A short essay by © Marvin Bartel - 2000 Viewfinders
can simplify
the task by isolating the important part of the subject being observed.
1. Students learn to make choices with the viewfinder. They are instructed to look for and make note of the relationships between the positive and negative areas. They are to find the most interesting interplay between object and background considering, size, shape, orientation, overlapping, vectors produced, textural richness, and tonal gradation (shading and shadows). By making these informed choices, they are learning the principles of design and composition. They are developing an understanding of beauty. 2. They are learning to observe the line contours of the milkweed pod edges. They are instructed to draw these lines without looking at their papers while their pencils move, but to carefully and intently study the line of the observed object as they draw it. If they look at the paper, they simply draw the childlike images learned during their earlier stage of innocence when it did not yet matter whether a thing looked real. By not looking at the paper, a part of their brains is being developed that is largely ignored by other school learning tasks. If this
part of the
brain lies dormant, as generally happens in American schools, it
atrophies
and soon children become "visually handicapped", convinced that others
have more talent than they do. Practice and exercise develops ability
and
self-confidence. Lack of self-confidence produces avoidance of
the
activity most needed. top of page
3. They learn to make comparisons of spaces, proportions, sizes, values (tone), shape, line character, and textures. The viewfinder makes the task small enough for them to feel confident in their ability to achieve success. 4. They learn that their drawing ability improves with practice. They can compare work in their portfolios from earlier in the year and see their own drawing ability develop. This in turn motivates them to practice on their own. Rather than feeling handicapped by the inability to draw, they are empowered by their realization that mastery is possible with practice. If teachers never had children practice reading and writing, children would nearly all be illiterate. Since many teachers don't realize that drawing also can be learned with observational practice, most children in America and most other countries remain visually illiterate and handicapped.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO LEARN TO DRAW? Japan is probably the only country with a universally prescribed national art curriculum that requires working from observation from a very young age (grade one and kindergarten). From what my Japanese college students tell me, they spend about three times as much time learning art during the first three grades in school as we do the the US. Theirs is not a one-sided curriculum. They also have lessons and activities based on the imagination and as well works produced from remembered experiences. All three sources of inspiration for art are learned. Scroll down this page to see the observation work of children who are accustomed to doing regular observation drawing practice. These children have learned to focus on a task for an extended period of time in grade one. They become aware of details, not by copying an adult example, but by attending to good observation. When I see how much better they do in high school math than students in the US, it is apparent that the extra time spent in learning to attend to observation has not handicapped their other education. this early attention to extended observation and focus on a task may be the reason their minds are prepared to think and focus better in other disicplines. A COMMON TEACHING MISTAKE OVERHEARD IN CLASSROOMS When
children
ask for help with drawing, many teachers are heard to say, "That's
okay,
I can't draw either." Yet what teacher would say? "That's okay, I
can't read and write either." We
need to realize that, like other skills, if the skill of observation is
not taught, only a few discover how to learn it on their own. How
many would learn to read and write if it were totally left up to
children's
own discoveries? Using viewfinders and other observation practice
techniques, any teacher can help children learn to draw any object,
person,
animal, and so on. top of page
Children can begin
practicing observation drawing in grade one and younger. This
is not to say observational drawing needs to replace their drawing from
memory and imagination. These are also useful in developing parts of
the
brain through regular vigorous practice requiring memory and/or
imagination.
However, if young children are not helped with observational drawing,
many
children mistakenly grow up believing they can't draw because they lack
talent. It is true that they lack ability, and because no teacher ever
helped them develop, they generally end up without talent. Talent needs
nurture in order to flower.
If they do not have observational drawing practice when they are young, most children at about third grade realize the inadequacy of their childlike images. They inevitably see the work of a few peers who have practiced more enlightened and careful observation. Some of these "self-taught" 'talents' have learned to copy rather than to observe from real objects. For them, even though they can copy precociously, they can find it very threatening to draw from actual objects unless they are given sound observational methods. Often, because of their learned dependence on copying, they are totally unaware of methodology by which to develop real observational skill. They too experience a crisis of confidence to the extent that their lack of ability becomes a self-fulfilling inevitability. All teachers, whether they themselves were lucky enough to develop their brains for observational drawing, can teach drawing. Teachers should not show children how to draw by drawing for them. Teachers should not use "how to draw" books that prescribe patterns and formulas for making various animals and other objects. These methods perpetuate false ideas about the way drawing is learned. When you learn a formula for drawing a fish, you haven't learned to allow various fish to tell what they look like. You simply know one fish symbol. While symbolic language may function for basic communication, real observation and expression is so much more empowering and effective. Teachers
should,
at times, encourage children to examine things closely, slowly, and
carefully,
compare sizes, study the slant of a line, and compare everything with
everything
else in the subject being observed. Not only the objects are observed,
but the spaces between objects must be carefully compared in size and
character
with the each other and the objects (art teachers call these the
negative
spaces). Drawing becomes a perfect way to record this data. Drawing
becomes
the perfect way to encourage this learning by examination. A beneficial
self perpetuating circle of learning is initiated. Observation makes
better
drawing and drawing motivates better observation . . . . practice
happens. top of page
Children only learn to see when they are free to stop looking at their paper as a mistake. They have to observe and totally become the thing being drawn. Generally, when they look at the paper, they obsess about getting it "right". Children often need help to learn that observational drawing is much different than drawing from memory and drawings from imagination. Observational drawing is based on external data. The data must be allowed to come from the subject. In other types of drawing, the data comes from within. When data comes from within, the information emerging on the paper can also be an important source of additional ideas for development. This is less true in observational drawing. In observation drawing, once the student is has become liberated from the misconceptions of infantile schema and symbolic representations, the student can rationally compare the created work with the source (compare the drawing with the object observed). When the student begins to see creative ideas in the work instead of only mistakes, the student has been set forth on a path of self learning and fulfillment. Learning
to draw is multifaceted.
Rembrandt
and Kathy
Kollwitz were two artists who mastered both modes of working, often
including
both within the same artworks. Picasso said he could draw like and artist when he was a child and it took a lifetime to learn to draw like a child. Both their contour lines and their
gestural
lines spoke volumes about their abilities to observe and express both
their
outer and inner worlds.
Links Observation Drawing" using "blinders" as an observation "helpers". Skills learned in order to be able to Draw Anything Impediments to progress and transfer of learning while Learning to Draw
This page updated June 14, 2010 |
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