Art: Not my best subject

The Sun, by Eliot

Art.  Definitely something that should be in our homeschool curriculum.  I'm going to put art in a sperate category from "crafts", which to me just seem like busy work.  (I fully admit that I might be wrong on that)  The main problem with art is that I know nothing about it, I'm not very "good" at it, and I never much liked it in school. 

Luckily, the first problem is easily overcome with youtube videos, websites, and books.
The second problem I've discovered is probably of no importance to my ability to create an art-friendly home environment, and the third problem is just one aspect of the whole reason why we took Eliot out of the System in the first place- we don't like how and when things are taught, because often times schools take all the fun out of things! 

Here is a craft, and something I'm going to do my best to avoid:  "Eliot, I've pre-cut out these legs and arms, and printed out this skeleton page for you to color.  After you've colored them, I'll help you cut them out, and you can glue on googly eyes and we'll put it up for Halloween."  Now honestly, I think kid's get a lot of satisfaction out of making something that looks more-or-less like it's "supposed to".  But, I don't think any skills have been transferred at all.  It is busy work.  And, sometimes, when I'm cooking dinner and the kids are busy dismantling nuclear weapons in the living room, I could really go for a little busy work.  But alas, I've come to grips with parenting not being the most convenient thing ever. 

Eliot has now been drawing with markers for about a year and a half or so.  During this time, I have seen very little appreciable progress.  He scribbles.  Originally, he scribbled with just one color, and it was more like making haphazard lines on the paper, now he scribbles with many colors and great gusto.  But it is still just scribbling. 

Meanwhile, children not much older than him on the playground are drawing butterflies, and faces, and dogs with chalk on the ground.  This was making me very, very nervous. 

So I began to wonder.  Do I need to show Eliot how to draw some basic things, like a circle for a body, and lines for legs and arms, and another circle for a head?  Is this a learned skill?  And I wrung my hands, and pondered this, and basically wasted a lot of energy and time better spent sleeping, wondering if Eliot was in need of help learning to draw. 

And then, a few weeks ago, out on the playground with chalk, he drew a capital letter E, and then showed it to me.  It wasn't great, but it was clearly recognizable as an E.

And then, two days ago, he drew the sun.  He drew a circle (ok, more of a smushed egg shape, but still, a closed form), and then began to fill it in (admittedly, not staying in the lines) with various colors.  He then told me, "This is a picture of the sun."

I gotta say, it's just about the best sun I've ever seen.  He taught himself to draw a closed form, and to color it in.  This kid has never had a coloring book, and I've never uttered the words, "Stay inside the lines!"

And now that I know that drawing is a skill the progresses naturally, just like learning to walk, I hope to never catch myself saying those words. 

So art at our house will consist of me showing a basic technique, whatever we happen to be working on (watercolors will probably be our focus for this "semester") and him doing whatever he feels like after that.