Centering Artistic Choice Making

Authentic expression and creativity happen not from the largest number of materials, but from having the chance to be inventive by using and pushing against the tools you have. Building artistry involves becoming aware of the possibilities in the medium as an artist builds skills in an artform.

In many artistic traditions, students are only afforded the opportunity to compose or improvise once they have trained for years to attain certain skill sets. The Bridges model encouragesd arts educators who have been trained this way themselves, to question their assumptions about when a young person can be given the chance to make artistic choices.

For students in a short intro program, it’s valuable to experience creating, alongside building experience and skills in the medium. Rima Fand developed a Play How you Feel Warmup that enabled her students to tell stories musically with their violin after 5 lessons. See the artistic tools these young violinists could work with after 5 sessions in the

In this video, learn about some ways to unlock the magic in a pencil and introduce the variety of choices that kids can explore using this tool.  When given time and freedom to truly discover what their pencil can do, children will make an extraordinary number of unique choices in their pencil drawing.  See examples below!

This class used pencil to draw emotionally expressive characters that they later turned into simple puppets.  Scroll through these examples and notice the variety of choices that these artists made with just this simple tool and in response to the same prompt. For support use the

This class used pencil to draw emotionally expressive characters that they later turned into simple puppets.  Scroll through these examples and notice the variety of choices that these artists made with just this simple tool and in response to the same prompt. For support use the

This class used pencil to draw emotionally expressive characters that they later turned into simple puppets.  Scroll through these examples and notice the variety of choices that these artists made with just this simple tool and in response to the same prompt. For support use the

This class used pencil to draw playground and carnival settings.  Scroll through these examples and notice the variety of choices that these artists made with just this simple tool to express the details they imaged in this setting. For support use the

This class used pencil to draw playground and carnival settings.  Scroll through these examples and notice the variety of choices that these artists made with just this simple tool to express the details they imaged in this setting. For support use the

This class used pencil to draw playground and carnival settings.  Scroll through these examples and notice the variety of choices that these artists made with just this simple tool to express the details they imaged in this setting. For support use the

Gesture = Movement. When drawing with pencil, artists use their body as a tool to make expressive choices about the pressure, energy, speed and scope of their movements. Watch this video to practice noticing and describing gestural choices.  When their choices are described, it builds the artists’ confidence and awareness of their choice making process.

With only 5 shapes and 1 color, students are limited to making specific choices about shape, spacing, direction and pattern.  The limitations necessitate that they take risks, invent, problem solve and notice the impact of their compositional choices on the expressions of the faces they are making.

• The black shapes contrasted on a single color focuses artists on inventing ways to use form, composition, and layering  to create new shapes and textures.
• The curved and pointy shapes create interesting forms between shapes, encouraging thoughtful use of negative space. Straight shapes didn’t do this as well.

A limited palette of choices can reduce overwhelm, help artists to focus their choice making energies, and provide an engaging and energizing challenge!

Give young artists valuable information about the impact of  their choice making, by noticing and describing the choices they make  using specific language. Watch this video to build your describing skills.  For support use the

Artists will often start with predictable choices (Ex: using circles for eyes).  It’s ok if some kids need time to feel comfortable with exploring. As adventurous peers try different options, and experimentation is encouraged and modelled, kids will start to take risks with how they use the shapes, and discover a wide variety of emotions they can express.

Some artists find the limiting of tools energizing and focusing. Others might struggle with the limitations. Exploring and reflecting on different artistic tools helps an artist know their preferences, discover tools they wouldn’t have ordinarily used and build their ability to work both inside and outside of their immediate comfort zone.

By focusing on a limited set of tools in each lesson, artists get to know each tool deeply, in a way they couldn’t if all were on the table at once.  Artists experience each tool deeply and experimentally build their creative skills and understanding of each artistic tool and gradually addiing more detail to their work.

Lesson 1: Working with just the 5 shapes, to explore shape, spacing, direction and pattern to make faces.

Lesson 2: Working with strips of color construction paper to expanded exploration into color and 3-D form and create hair.

Lesson 3: Working with a variety of patterned and textured collage materials to expand into texture, and create bodies and

Make a describing tool to enumerate the artistic tools artists can use [ within the physical limits], and start describing in detail the very different ways your children are moving their bodies. Share these many possibilities, and use the describing tool to describe the variety of choices your students are making. Scroll for more info.

Kindergarten classroom teacher Julissa Acosta has the children explore bumpy using only…” one body part at a time. She describes the DIFFERENT ways children show bumpy within that body part. In the final round, when children have explored the variety of possibilities in each body part, they are ready to creatively and safely explore all body parts at once.

1. challenge themselves to work within project parameters.
2. focus their choice making energies.
3. follow rules or community agreements (and why!)
4. be ok with making  “mistakes” and let go of the need to “do it perfectly.”

Watch this video for an example and scroll for more details.

1. Work within parameters- Draw an animal puppet that fills a whole quarter of the paper.
2. Make choices- about what animal to draw an how to get ideas.
3. Remember some rules 1) Ask adults for permission to usen materials 2) Draw a circle around the puppet before cutting.
4. Let go! Make “mistakes” and erase as needed. Don’t worry abo

Examples:

We don’t fall on this floor in this game because we don’t want anyone to get stepped on.

Put your name in this spot, so it won’t get covered up later and we know it’s yours.

When planning, distinguish between flexible parameters/structure and rules, and assess why rules are there. Rules should be a way of caring for each other.  They should not hinder an artists’ work process for arbitrary reasons. Reflecting in advance will allow you to respond meaningfully in the moment when a child questions a rule.