Developing Observation Skills

Children are curious and expressive from the start. We work with those interests to teach them to observe more closely. Using ARTistic Pursuits, a child carries art tools to locations which both inspire and are chosen by the child. Children are guided to observe the featured art topic of each lesson in their own environment, while making connections to real-world examples. Skills develop as each child observes nature directly and enjoys the process of creating. Making informed choices to create personal work gives a child a sense of accomplishment that cannot be attained by copying from a book or from a video. They learn because direct observation of real world sources is the best teacher when accompanied by an understanding of the foundational elements of art and compositional ideas. 

What you will not find in ARTistic Pursuits

• No formal exercises that make no connections to real world experiences. We will not ask your child to draw a page of straight lines, circles, cones, and cubes. The development of eye/hand coordination, which may improve with such exercises, happens more easily when children draw objects that they enjoy and are willing to draw. Our assignments encourage them to make original works of art inspired by there own interests. 
• No single technique to learning. This is not a program of step-by-step copy exercises typical of How-to-Draw books and most on-line art courses. The technique of teaching kids to draw by mimicking small fragments of lines, blobs, and smears does nothing to help them draw real objects. This approach eventually leads to dependency as they need an adult to break the subject down for them and don't know how to do it themselves. By instructing students to draw from real objects, the student must see the whole, edit to simplify, and then build the whole again through the use of line and color. ARTistic Pursuits employs a variety of drawing techniques practiced by trained artists. Children see how it's done through examples, then find their own subject and apply their new knowledge to their own works. In this way they've learned a skill that they can use for a lifetime. 
• No tiny boxes which students are asked to sketch into. Artists don't work in 2" x 2" squares and we won't ask your students to do something that is physically restraining. With a 9" x 12" sketch book, they practice the type of whole hand and whole arm movements needed to make art. Art requires the use of the larger muscles of the hand (moving at the wrist), and arm (moving at the shoulder). Small muscle groups are used less often, therefore large sheets of paper are needed, 9" x 12" or 11" x 14". 
• No kids sitting in front of the TV or computer screen as they copy step-by-step examples. Assignments guide children to work from life, including the outdoors. The stillness of a natural setting revives our spirits. To be in nature helps us to become keen observers of our surroundings and active in our participation. Children benefit from time spent observing, and learn to focus in and ponder rather than tuning out to harsh sounds and fast paced visuals that TV and computer programs present to them.