I had a really hard time figuring out which section to put this in, it's not really about "environments" but there isn't a section labelled "learning/teaching methods." And it's kinda sorta about homeschooling, since I envision many, but not all of it to be about teaching as a parent. Anyway.
Simple question: What are the best ways to teach art?
But nothing's ever actually simle, so...
a) how can you guess which methods are best for individual kids
b) what changes with age
c) what changes because of the parents' relationship to art
d) what changes with mediums
Part of the reason I'm asking is that I have a wierd situation with DS. He is actually pretty artistically tallented, he has a very good eye, definitely better than average, and can frame photographs in a very surprisingly sophisticated way. But. He's darned clumsy with his hands, and a perfectionist. Which is to say he takes after both his parents! The result of this is that he uses us as scribes--for ART. (he may someday get into vector drawing, which is, at the end of the day my medium, because really, I'm not that good with brushes and pencils either, but I don't think he's ready juuuust yet.)
I'm not really ok with that. It just seems to defeat the whole darned purpose, thanks.
So recently I started him on an extemporaneous, but very consious "learn to draw" programme. About once a day, when he's interested, I do a little "lesson..." "start with an oval" type stuff. I'm conflicted about this because in my own history, this was a stultifying approach. But it struck me that it was what he needed, I was entirely capable of teaching this way, and so I tried. His dad has come to me with several drawings (not coached) that he did by himself, voluntarily, in the past week... so I gotta say, I think it's working. The ones he did by himself are completely unlike the ones I coached him on, so I guess it's not limiting his creativity... but like I said, I'm a little conflicted.
Now, giving him those awesome twisty crayons helped too, because that good eye of his hates poor quality materials, and these have much better colour (range and quality), are smoother in texture, AND are sharper.
Uh... now I'm just rambling. And I'm supposed to be sewing... ok, shutting up now...
