was flipping through the What to Draw, How to Draw book linked by a pp and my kids wandered by and said they wanted to try it. SCORE! Thanks.

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Susan, you might want to check out... http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-History-Ancient-Elaine-Raphael/dp/0531106985 As well as the Drasw 50 series, for just about every topic.

 

Remind them that they can use tracing paper! Tracing is the beginning to learning to draw. It is great for penmanship practice that isn't directly associated with writing. Shhhh .... don't tell my girls!

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Not sure if you would consider something like this--but the Mark Kistler draw3d.com website is really cute. It has short videos where Mark shows you how to draw different (cartoony) scenes.

 

My dd6 is an avid drawer--she wakes up in the morning, runs down to the kitchen table and starts drawing. She can literally draw for hours. She had done the Usborne books and one of the Ed Pemberly books, so I thought I would try this website. She's really eating it up! It has lots of more "advanced" techniques too like shading and perspective, but all done in a very fun lively way. Mark is pretty funny too.

 

There are sample lessons on the website to try. If you do want to get it you can go through the homeschool buyers coop. It's only $40 (vs. $100) for a year right now.

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Not sure if you would consider something like this--but the Mark Kistler draw3d.com website is really cute. It has short videos where Mark shows you how to draw different (cartoony) scenes.

 

My dd6 is an avid drawer--she wakes up in the morning, runs down to the kitchen table and starts drawing. She can literally draw for hours. She had done the Usborne books and one of the Ed Pemberly books, so I thought I would try this website. She's really eating it up! It has lots of more "advanced" techniques too like shading and perspective, but all done in a very fun lively way. Mark is pretty funny too.

 

There are sample lessons on the website to try. If you do want to get it you can go through the homeschool buyers coop. It's only $40 (vs. $100) for a year right now.

 

This totally sounds like my dd--she does the same thing, runs right down to the table in the morning and starts drawing. We go through a ton of paper.

 

There are so many awesome options for drawing, now I'm feeling overwhelmed. :lol: But it's nice to be "released" from DWC. :leaving:

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LOL! Sounds like they're decent then. Thanks! ;)

 

Which one is better..."I Can Draw Animals" or "What Shall I Draw?" If I only get one for now.

 

I think What Shall I Draw has slightly more detailed, possibly more difficult, pictures. (I THINK. I'll have to check them tomorrow and get back to you.)

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Many of us have different art goals and priorities. The "best" curriculum will facilitate reaching THOSE goals. And sometimes even if a curriculum advertises facilitating the goals we hope to reach, it doesn't seem to accomplish what it's advertising claims to do.

 

First decide on goals. Then look for resources that provide a slow and steady path to those goals.

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Susan, you might want to check out... http://www.amazon.com/Drawing-History-Ancient-Elaine-Raphael/dp/0531106985 As well as the Drasw 50 series, for just about every topic.

 

Remind them that they can use tracing paper! Tracing is the beginning to learning to draw. It is great for penmanship practice that isn't directly associated with writing. Shhhh .... don't tell my girls!

 

Oh, that would be great. Penmanship is improving, slowly, but I had been regretting not having ds in particular do more coloring in the bygone days.

 

First decide on goals. Then look for resources that provide a slow and steady path to those goals.

 

Hunter this is an excellent point. Art in particular has vague goals for me. I guess I would like some level of appreciation and then some higher level of confidence than I have in my own abilities. :D I'm going to try some of these ideas and see if anything clicks. In the meantime...

:lurk5:

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Hunter this is an excellent point. Art in particular has vague goals for me. I guess I would like some level of appreciation and then some higher level of confidence than I have in my own abilities. :D I'm going to try some of these ideas and see if anything clicks. In the meantime...

:lurk5:

 

As I just wrote in the other thread goals can be vague--as you called it--until we understand more of our world views.

 

If someone believes strongly that their child has been created in the image of a creator and therefore designed primarily to be creative, they will pursue curriculum selection quite different than a parent who wants to make sure their child is well prepared to engage in cocktail party conversations with potential business partners. And an Amish parent might want to use art to teach a child to follow directions, to be neat, and to serve.

 

With my world views I put scanty thought to the whole cultural literacy bit, even for literature, never mind the visual arts.

 

I tend to try and empower my students, fill them with hope, and teach them to embrace their birthrights as a human. And then do all that in a minimalist fashion with nothing but pens, pencils and crayons on copy paper.

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I have it planned for a third-fifth-grade study. 50 Lessons that are used in conjuction with other resources to reinforce topics.

 

It's on my blog.

 

The point, alone it is difficult to understand. It teaches you to show the kids, provides tools, suggestions, and specific lessons as illustration. For the most part, the book itself is relatively short on the lessons and elaborates on how to plan. Think of it as the guide to art for the elementary years. You may only cover a chapter or the first half of the book. Quality over quantity. :)

 

It is not forced art; it is discovering and learning art.

 

 

I totally agree. We covered chapter 1&2 in one year. This year we have gone through chapters 3&4 this year. We will venture into chapter 5 over next year.

