“I can’t even draw a stick figure!”

“I can’t even draw a stick figure!”  

Does this sound familiar?  This common lament will not be heard from a Meet the Masters student!

The beginning of adolescence marks the end of artistic development among most children, due to frustration at “getting things right.”  So it’s vitally important that we captivate children in elementary school and teach drawing skills.

By five or six, children develop a set of symbols to create a landscape that eventually becomes a single variation repeated endlessly. A blue line and sun at the top of the page and a green line at the bottom become symbolic representations of the sky and ground.

To forever change this tendency, we have three methods of teaching children to draw in all of our 105 directed and scripted classroom art activities:

1. Right Brain Drawing: The children learn tricks to turn “off” the logical, step-by-step left side of their brain, and allow that creative, artistic side to dominate.  After completing a right brain drawing lesson, we often hear a student excitedly exclaim: “I didn’t know I could draw that!”
2. Left Brain Drawing: There are definite skills to be learned in drawing, and step-by-step instruction is a proven drawing method. We use directed lessons, to teach how to draw: portraits of both people and animals, windmills, sailboats, trees, birds, bamboo – -to name a few. We love watching their confidence grow with each proud result.
3. Free Drawing: Children need to explore, experiment, and enjoy the freedom of drawing what they are feeling and/or imagining.  Many of our units feature abstract art, and the children always respond creatively and enthusiastically to being abstract artists themselves.

With these three varied approaches, our MTM students will never be heard to say the dreaded, “I can’t even draw a stick figure!”

Thank you for placing a priority on art education.  Learn more about our art curriculum here.

Bonnie Steele, President
Meet the Masters