Body Art

Last week's art group: body art. We started by reading I Ain't Gonna Paint No More (yes, I know it is grammatically incorrect and usually that drives me crazy in kids books, but it's hard to resist the vivid images and catchy text). Then we moved onto drawing self-portraits. Each child was given one very large piece of paper, crayola slick stix(really love these for drawing) and asked to draw themselves. It was fascinating to see the different stages of development in their drawings. I have always been intrigued by how children draw people and this article from the AAA Lab of Stanford is very helpful in looking at the stages that usually occur within children's drawings of people, especially that early stage of tadpole drawings (large head with arms and legs extending from the head, like this). I had always been curious about why/how this happens, but the AAA Lab of Stanford explanation makes sense:

This work examines a more perceptual explanation: when children look down at their bodies, they see their arms coming from their head. (Stretch your arms to the side and then look down.) Therefore, early on, children draw pictures combining their head and body as one component. Because children assimilate their environment to what they see and know about themselves, they will draw all humans and animals in this tadpole manner.

After completing their self-portraits, we pulled out a large roll of brown craft paper, traced each child, handed out brushes and paint, and encouraged them to paint their bodies (on paper...hoping we can do some really body painting once it gets a little warmer...any suggestions on best type of paint for actually body painting?). Once again, it was interesting to see how each child approached the task. I think the kids enjoyed having such a large "canvas" and the freedom and space to do whatever they wanted to with their bodies (the body on paper and their own bodies as they worked on the floor).