Ms. Anna from Sunshine Studio seems to have a magical attraction to children. Her patience, the gentle smile, and her continuing encouragement and guidance create a loving and caring environment in which the children experience the joy of creativity in art. Ms. Anna also has her own insight of teaching children’s art. Let’s take a look at her view of some frequently asked questions.
Children’s art is not simple scribbles. Our studio emphasizes on teaching the students to master the techniques in every step. Children’s art are categorized by mediums like marker, color pencil, water color, water color pencil, etc. Regardless of the material, all drawings need to go through the steps of boarder and structure outline, positioning, composition and coloring, and in the process students learn to observe, to recognize basic shapes, and to understand color scheme, as well as sense of space. Children are learning the drawing techniques, while their endless imagination helps them continuously extend from the basic themes.
What’s the difference between creating and copying?
There is a big difference between creating and copying in teaching children’s art. Creation or re-creation of existing works has standardized procedures and methods that require a child to go through process of recognizing the basic shapes and matching colors, thus allow them to master the essentials of painting, and enhance their comprehension by analogy. For example, to draw a bird, the child needs to discern that the shape of the head is circle, the body oval, and the tail sector, and this is the process of finding basic shapes. Next is to balance the composition, and finish with coloring. Replication doesn’t require application of the process mentioned above. In replication children mostly draw from top to bottom, and from left to right as if in writing, instead of prioritizing the primary and secondary in the drawing. Habits formed in drawing will have a profound impact in the future in every aspect of their lives. The quality in a child’s ability to visualize and to control the entire picture develops a better understanding and controlling of priorities in real life, and this is one of the qualities of managements.
The key is developing his/her self-confidence. Ms. Anna gives personal attention and guidance to every child, and plenty of affirmation for every improvement. At the same time she would not neglect any mistake. When a student makes a mistake she would point it out immediately so that no mistakes would turn into habits. Ms. Anna also often reviews with her students their own drawings from different periods from the past for them to see their achievement every step on the way. It is this on-going assurance and encouragement in their journey of growing up that help retain the children’s interest in drawing.
How to help children get through the bottleneck period?
Learning to draw is like climbing stairs, it surely will encounter a lot of bottlenecks. If the child receives adequate attention and assistance from the teacher at these critical moments he will be able to overcome smoothly and to move on. Otherwise he will quit. Over the years Ms. Anna has developed her own snowball method. Prior to teaching new lesson she reviews with the student what he had learned to boost confidence, and then she gradually increases difficulty based on the child’s level to allow a smooth transition, thus without knowing it, the child’s skills is improved.