 

I have found it lays lessons out very well, and then gives you lots of leeway for then creating your own projects after. All of our artwork has improved so much over the last couple of years with this book, interspersed with other projects from across the curriculum.

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As I just wrote in the other thread goals can be vague--as you called it--until we understand more of our world views.

 

 

You make such thought provoking points as usual. Is the point of art to express ourselves or to demonstrate techniques? Is it inate or should it, can it be taught?

 

I have two books from Tara Books in India that caution against showing a child what to do, but try to spark their own creativity. One has lots of interesting starting points, the other is about folk toys. I bought them from Barnes and Noble some time back.

http://www.tarabooks.com/books/books/young-readers/tweens/child-art-with-everyday-materials/

http://www.tarabooks.com/books/books/young-readers/tweens/toys-and-tales-with-everyday-materials/

 

(Or see parts of them on google books too) i see i've missed a puppetry book

 

Hunter you may be interested in this one on human rights

http://www.tarabooks.com/books/books/young-readers/we-are-all-born-free/

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We all hated that book. It's not divided into neat lessons and for those of us who are seriously artistically challenged.... well, forget about it. We did Artisic Pursuits this year, and while I wouldn't say we looooved it, it worked for us, when we got around to doing it.

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You make such thought provoking points as usual. Is the point of art to express ourselves or to demonstrate techniques? Is it inate or should it, can it be taught?

 

I have two books from Tara Books in India that caution against showing a child what to do, but try to spark their own creativity. One has lots of interesting starting points, the other is about folk toys. I bought them from Barnes and Noble some time back.

http://www.tarabooks.com/books/books/young-readers/tweens/child-art-with-everyday-materials/

http://www.tarabooks.com/books/books/young-readers/tweens/toys-and-tales-with-everyday-materials/

 

(Or see parts of them on google books too) i see i've missed a puppetry book

 

Hunter you may be interested in this one on human rights

http://www.tarabooks.com/books/books/young-readers/we-are-all-born-free/

 

Is that the same Born Free as this one? I love this book!

 

I didn't think I was going to like the books you linked to, but they are not your typical "just do it" books. They look good.

 

Last Fall I couldn't stop seizing and got thrown in the hospital. The art therapist demanded that we draw a castle for some "therapeutic" reason, with no assistance in technique and not even a possible model. I was worse off than everyone else. One of the seizures had erased my memory of what a castle even was :-) I just got up and walked out, while the other patients stressed over being ordered to "create" with no assistance. I got yelled at and didn't even care. I just got myself out of there as fast as I could and bought a children's book on drawing castles, and retaught myself what a castle was, and one possible easy way to draw one :-)

 

It's so seldom a teacher says, "here is one possible way to do this. Follow along or do your own thing."

 

I've also been in classes where the technique taught was smothering and invasive and in my case ridiculous. When I was homeless during my divorce, no one could get me safe or housed or to stop seizing, so to make themselves feel better, just about every social worker I saw, gave me a free art class voucher :-0 So I'd go to the class, carrying everything I owned on a backpack on my back and the teacher would insist that figure drawing has to be done on HUGE paper with smudgy charcoal. Ummm...like...where was I going to put it? I'd try and ignore her and do pen and ink in my favorite Moleskine sketchbook with my clean little pen, but she'd freak so much I'd quit. Outlining is like some sort of sin in figure drawing :-0 I like line though. I think it's beautiful. I never made it through a single one of the classes I started.

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Thank you for this thread! I'm the OP on that other resurrected DWC thread and .... I just can't do DWC. I'm much more of the "I Can Draw" crowd.

 

The examples in DWC are stunning. I just don't think I can teach it.

 

Away from the more philosophic for a moment, I thought I'd say I find DWC just does not happen here. I looked through it. My son looked through it. I cannot bring myself to push it. For one thing, I don't really like the style, I guess. My son likes to draw certain things and figure them out and work on them. And that does not fit DWC.

 

I have been trying to notice what my son seems interested in tackling and to find help for it one way or another. Sometimes I try to learn how to do it first, sometimes I model some, sometimes I help with parts, sometimes he does his own thing.

 

In terms of books, my son's favorite so far is called Draw Real People by Lee Hammond, North Light Books publisher, the one he likes best shows how to draw faces, ending with Marilyn Monroe, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. My son is working on the Marilyn face at present. These books are not intended for children especially, but my son likes them far better than the programs intended for children. He does not necessarily use it exactly as suggested in the text, but it seems to be helping him to move to his next step.

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You make such thought provoking points as usual. Is the point of art to express ourselves or to demonstrate techniques? Is it inate or should it, can it be taught?

 

I have two books from Tara Books in India that caution against showing a child what to do, but try to spark their own creativity. ...

 

Art and teaching art may be different. The point of art may be to express something, to make a connection from artist via art to viewer (who may be the artist him/herself). The point of teaching art may be to demonstrate techniques such that the artist will have the skills to do what he or she would like to do. Certainly I believe that teaching of art should not crush someone's own creative spark.

