by Jennifer Barrett
Welcome to a collection of my experiences, best practices, and best ideas as an artist/educator and mother. Through this introductory piece, I will give an overview of everyday art, why I chose this topic, the importance of art and creativity in our daily lives, and your takeaway: an actionable everyday art lesson.
What is Everyday Art?
Everyday art is the idea that inspiration is in front of us at all times, through everyday interactions and experiences. Everyday art encourages us to be creative and inspired by deriving motivation often from the very things we take for granted. Everyday art is meant to challenge us creatively. We often get caught up in the minutia of everyday living, forgetting to observe the world around us. By putting on fresh lenses to view our daily experiences, we can seamlessly weave authentic and relevant learning into our art lessons with a child-led approach and without doing extra work, research, and planning.
You are probably reading this because you care about enriching your life and the lives of your children with art. You understand the power that creative problem solving has on academic subjects, and that art is an important outlet for all of us, whatever the medium. To practice everyday art, you will not have to know how to draw or paint. You will not have to go out of your way to learn about art history or attend gallery openings unless these things appeal to you. You do not have to be talented artistically in any way, although I’m sure you will surprise yourself!
Why Everyday Art?
I was inspired to write this as a working mama with less time and sleep than I would like, and a desire to add more creative energy into my day. I’m sure you feel the same. Let’s face it, generating fresh ideas for art lessons can be challenging after the 5th temper tantrum of the day, or cleaning up the bowl of spilled cereal. I’ll share my processes of bringing more inspiration and less mess to art-making through creative thinking, as well as harnessing the good and not-so-good moments of the day to transform them into art lessons. So how can we translate the things we see, observe, and sometimes trip over everyday into ideas for art?
Child-led and Inquiry-Based Learning: A.K.A. the “teachable moment”
I’ll start with my nearest and dearest form of inspiration: child-led, inquiry-based learning, also known as the “teachable moment.” While I have had many successful outcomes with this in the classroom, I am observing everyday how deeply meaningful the learning is when my 2-year-old son is given the power to choose certain things for himself: from tasting new foods to choosing toys at playtime. Just the other day, we were at the store and he grabbed a kiwi fruit off the shelf. While I would not have normally thought to buy a kiwi fruit, I gave him the opportunity to choose it. Would he remember he chose it and be that much more willing to try it? I went ahead and bout it, and it turns out he tried it and ate the whole thing! If I had chosen it, my often picky toddler would have most likely pushed it away. I have found that this works the same way in education. When children of any age are given the opportunity to choose their own course of learning, most of the time they will engage deeper and produce more meaningful outcomes.
If the premise behind everyday art is to weave authentic and relevant learning into our daily lives with a child-led approach, then let’s look closer at how we can build child-led inquiry-based learning into our lessons. This does not mean letting our children do whatever they want in a free-for-all learning environment. This does mean closely observing and listening to our children.
Child-led inquiry reminds us that sometimes our inspiration comes as a whisper: as in, we quietly observe how younger children play or how older children interact with each other, materials, and even technology. Sometimes it comes as a shout: as in, clear excitement from our children about what is happening in the world around them, how helium balloons hit the ceiling or cause static electric hair, how glitter looks in water, etc. What questions do your children ask? Start recording them and taking a closer look at how these inquiries tie in with their other subjects. Beyond their questions, list the things your children hope for, fear, like, dislike, and so on. What are their daydreams? By observing and recording, you are building an ongoing inventory of ideas for drawings, paintings, creative and dramatic play, songwriting, poetry, etc. The list will grow with them.
Practicing What I Preach: Everyday Art Lesson Inspiration
Regularly tripping over cups, bowls and blocks led me to the observation that my son likes to stack things. He will stack anything! Like objects and unlike objects, he enjoys seeing how different objects relate to each other through balance. It occurred to me that through stacking play, he is learning beginning sculpture. He is also learning about gravity and structure, balance, boundaries, frustration management, and frustration mismanagement.
Everyday Art Lesson: Modular Art
Mess Factor: Low
Ages: Can be modified for ages 15 months-18 years
Objectives: Younger students create modular structures out of blocks using the principle of balance. Older students create modular drawings out of blocks, grid paper, or oak tag using the elements of line, shape, and value.
Suggested Materials:
**Materials are like Ingredients. Many things can be substituted for what you have on hand.
• Younger kids:
Blocks, cups, bowls, sponges, sidewalk chalk, crayons
• Older kids
pencils, paper, grid paper, rulers, photograph, oak tag, crayons/colored pencils
Younger Children:
All that’s needed for this is a plain old block set. If your child is old enough, show pictures or books about homes and places. Toddlers can practice building up and knocking down their buildings. Sponges can be cut into strips and used to stack, as well as cups, bowls, and unlike objects.
Feeling crafty? If you have an unfinished wood block set, paint it with chalkboard paint so that kids can draw directly on the blocks. Lullaby Paints offers a non-toxic chalkboard paint formula. Create modular animals, favorite places, foods, and vehicles by drawing on the blocks, then putting them together. Etsy has many options for reasonably priced, unfinished block sets.
