I have had a few ah-ha’s since starting to teach these art classes. As I am trying to put together lessons that look at the visual elements of art, I am struck by the importance of line in teaching kids. We have done several activities, the last looking at using scale factor to make a small drawing larger. The kids were amazed that they were able to create a larger copy of a drawing and have it look just like the original. Plus, it coincided with their math class on similarity and scale factor. Grid the original, make the next grid a scale factor larger (in this case the scale factor was 3 so we could keep it on a large sheet of paper), and then copy square by square, focusing just on the lines in that square.

Interesting the number of students who couldn’t work with the individual squares and focus in just on the lines. So many of these kids are so deprived in any kind of art education. Makes me think of growing up – never went to museums unless it was a class trip – hear hear for field trips! I can understand even more their importance, when I realize that for many kids they will only see art through school. And this is the class that seems to get cut the most often. I can see that at my school this year, compared to the art magnet school I worked at. There is no visual art program at tis school, beyond what I am doing, and it really is a shame not to have the expopsure.