Small Steps

A white canvas sat in the Kindergarten for a few weeks.

Pippin created the circle canvas to support our intention to represent the Forest walk. 

It was both exciting and intimidating all at once. We knew that we would have to slow the process of representing so that the children could ALL own it and have their voices heard.

Drew  felt that our first step was to draw

 the line that existed between the sky and the land....the topography. The class again walked the Forest path but this time we experienced the path spatially.... as a series of "ups, downs, leveled land and turns".  

Oliver's photographic memory captured the nuances of the walk and then he alone began the tedious work of drawing the line that separated the sky and the land.

Lucas and Tom offered  solutions when Oliver encountered a problem.

"My pencil dropped off the canvas."

"The line-up tree (the departure point) needs to move up (on the canvas)."

When Fiona looked at the canvas she realized that Oliver would was short on space.... horizontally this time.

"The Canyon is too close to the end of the path."

The topography was like a puzzle. Completion could be achieved if all of the pieces fit perfectly.

In the Fall, many of the children messed about and then spent hours exploring the idea of color washes with Cheri.

As we began to represent the Forest on the circle canvas we decided to revisit the beauty of the Forest and the sky using color washes. 

Cheri offered Eric Carle's illustrations to inspire the children and give them a sense of what was possible.

Scratching with wooden sticks--

Blotting with paper

Blowing with straws

Creating layers that resembled the ground and the sky.

The children noticed that their paintings had texture, depth, a foreground and a background.

As the children sketched the landmarks on the Forest path  they did not seem to recognize the canvas as having a foreground and a background. Perhaps the curving canvas made this  difficult to discern for the children,

Lorenzo pointed out that the Forest was everywhere and so should exist all over the canvas not just on the Forest path. He said that this was also true for each landmark.