A Preface to a Creative Line - A warm up activity that will be suitable to every grade every student

A Preface to a Creative Line

A Preface to a Creative Line - A warm-up activity that will be suitable for every grade and every student

Students on many occasions, when newly arrived at my Art classes, show negative feelings and little or not interest towards any manuality or freehand visual experience. Demonstrating cold, sometimes sinic expressions and unoleassent beahavior.  Except for those students who already have a heart for the arts.

Surprisingly, the art class can move slowly and may be difficult.  However, all those feelings are just based on unawareness, fear of ownself capacities and potential, previous poor teaching, and very little or no exposure to the world of creativity and visual expression, the plastic (moldable) arts.

It doesn’t matter if students arrive quiet, loud, timid, short or tall, fast thinkers or lacking self-confidence, they must be all welcome to experience the magic of the free line and colors, the amazing feeling of making visual displays capable to delive a thought, an inerfeeling, the freedom when creating far from negative control rather the use of a given one energy and impulses.

Activity:  The Line of Thought

   Organize your space in a way that students have a good, spacious area between each other.  They should be able to extend their arms without touching anybody. 

Providing students with the necessary time to relax, redirect their minds, and emotions is a must. A moment of silence and correct breathing techniques are great tools for the occasion. 

To continue, invite students to look at and touch the entire paper surface. The process needs to be explained gradually.  

First, students close their eyes and touch the paper one more time, looking to understand how large or small the paper is, using only the tactile sense, prompting themselves to imagine the paper and its size like a photo in his/her mind. 

Yes, they giggle and feel inaccurate, but not to worry, show them the way with tender but firm assertion.

   Have a good selection of colored pencils and invite students to pick two colors; do not give opinions. Do not participate in any way in their color choices.

   Invite students to take one color in each hand, place their hands on the surface of the paper, close their eyes, and draw with both hands free all over the paper, without breaking the line (uninterrupted line) without opening their eyes.  Advise students to stop when they feel the line is completed, done, or it is enough; they do need to feel it is finished.

   When this first part is completed, invite them to place the colors at the table and guide them to assess their work by:

·      Line strength or degree of intensity with which the line has been drawn.

·      The previous selection of colors and how unconsciously they selected to be used, left or right-handed.

·      How open, closed, tangled, or empty, how confusing or simple, how busy, noisy, or quiet the lines look.

·      And how everything is just perfect for crazy or meaningless may look.

  Our second part is about colors; without trying to lecture about color theory, enlighten your students with two facts about colors. Hot colors like yellows, oranges, reds, and sometimes purple (depending on the amount of red it has) appear in our eyes first. Subsequently, cold colors like blues and some greens, and purples remain at the back, creating distance and perhaps tension. This happens without apparent control from our part. (just our brain setup.)

  Invite the students to select any color they want to color the empty spaces they have accidentally created between the lines, with the intention of:

·      Open up close and tangled lines

·      Create balance

·      Or create a path of communication from one  line to another

·      To visually pull weak lines

·      Or to visually create a pleasant and harmonic composition.

Invite students not to rush; getting familiar, understanding the use of color-pencils and their many possibilities. Help them to like and respect the design that has come from their very own Inner Thoughts, from their heart. 

Don’t forget to display the work…