Click on
Callum's Nativity Scene to hear him and Peter singing Away in a Manger!
Click on
Alice's Christmas Pudding to hear the whole class singing
'Christmas
Pudding' as a round!
Using an Electronic
Sketchpad
Creating artwork with an electronic sketchpad, or
graphics tablet and an infant painting programme is something that
young children seem to take to very readily, with girls showing at
least as much interest as boys in using the computer in this way.
Early
experimentation by Jemima.
The
children need time to play and to experiment with this way of working
and with the tools available. At this stage they seldom want to
save or print out their efforts. I show them how to get a new
page to draw on and they will try out one idea, get a new page, try
out another idea and so on.
As
their skills improve the difficulty becomes persuading them NOT to
discard their wonderful work of art before it can be saved!
Here
Matthew was finding out what you can do with the spray tool.
by
Tom
Once
they discover the fill tool they will often set themselves the target
of filling the page. It is a lot quicker to achieve than 'Taking
a Line for a Walk' by the more traditional method!
'Flipping'
and 'flopping' a piece of work like this can produce a pleasing effect
if an end product is wanted for a greeting card or a display
etc. Most children, though, will be more interested in the
process than the product at this stage.
When
they have worked through this experimentation phase they finally begin
to try to draw specific things.
Lewis
Abbie
'Sunsmack'
by Peter
Sometimes
their efforts can be particularly creative!
Electronic
self-portraits are a good project for the whole class to complete once
everyone has had a chance to play.
Tara
Alice
Max
E.
Often
children will be inspired by whatever other artwork the class is doing
and will take these ideas and see how they work on on the sketchpad.
Blossom
tree by Peter
Blossom
tree by Tara
by
Ruby
These
spontaneous efforts by the children sent me back to my planning to see
what other planned artwork might also lend itself to replication on
the electronic sketchpad.
During the
summer term the Pandas look at artwork by Paul Klee and we discuss how his
choice of colours has an effect upon the feel of a picture and that some
colours seem more gloomy and sad whereas other colours are more
cheerful. The children then mix colours and make happy and sad
colour collections in their sketchbooks. Following this they
collaborate in painting in the sections of identical, large scale,
geometrical pictures, completing one in 'happy' colours and one in 'sad'
colours. This work lent itself very readily and effectively to
replication on the computer.
