The 8 Studio Habits of Mind are essential to a TAB art studio. These habits help us develop our artists behavior as we continue to explore through art mediums and art creating. I have included the language that my friend and fellow art teacher Rachel Varney uses with her early childhood artists. I have found that the artists seem to identify with this lingo as they are finding their art voices.
Blind Contour Drawings are absolutely my favorite types of drawings. They really are a challenge for the developing artists as they can not look down at their paper. The point of this exercise is to retrain the brain to focus strictly at the object being drawn and help communicate the shapes, spaces and lines to the hands without the mind intercepting thought of what the object "should" be drawn. These observation drawings really capture the essence of the object being drawn. As with anything with practice these drawings become more realistic and highly detailed. I did not learn to draw blind contours until I was in college and our young artists are in a great advantage in learning at such a young age.
Right Brain Drawings are also very challenging for most developing artists as they clearly recognize it is a drawing of a man with glasses wearing a business suit sitting on a chair with his hands interlocked. The moment the artist is asked to turn the image upside-down and strictly draw just the lines, shapes and space as they see it it become more of a challenge for the brain. This exercise helps tune out the mind and really trains the eyes to work with the hands as they focus on the details of the portrait. It is clear to see which artists turned the drawing right side up and attempted to draw the portrait and which artists drew the portrait "upside-down" and actually got the drawing accurate.
Art Station Poem is recited at the beginning of each station day to remind us our objective for the day. We will keep this format for the reminder of the school year as the artists are having more creative freedom during art.