Week one – Mon 24th- Sunday 30th April 2023
This term we are combining some drawing exercises from Mona Brookes’ ‘Drawing with Children’ book with exploring different materials using ideas she’s inspired.
Mona Brookes shows how everything can be drawn using just five elements of shape – dots, circles, curved lines, straight lines and angle lines. It’s not always easy to break down what you see into these basic elements but doing so really helps both representational and abstract drawing.
So we started by making abstract designs, first following my instructions (e.g. draw three dots anywhere on the page) and then the kids invented their own instructions. The results were amazingly varied given we were all obeying the same instructions! Next we tried to create instructions that broke down a drawing of an animal (e.g. draw a dot with a circle round it for an eye, then draw a curved line above for the top of the head etc.) This resulted in some very strange creatures! Amid the hilarity the children gained practice in working out how drawings can be simplified to their basic elements.
In the second part of the lesson the children cut or tore coloured paper into these basic elements of shapes and used them to build their own designs – abstract or animal. Others preferred to tackle the skeleton/skulls that were on display – in drawing and/or collage.
For more info on Mona Brookes’ teaching method – Monart – see: https://monartdrawing.com/about/method/
And it’s not too late to join us! Email Rebecca at kidsartclasslondon@gmail.com if you’re interested.
