Playing to Document

In August i discovered Picmonkey for the first time and started to play with it - experimenting with photographs, with the various effects - including turning all the preschool children in Vinden into flying fairies. I then started using it for the photos I use on this blog, creating frames, blurring out faces, writing Interaction Imagination.

Playing is important.
Playing is learning.

Not only for children but for us adults too. By playing with Picmonkey I started to feel like I could try doing documentation with it - using the collage part to tell stories.

This latest documentation shares images from 2 weekes ago when we looked at some ceramic art and the children chose their favourite part - I put together an image of the child with their choice. (for the blog I have blurred the faces - and translated the text into English)

Today some of the children have started the next process - to draw what they can see on the photograph. This I have put together with the previous photos together with a short description of the process. I longer and more general description will be made too sharing the "bigger picture" of this art session - as we did it in much the same way as we did the self portraits a few weeks ago - with individual attention while the rest of the group (five children in total) played or watched. The aim being to help the children become more aware of their art-making and to extend the children's experience of art which has been largely experiential in order to acquaint them with materials and also to allow them to feel comfortable with them and with how their own body works (there will be still plenty of sensory art to meet these needs) - but I also see that the group is ready for more of a challenge!

as you can see - there is the double image of child and choice at the top as well as a photo of the process to the right - then the finished drawing at the bottom as well as a brief description about the process. These images will be on the walls first and then go into their portfolios, together with the general description. This will also be the image they will get when they move on to stage 3 - using clay - will they use the photo or their own drawing as their main source of inspiration?