Older Children:
Older children can create their homes and neighborhoods out of boxes or blocks, drawing architectural details on the blocks. Draw windows and doors directly on the blocks in sidewalk chalk, or markers and crayon if you don’t mind the permanence. While architectural details may sound intimidating, start with geometric shapes, such as squares or half-circles for windows, rectangles for doors. Add lines for details as needed.
Middle School/High School Kids:
Middle School and high school kids can create modular drawings. Depending on interest and skill level, here are two modifications:
• Less technical modular project:
Students can create their own jigsaw puzzle. Once they have created a drawing or painting on oak tag paper, they can draw interlocking puzzle lines over their artwork, and cut it out. Take this idea one step further, and create a tessellation puzzle!
• More challenging modular project:
Students can create a Photorealism drawing using grid paper, the concepts of ratio and proportion, and value: the element of art that creates the illusion of depth through shading. The art of Chuck Close provides inspiration for modular drawing and painting. Using a printed 5”x7” black and white selfie (or any photograph of interest) and grid paper, draw a 1/2” x 1/2” grid over the photograph. Recreate a larger grid on the grid paper by counting squares, such as 4x4 grid paper squares=1” to 1 photograph square. Students isolate each square in the photo and draw what they see square by square in pencil on their grid paper. Shade in each square, matching the value (shade) in the drawing to the photo. The outcome will be an enlarged, modular and photorealistic drawing of the original photograph. Proportionally, the aspect ratio is maintained.
Next month, we will take a look at everyday materials, and how a trip to the grocery store can be a catalyst for making art.
Feel free to email any questions or comments to info@creativespacearts.com, or visit my website at www.creativespacearts.com. I aim to create an open exchange of ideas and best practices.
Jennifer Barrett is the Arts Liaison and Performing Arts Coordinator at a public junior high school in Brooklyn, and has taught visual arts there since 2002. She founded Creative Space Arts in 2014 to offer a different kind of art studio, always changing and inspired by the immersive environment of galleries and other creative spaces. She has also guided countless students through the rigorous audition process of portfolio development, with many gaining acceptance and even scholarships into some of NYC’s most prestigious art schools. Jennifer’s paper creds include: B.F.A. in Drawing, M.Ed., S.B.L Certification.
About Creative Space Arts:
What do dragons, neighborhood-scapes, rainbow fish, and the moon have in common? They are all possible motifs at Creative Space Arts, a pop-up art studio set in galleries and other creative spaces. Our fun and immersive workshops are inspired by the work currently on view in gallery spaces, or by weekly theme. Through this approach, we aim to ignite curiosity and freedom of artistic expression.
Welcome to a collection of my experiences, best practices, and best ideas as an artist/educator and mother. Through this introductory piece, I will give an overview of everyday art, why I chose this topic, the importance of art and creativity in our daily lives, and your takeaway: an actionable everyday art lesson.
What is Everyday Art?
Everyday art is the idea that inspiration is in front of us at all times, through everyday interactions and experiences. Everyday art encourages us to be creative and inspired by deriving motivation often from the very things we take for granted. Everyday art is meant to challenge us creatively. We often get caught up in the minutia of everyday living, forgetting to observe the world around us. By putting on fresh lenses to view our daily experiences, we can seamlessly weave authentic and relevant learning into our art lessons with a child-led approach and without doing extra work, research, and planning.
You are probably reading this because you care about enriching your life and the lives of your children with art. You understand the power that creative problem solving has on academic subjects, and that art is an important outlet for all of us, whatever the medium. To practice everyday art, you will not have to know how to draw or paint. You will not have to go out of your way to learn about art history or attend gallery openings unless these things appeal to you. You do not have to be talented artistically in any way, although I’m sure you will surprise yourself!
Why Everyday Art?
I was inspired to write this as a working mama with less time and sleep than I would like, and a desire to add more creative energy into my day. I’m sure you feel the same. Let’s face it, generating fresh ideas for art lessons can be challenging after the 5th temper tantrum of the day, or cleaning up the bowl of spilled cereal. I’ll share my processes of bringing more inspiration and less mess to art-making through creative thinking, as well as harnessing the good and not-so-good moments of the day to transform them into art lessons. So how can we translate the things we see, observe, and sometimes trip over everyday into ideas for art?
Child-led and Inquiry-Based Learning: A.K.A. the “teachable moment”
I’ll start with my nearest and dearest form of inspiration: child-led, inquiry-based learning, also known as the “teachable moment.” While I have had many successful outcomes with this in the classroom, I am observing everyday how deeply meaningful the learning is when my 2-year-old son is given the power to choose certain things for himself: from tasting new foods to choosing toys at playtime. Just the other day, we were at the store and he grabbed a kiwi fruit off the shelf. While I would not have normally thought to buy a kiwi fruit, I gave him the opportunity to choose it. Would he remember he chose it and be that much more willing to try it? I went ahead and bout it, and it turns out he tried it and ate the whole thing! If I had chosen it, my often picky toddler would have most likely pushed it away. I have found that this works the same way in education. When children of any age are given the opportunity to choose their own course of learning, most of the time they will engage deeper and produce more meaningful outcomes.
