making a monster

During our philosophical dialogues about fear the topic of monsters has been raised - so a group of six of the children had the opportunity to describe a monster - which did not seem that easy at first... but I am interested in getting the children to THINK about what they are creating BEFORE they start painting etc - that their artwork is becoming more intentional and not JUST a sensory experience - although I still see the need for plenty of sensory art experiences too. I also wanted to challenge their imaginations and to be able to see the potential of art as a great way of expressing their imagination...

The session started with drawing round one of the children to get a form - the idea being to see what was needed to transform a child into a monster - and for this session I drew the children's words - a big triangular head with spikes, wide arms with long claws (no mention of hands), a fat tummy, legs with scales and big feet. The children were then asked what was a monster colour - and that was the colour they got to paint with ( but they got to swap with each other too - and mix - but this took time to happen).

The main idea of this session was to get the children thinking about how far we can push things in art - but I felt the children were really rather conservative - I was hoping for many arms and legs, and hair all over the place, millions of eyes all over the body etc etc etc - in the end I have to admit I started to push their thoughts a little . challenge their imagination to expand from two of everything - and we did end up with three eyes...

When the children were painting it was VERY harmonious - the children chatted and worked together to fill the monster with colour - althought a couple of the children had their own agenda of painting everywhere EXCEPT inside the lines - and after a few gentle reminders about the intention of the morning I just let it slide and let them enjoy their own process - they knew the monster was going to be cut out, so the children who were slightly concerned about those children painting mangoes etc around the monster (and these images could be saved too)

Today we returned to the monster and started adding texture - and once the children got going on this they kept adding and adding and adding - looking for more things that could be glued on! It has ended up quite heavy - much heavier than I anticipated - so we will have to see what happend when the glue dries and we try to get it to stay on the wall!!

drawing around, counting spikes, counting colours, and adding adding adding texture....

everyone had their own position for painting - sitting, squatting, lying down.... and there was plenty of movement as the children are starting to get the hang of maving around and taking their paint with them to reach all areas of the monster/art - and just over half way through they realised they could mix colours with each other to create new colours - which started an interest in swapping colours with each other...

carefully carefull filling each claw with colour...

feathers, ribbons, ice-cream spoons - what MORE could be found?

prickles needed to be added - last winter we collected pine needles from the snowy ground from Christmas trees that had been dumped in the square for collection/recycling. Shredded paper... and the children's favourite - glitter