Summer art class: cooperation drawing

First art class of the summer! It was a hot one, but the girls were troopers. In hindsight, I should have had it inside (considering it was about 90 degrees at 9:30 am). I love the idea of having class outside, but sometimes the reality of it isn't so great. Heat, sun glare, bugs… I'm glad I have enough space inside to move it if necessary (we work in the dining room). My long-term plan is to expand my third-floor studio to include an art class space. There's room up there, but some of it is used for storage and we'd have to find space for all that stuff. Yard sale!

 {Ready for the first art class of the summer!}

At the beginning of every art class, we start off with "free draw." I put out crayons and white paper (a ream of copy paper from an office supply store) on the tables and let them draw whatever they want while we wait for everyone to come to class. This gives the girls a chance to chat (not that they don't do it during class! There's always plenty of chatting.).

When all the girls are here, we read a book that has to do with the theme of that day's class. This week the book was "Friends" by E. Lewis (which I can't find online - weird). The book talked about cooperation between friends, which went perfectly with today's theme of cooperation drawing. After reading the book, the girls each got a 9x12 paper and a black crayon. They were to draw something on the paper, keeping in mind the design of the piece. They had 20 seconds to draw, then I would say, "switch" and they'd pass the paper to the girl next to them. This went on until all the girls had a chance to draw on each paper.

 {Drawing. It's hot!}

If I did it again, I would put more rules on the drawing. Maybe something like telling them what kind of drawing to do at each "switch" - rules, circles, squares, etc. As it was, the drawings were pretty much all over the place with no real design to them. But sometimes it's more about the process rather than the finished product!

 {Painting. We used tempera paints.}

When the girls got their original drawing back, they could then paint it. I gave them each three colors - red, blue and yellow. They could mix the colors if they wanted to, and most of them did.

{Completed paintings.}

We had some time after the paintings were finished, so I gave each girl a large piece of paper and some markers. I told them to write their name in cursive (if they coudn't, I did it for them). They either had to fill their page with one name, or with several versions of their name. Then they filled in the names with drawings, patterns and color. They really seemed to like this project, maybe more than the cooperation drawings! In their defense, it's hard to give your drawing over to someone else. Could you do it? I'm not sure I'd want to!

{Isabella's cursive name drawing.}

{Malayna's cursive name drawing.}