I mentioned a few days ago that we are going to start drawing lessons and practice every week. The main book I chose for this was Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes (founder of Monart art schools). I’ve read about 3/4 of the book and am excited to start. It is only 5 lessons total, not really a set curriculum, so it will be a bit confusing for us to get through, but I will do my best!
Mona Brookes specifically created this program for 4-5 year olds in a preschool setting, but people of any age can use it. We started out with a drawing “test” to see if Satori could copy a set of shapes. There are 3 levels of shapes and carefully detailed are the approximate ages that should be able to master each level. Satori rocked at the first level, she surprised me! Then she attempted Level 2 and got frustrated. Needless to say, Level 2 was not in the 4-5 age range.
Surprisingly, Mona Brookes starts you out with black markers! No pencils, and most definitely no erasers. The book explains why. So I gathered up all our black markers of varying widths, and got a set of 5 Prismacolor black drawing markers of varying widths. We both set about the initial activity of simply scribbling to get used to the different markers.
Getting used to our black markers
Then on to the Five Elements of Shapes.
- Dots (roundish shapes filled in)
- Circles (roundish shapes not filled in)
- Straight Lines
- Curves
- Angles
I took a sheet of paper and drew examples of these 5 elements. Then Satori tried on her own on the left side of the sheet.
5 Elements of Shapes
We then looked around for examples of these 5 elements everywhere and attempted to draw objects around us keeping these 5 elements in mind. We were on our deck, so Satori drew a bird feeder, our umbrella shade, and I drew a stool.
We will work a bit on this every week. DWT is highly recommended by Charlotte Mason homeschoolers, the style of which I will be incorporating in our own homeschooling style this fall.
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