Educating Risa

Daegan had his last class from the winter session of Homeschool Art recently. He loved it so much he has asked to be signed up for spring session as well. We lucky enough to live within walking distance (literally a 30-second drive) of one to Calgary’s two Arts Centres, so I’ve obliged. Art was never a strong suit for me—it was in fact the source of my lowest grades in school—so I’m quite happy relying on the expertise in the community to teach my child art. I’ll handle the stuff I find easier, like maths, sciences, and reading.

The art teacher gave us a hand-out on the final day listing some of the topics covered. They include colour (warm, cool, monochromatic) and colour-mixing (hues, tints and tones); composition (where to place things on the picture plane and what makes a piece interesting), perspective (2D planning to 3D composition in both clay and paper-mache masks), self-portraits and facial dimensions, as well as line, pattern , texture and balance. A far cry from the sort of thing I did in grade 2 at age 7!

Here’s some of what Daegan learned and made in winter session:

One of the main things worked on in their art portfolios was facial dimensions, which they used in creating an “underwater self-portrait”:

Here’s his finished product, which he was very proud of—you can see him beaming in this picture:

This project took a lot of work. After learning about facial dimensions, the kids drew plain self-portraits. They then designed and pasted in all the “underwater” bits—the creatures, goggles, snorkel, seaweed, etc.—and then painted the portrait. I think we will get this one framed as Daegan wants it up in his room. And it did lead to one funny moment when Daegan said to me, about his final class, “Oh right. I need to finish the sea creatures for my self-portrait.” I had no idea he was doing a self-portrait, much less an underwater one, and just gave him a look of utter confusion.

The kids also did some drawing exercises:

and had a place to plan out their projects before doing the final copy. Here is Daegan’s rough drawing of the emperor penguin, the final version of which can be found here:

The kids also made paper-mache masks. Daegan began his project with a side view, but the teacher wanted them to practice front-on perspective, and Daegan was able to completely change gears. Here is his completed front-view stegosaurus mask:

And lastly, we have Daegan’s favourite medium: clay. The assignment was to create an alien in an alien landscape. Daegan’s alien naturally resembles a dinosaur and the plant the sort you’d find in the Jurassic, but no matter. I like the detail he put into the creature with the spikes as well as the paint job—and all the more so as Daegan did this project during "found” time as it was the one class we missed due to a conflict with the one-off Mad Science presentation:

What a difference a year and a bit makes! Daegan took Homeschool Art for the first time in September of 2008, shortly after turning 6 (this class is for 6-8 year olds), and he found it a tough go. He still struggles with getting frustrated with himself and his own sense of perfectionism—as does his 39-year-old mother, to be honest!—but we’ve seen huge strides here too. And this time when we were filling in the evaluation form together on the final day, Daegan went right over to the teacher and said “I LOVED THIS CLASS!” He also invited her to see him perform as the caterpillar in the bit of Alice in Wonderland his drama class will be doing in a few weeks. For my eldest son, for whom the social graces do not come easily or naturally, this class led to gains in life skills as much as art skills.