Arts Explorer #8: Pretend Play & Magical Thinking

A question mark or a cloud?

Art Word of the Week: Mass or Volume

When you look up in the sky on a sunny yet cloudy day, what do you see?

When I look up, I see clouds! But not everyone sees just clouds, some people look deeper and say they see a bunny rabbit or a bird or a fluffy teddy bear. To me, clouds are extremely fascinating and an interesting aspect to the weather cycle that occurs in our daily environment. Even though people love a clear, sunny day in the spring or summer there are also many people out there who absolutely love the clouds and enjoy just laying down in the grass and staring up at them, endlessly. 

There are many things that can be said about clouds when looking at them. People can discuss their shape or texture, their size and colour. An aspect of art that can also be talked about, that can tie into size, is the mass or volume or the cloud. Mass and volume refers to an object that is solid, three-dimensional body that has height, length and width (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, p. 366 & 369). There are many characteristics (that can be tied into shape) that can be discussed when looking at clouds such as;

• how heavy & bulky OR light & delicate they are

• their geometric shape

• if they are angular or curved

• large or small

(Schirrmarcher & Fox, 2009, p. 142)

Clouds are interesting to look at as they form through a natural environmental cycle and, on their own, can be perceived in different ways. When you look at them carefully, you can make them out to be whatever shape or picture you feel that they resemble the most. People, especially children, love to look up and use their imagination as best as they can to create pictures and even stories about what they see above. It is also very interesting to look at clouds and talk to people about them because everyone’s perspective is different and everyone has different ideas of what they see and don’t see, kind of like optical illusions!

What Do You See? - I see lava exploding out of a volcano.

I remember as a child, when we first moved into our house with a backyard, my younger sister and I would lay in our backyard, all excited and look up at the sky at the clouds. We would talk about what we saw and laugh at each other and our crazy ideas of what we thought each cloud looked like. We love the summer time and would spend a great deal of time outdoors running around and playing. We have had many conversations and seen many different clouds throughout our childhood, thought of many crazy ideas and hilarious stories to go along with them!

To get children exploring their environment, looking at new things and getting them to think outside of the box, take them on a walk (preferably on a sunny but cloudy day) to a park, allow them to lay in an open grassed area and have them lay around, talk and look up at the clouds to see what they see. Children’s imaginations run wild and a great deal of conversation will spark and you will be surprised of the results that you hear from them! 

 

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J. E. (2009). Art & Creative Development for Young Children. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.

Art Explorer #7: Grocery Shopping with a Twist!

Art Word of the Week: Colour

The first area of a grocery store that I go to is the fruits and vegetables section. Partly because that area of the store is always near the front and normally is where people head first and that is always where I’ve headed first when I’ve gone grocery shopping. But I also partly head to that section of the store because it just seems so peaceful and natural and very much full of colour.

There is an endless list of vegetables, which of course than can be broken down even further. But here are the ones that I immediately thought of:

    1. Carrots

    2. Potatoes

    3. Broccoli

    4. Peas

    5. Corn

    6. Mushrooms

    7. Peppers

    8. Spinach

    9. Celery

    10. Beans

    11. Cauliflower

    12. Onions

    13. Squash

    14. Radish

    15. Cabbage

When I was young, probably like most children, I didn’t really eat my vegetables much and hid them at dinner to pretend that I had eaten them already. But as I grew up, I became more open to trying new things and now I absolutely love vegetables and can’t see a meal without them!

What stands out to me the most about vegetables is, of course, the shape but also all of the different colours that can be found when looking at all of the vegetables out there in the world. Colour is "the visual sensation of light caused by stimulating the cones of the retina" (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, pg. 364). But with that literal definition there are various numbers of characteristics that fall under the colour category when looking and analyzing different objects of all kinds. Some personalities of colour that stand out to me when looking at vegetables are how light or dark they are, if they are warm (red, orange) or cool (blue, green), if they are bright or dull and if the colours of the vegetables are primary and secondary or mixed colours (Schirrmacher & Fox, 2009, pg. 138). Many colours, however, do repeat themselves on many vegetables that can be found in the grocery store. Some colours are orange, green, red and yellow. 

Vegetable Sketch - Carrot, Mushroom & Peas in a Pod

As oppose to colour, there are many other aspects that can be discovered when looking at vegetables such as the many different shapes that they come in and the different sizes. The shape and size can kind of go together in one category and colour on it's own, as that literally speaks about the aesthetics of it. The shape and size are definitely important characteristics of vegetables and any object really but even though those aspects are interesting, the different colours of all the vegetables without doubt stand out to me when I first walk into a grocery store. Colour is something I notice immediately and the world would be dull without them! 

Schirrmacher, R., & Fox, J. E. (2009). Art & Creative Development for Young        Children. Clifton Park, NY: Thomson Delmar Learning.