It's been a long time since we had a regular art class, but we are moving on to a new section of the book and yesterday we started learning about Leonardo DaVinci. We learned about DaVinci as a child and all about how he was very good at making and recording observations about things around him. The project today was to take something apart and observe it by sketching and note taking. It came from an extra book I have been using:
After discussing DaVinci's childhood we looked at some of the sketches he made observing both nature and mechanical things. We talked about how he had to take things apart to look at each small piece and make new observations at each step. Here are the sketches that we studied:
Then we learned how to take notes like DaVinci from this
website. The basic steps we discussed were:
1- Write how you want, not how you're taught (spelling, style, etc. are not important- Da Vinci even wrote backwords)
2- Creativity doesn't come from structure (you don't have to "organize" your notes)
3- Visualize your concepts (sketch EVERYTHING)
4- Start simple and expand (look at the whole thing before taking apart)
5- Don't stop until you have covered the paper (there are always more things to say or sketch)
6- Manage space for later (if you think of something off-topic while taking notes give that idea a special space on your paper to expand later)
After the kids all understood these ideas we moved on to doing a group observation and note taking session using an orange as our subject. They learned to look at the orange as if they had never see one before and, using all their senses, fill the paper (or whiteboard in this case) with everything that came to mind about the subject. They really did great with this and were ready to move on to their own ideas.
Elder had fun taking apart an old computer we had laying around and did a series of sketches as he took each piece out.
Kennedy chose a large cardboard block to take apart and observe. Great work Kiki!
Marney picked an avocado. She really enjoyed cutting it apart, she has been wanting to get to this lesson for a few weeks now and has decided that she wants to to an entire series of these.
Lily brought a party blower to check out. It was a really great item to observe, even down to the tiny wire that the curling paper wraps around.
Gabe chose a broken book light. He found lots of small pieces inside to sketch.
Avery took apart a small flashlight and took a long time with each piece making sure she got all the details right.
Connor and Mason missed class today but when they do the assignment we'll post theirs up too. For homework the kids will each do another note taking session using any subject they choose. Next week- we will look at some of DaVinci's inventions and sketch our own inventions.
