as your art teacher, i strongly advise you to...

who are we art teachers kidding? really? there is a fine line between teaching a student and simply telling them what to do. it's a struggle. how do you really teach a student art?

i have been teaching these after school art classes for almost a year now. and sadly, i fear that the school's main focus is simply telling them what to do. i feel that i break the rules when i allow my students to "stray" from the exercise without proper "guidance".

but then i would miss out on amazing pieces like this...

we were working on valentine hearts by collaging paper and then painting the hearts over the collage. she couldn't visualize the end product. instead, she saw this.

WHA???? this is great stuff! she's a highly creative student and this imagery comes to her naturally. she's in elementary school and she is fully capable of creating implied textures, showing proper proportion, foreshortening, detail, and more. she just doesn't know how to articulate all that. she hasn't heard of balance, texture, color theory, realism, dadaism... she just does...

it's pretty fantastic... and definitely inspiring...