 

Personally I would like an art teacher to Teach me something that will help me to be able to do what I want to do. In my own education the view of all but two art teachers I had was very 'do your own thing', art is whatever the artist says it is. I know that there is validity in that view, and in real life, when we start looking at Jackson Pollock or other contemporary artists one can hardly say otherwise. Yet it seemed like a cop out for the teacher to not actually do any teaching. Sort of like if a math teacher said math is whatever the mathematician says it is and then sits down in a chair and leaves the class to figure it out, sink or swim on their own. Well, if one happens to have the skills of Euclid or Archimedes that is well and good. If not, what is the point? I think at some level math becomes and art and a mathematician goes beyond what anyone has taught him or her. But learning what is already the basics has its place. So too, I think with art instruction. Picasso knew the basics ... then he became experimental. Ditto for their time any great artist I can think of offhand, Raphael, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrandt...though I am sure there are any number of exceptions who you can come back with.

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Is that the same Born Free as this one? I love this book!

 

...

 

It's so seldom a teacher says, "here is one possible way to do this. Follow along or do your own thing." That sounds like the best of all possible worlds...if something was taught that could help, but there were freedom to do something else if that is what one preferred to do.

 

... Outlining is like some sort of sin in figure drawing :-0 I like line though. I think it's beautiful. I never made it through a single one of the classes I started.

 

Sounds like some yucky experiences with art. :grouphug: Outlining may have been used by the renaissance masters via various techniques...shadows, camera obscura, etc. It seems silly for a modern teacher to consider it a sin.

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Art and teaching art may be different. The point of art may be to express something, to make a connection from artist via art to viewer (who may be the artist him/herself). The point of teaching art may be to demonstrate techniques such that the artist will have the skills to do what he or she would like to do. Certainly I believe that teaching of art should not crush someone's own creative spark.

It's my understanding that a lot of the activities in books published by Tara Books in India are done with poor children, to encourage folk art traditions, rather than aspiring to imitate European "masters." The Toys and Tales book in particular is aimed at creating toys (which is a traditional activity in most cultures, including in India) as an alternative to mass-produced plastic stuff.

 

Maybe folk art has a special place. Anyway some people want to encourage it, and that type of work doesn't tend to rely on the same types of inspiration.

 

 

Hunter - you're right! That is the same, or at least I found several pages that are the same.

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We've done two of the chapters of DWC and I'm not real thrilled with it. I do think it's a little too advanced (at least with me teaching it!) for a 5/6 YO. DD's drawing has improved a little, but she doesn't like the book. We're going to get one of Mark Kistler's books next.

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We've done two of the chapters of DWC and I'm not real thrilled with it. I do think it's a little too advanced (at least with me teaching it!) for a 5/6 YO. DD's drawing has improved a little, but she doesn't like the book. We're going to get one of Mark Kistler's books next.

 

 

Oh I agree. At that age, it should be about tracing, coloring, cutting, pasting, and fingerpainting. LOL As you look at the book, you are considering the entire book for the year. Don't try it.

 

Again, not all of the book in a year will be completed. I set my lesson plans on my blog to cover 3rd through fifth, but we will still not finish until the sixth grade.:lol:

 

You cannot view DWC as the lesson book, but rather what to cover and what to base your lessons. It is a very "free" flowing way to go with art, which is why I pulled other resources for practice. I focus heavily on drawing over these years because of handwriting - developing motor skills. Your initial goals will be different based on the age of children.

 

You need to have structure to method, but creativity fostered for the projects themselves. The first chapter explains how to critique or not critique her attempts at creation.

 

You need to learn image reporduction in its simplest form of circles, curves, and lines, before you can implement. You could work with the first little bits of how to focus, the line families, and reproducing or imitating the warm-ups. You can create your own squares to have her reproduce that are much more age appropriate.

 

So truly, you are not much past the second chapter!

 

You might want to check out Artistic Pursuits at R&S. They focus on the tasks that need to develop before actually going "artsy".

 

What you should add .... great artist studies or picture studies.

 

Do you have your folders and collection box? These are where your creation ideas will come from. We have magazine clippings, pictures of art, buttons, cards, flyers with graphics, small objects, et cetera. We add to this any art kit or sketch book. We call it our art box. This is where I foster exploration, creativity, and let them find beauty and ideas.

Edited by ChrissySC
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It's my understanding that a lot of the activities in books published by Tara Books in India are done with poor children, to encourage folk art traditions, rather than aspiring to imitate European "masters." The Toys and Tales book in particular is aimed at creating toys (which is a traditional activity in most cultures, including in India) as an alternative to mass-produced plastic stuff.

 

Maybe folk art has a special place. Anyway some people want to encourage it, and that type of work doesn't tend to rely on the same types of inspiration.

 

 

Hunter - you're right! That is the same, or at least I found several pages that are the same.

 

I hope it's okay I'm moving this over to the other thread. http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=369456

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