Week 2: Art

In the winter break, it was brought to my attention that I didn’t really have any hobbies.. Although I do really love doing many things, I found myself feeling a bit awkward whenever I was asked, “What are your hobbies?”.  I would usually reply with a very standard/boring answer: love the beach, play piano, eating chocolate, etc.

So I decided that it was now time.. It was now the time to take up a new hobby or two!!

I’ve always had my eye on art and craft. I really appreciate art, and I love arty-crafty markets. And to put it simply, I really enjoy doing both art and craft! So I thought to myself, why not take it to the next level and make this an actual hobby?! Get passionate about it. Besides, it would most likely come into very good use for primary teaching in the future! (..and potentially be of help in EDMT5530!)

After the unsuccessful attempt of trying to relocate my V.A set from year 8, I rode to the newsagency and got myself some willow charcoal, watercolour paints, paintbrushes, a paint tray (to mix paint), an A4 sketching book and a watercolour book. I also bought some red wool and knitting needles (I decided to take up knitting as a hobby too!).

And so since then, I’ve attempted to do some charcoal sketches here and there, or some (very simple) watercolour paintings. I am still learning so they aren’t anything magnificent at all. But I thought that it would a good opportunity for me to post a few pictures of the sketches of paintings I’ve done each week in this journal.

Below are my first few sketches and paintings.

In the art lecture this week, we examined the different stages a child may be in relation to drawing/art. We learnt that a child moves from the scribble stage to the symbolism stage at approximately 4 years of age, then in the latter primary years move onto the realism stage. Something interesting that I was encouraged by were Robyn’s 2 tips: #1 Engage with the senses, #2 Ensure that the art activity is meaningful and relevant. This is definitely something that I will remember and endeavor to implement in my art teaching practices. In this lecture, we also learnt about ‘Wilson’s Graphic Principles’:

- Simplicity Principle – easiest way to draw something (e.g. stick figure drawing)

- Perpendicular Principle – several view styles in one means that it cannot exist the way it is drawn

- Territorial Imperative Principle – each image has its own space

- Fill the Format Principle – the image fills the page

- Conservation & Multiple Application Principle – uses symbols in the work repeatedly

- Draw Everything Principle – inside and outside of objects (like X-ray vision!), common with transport

- Plastic Principle – most important feature is exaggerated in size, colour etc.

In our tutorials this week, we learnt how to draw a portrait of a person. The instructions we received were very useful, and which I will use when I do portraits of people in the future. We were firstly instructed to draw an oval, then a series of horizontal lines (this would indicate where we would draw the eyes, mouth etc later on). Along the horizontal line that cut our oval in two, we were instructed to draw four even vertical dashes, and then use these to form two football shapes for the eyes. From there, we drew vertical dotted lines from the centre of the eyes down to the bottom line, and this was to indicate the edges of the lips. This formed the structural base for our portrait – we then had about 20 minutes to adjust and sketch in details to make the portrait look like our partner. Whilst I felt a bit under pressure (I was surrounded by very talented people!), I found it to be a very fun and useful activity. Below is the portrait I did of a friend in my class.

Throughout this week, I have been looking for art works that I did back at school. I have found a few, and I thought I would post a picture or two each week and reflect upon it. Unfortunately, I was unable to locate many from primary school. But I found two portraits that I did back in high school. Below is a Mona Lisa drawing that we were asked to do in Year 7, and in Year 8 we were instructed to do a self-portrait. I did a drawing of my Year 2 school photo.

Finally, I located a drawing that I did in Year 5 for my dad’s Christmas present.