Wednesday and Friday Group - Drawing

"Scribbles are the building blocks of children's art. From the moment the child discovers what it looks like and feels like to put these lines down on paper, he has found something he will never lose, he has found art." - Rhoda Kellogg

To start our exploration of drawing utensils I wanted to bring back the beeswax crayons as a familiar material before moving on to pens, pencils, chalk, and pastels. The Wednesday group was only mildly interested in the crayons. Some children's explorations were so brief that I didn't even catch any video of them. I pondered this as I planned for the Friday groups exploration and after bouncing a few ideas off another parent decided to include pens with the crayons to see if the Friday group would spend more time scribbling. The new element of the pens did bring a new excitement to the exploration. I was thrilled to see both the pens and crayons being explored equally.

Young children's first scribbles seem meaningless and unconnected to most people but it is the action of scribbling that is the foundation of drawing. An important step in children's development of artistic abilities, scribbling is a fascinating method of expression for the young child. It can be explosive or careful, simple or complex, random or purposeful but it is exploration in its highest form. I want to highlight that scribbling is more than what it seems. In the book, The Psychology of Children's Art, Rhoda Kellogg categories 20 different types of scribbles made up of lines that are horizontal, vertical, diagonal, circular, curving, and waving. Along with the many types of scribbles there are also 17 different patterns of where children place their scribbles on a page. A dot can become an eye, a line can be connected to another line to make a shape, and a circle can be the body of a favorite animal. Each mark and the motion that is needed from the hand and arm to make the mark is the practice needed to move to the next stage of drawing, representational art.

Diagonal and Vertical Lines

Theo very lightly moves the crayon toward him and as he does so it moves in a diagonal fashion (just once). Then he gets another crayon and again move it toward his own body making a vertical line and then another vertical line as he moves it away from his body.

Spirals

Caleb makes both large and intricate circular motions with the crayons creating spirals. One of the great qualities about the square beeswax crayons it that there are many different surfaces of the crayons that can be used to make marks and Caleb utilizes them.

Back and Forth

The back and forth motion, either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally creates a layered and concentrated section of color. Bryce practices this motion along with some dots.



Kaia and Sebastien also practice the back and forth motion. Kaia actually is layering different colors over one another. Using one color and then going to get another.



Overlapping Circle/Oval
Kaia carefully uses the yellow crayon to draw a large curve that then crosses back over itself making a shape that resembles a fish with a different start and end point but the curved line crosses itself creating an oval or circle shape (sort of like this _). In the background Sebastien is working on his back and forth motions.


Dot and Slash Marks
Sebastien combines a couple of scribbling techniques. He makes short dot/slash marks as well as fast back and forth movements switching colors as he goes.

Properties of Drawing Utensils

Part of the fun of drawing is also getting to know the properties of the materials. Bryce explores how to take off and put back on the pen tops. He also notices that the crayons feel different and have some give to them... they feel really good when one is teething!