Tuesday, August 11, 2015

joan miro inspired imaginary animals

What's an imaginary land without animals? 

I decided to have the students in the Fanciful Frolic art camp through North Vancouver Community Arts Council create an imaginary animal inspired by the automatic drawing style of Joan Miro. As a child, I loved to create art like this, especially when I was given a new 64 box of Crayola crayons with the built in sharpener, because I could try out every color in the box!

I had no idea who Joan Miro was at that time or even that I was experimenting with automatic drawing, I just knew it was a lot of fun to make a scribble line drawing to color in until I found an interesting creature inside.

I didn't have a new box of 64 crayons to give each child at the camp, but I did have watercolor paper, a sharpie pen, and some primary colors of liquid watercolor!

I asked each child to create an overlapping continuous line, without getting too small and "scribbly". 

Then I asked them to begin filling in the shapes with different colors, not putting the same color next to each other on the paper. I stressed they did not have to color in all the shapes and that they should move the paper around as they painted until they began to find an animal hidden inside.

Lots of fun and lots of interesting animals began to introduce themselves on the paper, discovered from within these children's vivid imaginations.

However for me, the best part is the spelling in the titles. I love this stage of childhood and how they put letters together to create words. When possible I strongly encourage them to "sound out' the words, although for some kids, they insist I tell them how to spell it correctly....which I honor too.

Regardless, I find the final work charming.

6 year old

7 year old 
you are going to have to use your French when sounding out this one

6 year old

7 year old

6 year old

8 year old

8 year old

6 year old

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