If the premise behind everyday art is to weave authentic and relevant learning into our daily lives with a child-led approach, then let’s look closer at how we can build child-led inquiry-based learning into our lessons. This does not mean letting our children do whatever they want in a free-for-all learning environment. This does mean closely observing and listening to our children.
Child-led inquiry reminds us that sometimes our inspiration comes as a whisper: as in, we quietly observe how younger children play or how older children interact with each other, materials, and even technology. Sometimes it comes as a shout: as in, clear excitement from our children about what is happening in the world around them, how helium balloons hit the ceiling or cause static electric hair, how glitter looks in water, etc. What questions do your children ask? Start recording them and taking a closer look at how these inquiries tie in with their other subjects. Beyond their questions, list the things your children hope for, fear, like, dislike, and so on. What are their daydreams? By observing and recording, you are building an ongoing inventory of ideas for drawings, paintings, creative and dramatic play, songwriting, poetry, etc. The list will grow with them.
Practicing What I Preach: Everyday Art Lesson Inspiration
Regularly tripping over cups, bowls and blocks led me to the observation that my son likes to stack things. He will stack anything! Like objects and unlike objects, he enjoys seeing how different objects relate to each other through balance. It occurred to me that through stacking play, he is learning beginning sculpture. He is also learning about gravity and structure, balance, boundaries, frustration management, and frustration mismanagement.
Everyday Art Lesson: Modular Art
Mess Factor: Low
Ages: Can be modified for ages 15 months-18 years
Objectives: Younger students create modular structures out of blocks using the principle of balance. Older students create modular drawings out of blocks, grid paper, or oak tag using the elements of line, shape, and value.
Suggested Materials:
**Materials are like Ingredients. Many things can be substituted for what you have on hand.
• Younger kids:
Blocks, cups, bowls, sponges, sidewalk chalk, crayons
• Older kids
pencils, paper, grid paper, rulers, photograph, oak tag, crayons/colored pencils
Younger Children:
All that’s needed for this is a plain old block set. If your child is old enough, show pictures or books about homes and places. Toddlers can practice building up and knocking down their buildings. Sponges can be cut into strips and used to stack, as well as cups, bowls, and unlike objects.
Feeling crafty? If you have an unfinished wood block set, paint it with chalkboard paint so that kids can draw directly on the blocks. Lullaby Paints offers a non-toxic chalkboard paint formula. Create modular animals, favorite places, foods, and vehicles by drawing on the blocks, then putting them together. Etsy has many options for reasonably priced, unfinished block sets.
Older Children:
Older children can create their homes and neighborhoods out of boxes or blocks, drawing architectural details on the blocks. Draw windows and doors directly on the blocks in sidewalk chalk, or markers and crayon if you don’t mind the permanence. While architectural details may sound intimidating, start with geometric shapes, such as squares or half-circles for windows, rectangles for doors. Add lines for details as needed.
Middle School/High School Kids:
Middle School and high school kids can create modular drawings. Depending on interest and skill level, here are two modifications:
• Less technical modular project:
Students can create their own jigsaw puzzle. Once they have created a drawing or painting on oak tag paper, they can draw interlocking puzzle lines over their artwork, and cut it out. Take this idea one step further, and create a tessellation puzzle!
• More challenging modular project:
Students can create a Photorealism drawing using grid paper, the concepts of ratio and proportion, and value: the element of art that creates the illusion of depth through shading. The art of Chuck Close provides inspiration for modular drawing and painting. Using a printed 5”x7” black and white selfie (or any photograph of interest) and grid paper, draw a 1/2” x 1/2” grid over the photograph. Recreate a larger grid on the grid paper by counting squares, such as 4x4 grid paper squares=1” to 1 photograph square. Students isolate each square in the photo and draw what they see square by square in pencil on their grid paper. Shade in each square, matching the value (shade) in the drawing to the photo. The outcome will be an enlarged, modular and photorealistic drawing of the original photograph. Proportionally, the aspect ratio is maintained.
Next month, we will take a look at everyday materials, and how a trip to the grocery store can be a catalyst for making art.
Feel free to email any questions or comments to info@creativespacearts.com, or visit my website at www.creativespacearts.com. I aim to create an open exchange of ideas and best practices.
Jennifer Barrett is the Arts Liaison and Performing Arts Coordinator at a public junior high school in Brooklyn, and has taught visual arts there since 2002. She founded Creative Space Arts in 2014 to offer a different kind of art studio, always changing and inspired by the immersive environment of galleries and other creative spaces. She has also guided countless students through the rigorous audition process of portfolio development, with many gaining acceptance and even scholarships into some of NYC’s most prestigious art schools. Jennifer’s paper creds include: B.F.A. in Drawing, M.Ed., S.B.L Certification.
About Creative Space Arts:
What do dragons, neighborhood-scapes, rainbow fish, and the moon have in common? They are all possible motifs at Creative Space Arts, a pop-up art studio set in galleries and other creative spaces. Our fun and immersive workshops are inspired by the work currently on view in gallery spaces, or by weekly theme. Through this approach, we aim to ignite curiosity and freedom of artistic expression.
