Friday, May 12, 2006

Art Show
We went to a friend’s art show last night, but it definitely wasn’t your typical gallery show. As an art teacher for kindergarten through 8th grade kids, Sila’s dedication and talent show through the enthusiasm of the students she teaches. Many times we were stuck in front of a drawing or painting marveling at a perceived disconnect between the art and the grade that we expected the artist to be in. Kids from the third grade were picking up on concepts that high school art students struggle with at times. The projects were carefully chosen to teach art concepts like warm tones versus cool tones, but at the same time Sila made sure to mix up the texture, medium and subject matter to appeal to the different age groups.

Children’s art strikes me for many reasons, but the thing that I think really sticks out is that they aren’t afraid of falling on their faces when they make art. That voice that tries to hold them back from taking chances hasn’t developed yet.

I mentioned something similar last year over at Comic World News, but I couldn’t get past that again on the drive home.

I took several pictures and uploaded a few that weren’t totally crooked or featuring an unexpected human head and torso walking by as the main subject.

This one kind of read like a comic; it even has a panel that refers to Marvel Comics.
These were some of my favorite drawings. They kind of reminded me of something you might see in an issue of Paper Rodeo.

Sila picked several artists and allowed the kids to come up with their own interpretations of a famous work. You could tell this kindergarten class really liked The Scream.
Here’s Klee.

1 comment:

Rick Bradford said...

Wow! That's impressive stuff. And those reminiscent of Paper Rodeo work are something -- you've gotta wonder what kind of influences inspire that work from such a young kid. Interesting.