Enclosure evolution?

Here's some art by Isabelle. She brought home this first piece a few weeks ago. I see curves, and enclosed spaces - very much in keeping with some of the art she has been doing over the past year or so.







Then the next piece brought home this week. This one is using similar enclosures, but is slightly more angular. The use of different art materials (pastels rather than paint) adds to the angular feel, as you can see the individual strokes used to fill out each shape with colour.







Number three in the series seems to develop the technique of filled-in enclosures to make a "realistic" art work. Isabelle has used pastels again. The art work is: "a snake in the water and sunset and that's all". The sunset is symbolic rather than realistic. It is low down over the water and is rainbow-like. The orange at the top is reminiscent of sunsets we have seen. But there is still a sun in the top right hand corner of the picture (something that is in most of Isabelle's scenes at the moment).


I just read out this post to Isabelle and asked her what she thought. She said "good!" - which I take to mean that she agrees!

I think it's interesting that, although Isabelle is now in the stage in her art development where she is depicting things in a way recognisable to others, she still works in more abstract stages as she explores specific ideas. I think the ideas she's examining here relate to an enclosure schema and investigations about shape. No doubt it is influenced by the ubiquitous colouring-in that makes up an apparently large part of the school "creative" curriculum!

On the colouring-in thing: I think Pennie Brownlee is right when she says "Children learn the skill of colouring-in their own drawings when they are ready to" (Magic Places. Auckland: NZ Playcentre Federation. 2004: 45). And I also think that, as a Playcentre colleague argued the other day, filling defined spaces with blocks of colour (a.k.a colouring-in) can be a particularly fascinating activity for children with an enclosure schema.

And finally, I couldn't resist including the certificate we were awarded last week. Check out the cool joined-up writing signature!