Diving into Drawing

Imagine if you will, walking into a room with colorful umbrellas hanging from the ceiling, tables covered with various colors of paper and a collection of interesting materials at each table. You are invited to travel to each of these colorful "islands" and make your mark. What do the materials feel like? What happens when you overlap them? Oops, at the chalk table, your arm brushes over the paper and colors begin to blend. What would happen if you overlapped lots of colors and used your finger to smudge them together? Gee, you wonder if the other materials will smudge or blend together, so you take a walk and try it at the pencil table or the charcoal table. You notice a group of kids oohing and ahhing over something at the marker table, so you wander over and they seem to be watching and waiting for something and suddenly, you see it. Color appearing as if by magic on the dark red paper. How did that happen? You dive in, trying the different types of markers. How come the blue doesn't look like blue on this paper? Why does this marker look darker than that one? What would happen if I put this marker on top of that one? What one would look good next to this one? Ooh, you find the "magic" marker and start going crazy with it. How does it work? Why does it stand out more than the others? Why does this blue look blue on this dark red paper? I wonder if these markers glow in the dark? Such great questions. Such great discoveries. Such great thinking. This is how we started our year in the art room. As we progressed through the day the large colorful papers grew more and more interesting. Each class adding to what the previous classes left for them. Each child making their mark for all to see.