Parrots and Choices

 I wanted to share some parrot inspirations with my after school art class and brought in a beautiful book, Glorious Inspiration by Kaffe Fassett.  It has several pages of paintings of colorful parrots.  I did a little demonstration of how to draw animals, by breaking the animal down into shapes.  Then I showed them how I made some templates of those shapes for the children to use in drawing a parrot, if they wanted.  What do you think about using templates?  I'm a little mixed about it but learned about it from some art teacher blogs.  I does unfreeze children who are worried about their drawing ability, and I offer it as an option.  I suggested that the children make five sheets of collage paper, and use them for the parrot.  They could create a jungle background by doing leaf rubbings.

 Look at these gorgeous collage papers.  Some of the children traded bits of collage papers.  I'm glad the children are making their own, but I really miss my big treasure box of the papers I made last year for my classes.  They were lost during a school move.  Below, some jungle backgrounds.

Two children just wanted to use nature materials they had gathered during recess to make a collage together.  I encouraged them to do it, and I loved the way Sophie showed me her treasures, and the way the children worked cooperatively in creating their picture.

 Look at these beautiful little nature collages and sculptures they made and gave me.

 This child spent a lot of time wrapping layers of leaves.  I think there was a baby person inside.

 In the meantime, some of the children had used the inspiration to do a collage parrot in the jungle, and the results were wonderful, (some not finished yet.)

 One boy preferred to do a spider instead of a parrot.

 And after doing a rubbing with leaves, one girl wanted to sketch a parrot.

In the meantime, my son, who isn't taking the class, started making an origami water bomb!

I like the way things are going in the class.  Last year, I urged all the children to follow my instructions and give the projects a try.  This year, I urge them to go off on their own tangents and explore their interests.  After all, this is an after school art program and I'm not trying to teach an art curriculum.  I'm inspired by reading Franciful Arts blog.  I think the experiment is going really well so far.  I hope the children are happy, too.