Curriculum Corner: The Many Benefits of Drawing

 

           “Art does not reproduce the visual world; rather, it makes visible.” 
-Paul Klee

 

The CSB Lower School art program has a number of different components, revolving around creating, presenting, responding/reflecting and connecting. The overall structure supports cognitive, aesthetic, intellectual, emotional, social, collaborative, and neurological growth through hands-on approaches to problem-solving with diverse materials and methods. The National Core Arts Standards and the California Visual Arts Framework, as well as my over 30 years as an art educator and practicing artist, inform this structure.

 

Since I’ve written about the overall structure of the program before, I’d like to focus on one of the program’s activities: drawing. While drawing has the least visibility as an art form (most of the work is done in personal sketchbooks), it’s an activity which is vital to the visual arts and as studies have proven out, drawing has a lasting impact on the learning of all subjects.

 

The simple act of drawing plays an important role in a child's physical, emotional, and cognitive development. Like no other activity, drawing allows young children to experience autonomy and build confidence. Making images through drawing are a means for the boys to make sense of and question the world around them. The boys use their drawings to communicate with one another and with adults in their lives. Besides offering these avenues for the boys, new research into how learners gain access to knowledge and skills is demonstrating that drawing has a strong relationship to language abilities, cognitive flexibility, and development of working memory. Studies show that children use drawing as a problem-solving activity, requiring cognitive, perceptual, and technical skills (Clark 1989).

 

In Dr. Shirley Brice Heath’s 2015 book, the Handbook of Research on Teaching Literacy Through the Communicative and Visual Arts, Volume II, she brings together state-of-the-art research and practice on the evolving view of literacy as encompassing not only reading, writing, speaking, and listening, but hands-on visual art making, as well. It forefronts as central to literacy education the visual, communicative, and performing arts, and the extent to which all of the technologies that have vastly expanded the meanings and uses of literacy originate and evolve through the skills and interests of the young.

 

These studies reinforce drawing’s importance as an educational activity.  At CSB drawing takes place at every grade level, K-8. The goals of each drawing assignment in the art room vary, from drawings done for expression, communication, questioning/inquiry, inventing, understanding, describing, and representing. My guidance is mindful in each of these areas of each boy’s developmental stage.

 

In assignments which focus on representing, or what I call reflective drawing, students learn the basic skills of how to convey a three-dimensional object on a flat, two-dimensional piece of paper. This sounds like a simple task but is a complex collaboration of mind, hand, and eyes.

 

I begin the observational drawing process by setting up very basic, simple forms, such as cubes, cylinders, and spheres. I ask the boys to draw these, paying attention to the spaces around and between them. I consider these forms to be the primary colors of the world of form. Gradually, the complexities of the forms are increased (a sphere and cylinder become a teapot; a cube and a cylinder become a mallet while a rectangle becomes a book, etc.). This slow process builds a repertoire of shapes they can later pull from their minds and build upon in future drawings.

 

At the beginning of each art class, 15 minutes is dedicated to the process of drawing in sketchbooks. Each boy maintains an individual sketchbook, which is used to not only record images, but also to reflect on projects and ideas, and to take notes on other artists and cultures introduced in art class.

 

Sometimes these beginning exercises are observational drawing activities in which children learn the difficult task of deep looking and concentration. In this activity, the boys slow down, center, and take notice. They pay attention to details not seen in their otherwise fast-paced daily routines.

 

The child and adult have the capacity to draw. Representational drawing is a skill that takes practice, much like learning to play an instrument. But with time, focus, and a bit of trust, each child finds a drawing strategy that works for him.

 

The goal in the drawing process in art class is never photorealism or simply illustration; we have cameras to record in this manner. The goal is much larger. It is in the way in which each individual makes his marks, responding to perceived qualities and the variety of ways these marks convey meaning through this visual language.

 

I’d like to encourage all parents to model drawing activities with their boys. Try some observational drawing together! Keep a sketchbook and draw with your sons.

 

Please contact me if you would like to discuss the many benefits of drawing, further.

 

Sincerely,

 

Sheila Ghidini

Lower School Art Instructor

 

 

 

 

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