A Year in Art PDF

A Year in Art A Study of Youth Art

By Morgan Smith

For my buddy, Liam

Breakfast Burritos,

Liam – TX, 2019

My sister, a first-grade teacher in Texas, looked disappointed as she held the colorful, crumpled paper in her hands. She looked up at me and said, “I wish he hadn’t wadded this one up. He did such a good job on it.” My seven-year-old nephew, Liam, had created a bright, intelligent image entitled Breakfast Burritos which he was going to enter into an art contest at his school. His art teacher had recently introduced his class to Cubism, so Liam had tried experimenting with angles in his work. He had filled a page with colorful squares and added several black and white cigar-shaped “burritos” to the center of the image, which he labeled with breakfast burrito-related food toppings like eggs and bacon.

However, he lost confidence in his image after he finished it and crumpled it up to discard it. Thankfully, it was saved from the trash.

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Armadillo, Liam – TX, 2019

Chameleon, Liam – TX, 2019

I have collected a year’s worth of art from my nephew’s portfolio to try to take note of any changes in skill, composition, or subject his work might have undergone during that period. Although the account of the discarding of Liam’s Breakfast Burritos work is an unhappy one, hearing it changed the way I looked at his art.

The story gave me a sense of the gravity Liam places on his artmaking and allowed a me glimpse of the status of his artistic development.

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Disco Party, Liam – TX, 2018

I am not yet a teacher, and I am currently not in a position which gives me easy access to children’s art. However, my brother-in-law, my sister, and, now, my nephew are all very creatively inclined. My brother-in-law is a professional artist and aspiring comedian, and my nephew loves to sit and draw with him. When the two are together, Liam laughs and creates intricate, colorful drawings of television and video game characters in absurd situations. It is easy to see that he enjoys making art during these sessions, and it is important to him to do a good job. Jaquith (2011) states, “Research shows that intrinsic motivators such as personal interest and curiosity are closely correlated with creativity.”

When Liam creates art at home with his father, it is for intrinsic reasons like play and enjoyment. He pours all of himself into his work, and the images that result from these sessions look strikingly different than those he creates during his school art class.

Jaquith (2011) states, “Extrinsic motivators may deter creativity when learners are distracted by control factors or extraneous information.” An overload of instruction on art projects keeps students from being able to exercise the same amount of creative control as they would if they were creating art for fun. Liam even demonstrated this concept when he crumpled his drawing due to the stress of an optional contest.

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Similarly, Liam also wants to impress with his artwork. He appears to be at a point in his artistic development in which he seeks gratification from others regarding his art. Louis (2005) states, “As children are "pictorially rewarded" (p. 28) for the recognizability of their graphic productions, Kindler and Darras argue that they add "universally accessible" graphic forms to their existing repertoire of graphic actions (p. 34).” Children attempt to retain the artistic methods which evoke

Sleeping Fox, Liam – TX, 2019

praise or, at least, recognition from others.

However, Louis (2005) draws heavily on research in artistic development by Kindler and Darras (1997) whose research does not touch on the concept of expressive use of the medium, which focuses on how the effects of the medium affects the child’s execution of the process of making art. Liam, for instance, imagined his Breakfast Burritos image turning out much differently than it actually did.

During the mediation process during which Liam used an art implement to transfer his idea from his mind to his paper, something may not have gone as planned. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how successful the execution of the work actually is (Louis, 2005).

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Flowers Still Life, Liam – TX, 2019

In reviewing Liam’s portfolio, it is easy to track the changes his art underwent over the year. His initial images were sparsely colored and consisted heavily of simple lines and text. His later images, however, demonstrate increasing focus on contours of objects and bold color. Objects in his latest images are beginning to show hints of depth and perception differentiation through the use of color and line. For example, lighter colors represent highlights on apples in a still life. In another image, an oval— not just a line—is used to illustrate the bottom of a mason jar. It is obvious that Liam is growing in his art. Eisner (1978) states, “As children work with materials and have the benefit of intelligent and sensitive teaching in art, their power to conceptualize visual ideas and to use effective means for expressing them increases. Their range for expressive visual articulation increases. Their "vocabulary" of visual possibilities expands, and they become more confident because they become more competent in art.” There are apparent changes in how Liam depicts different situations through art and how effectively he does so.

Apples Still Life, Liam – TX, 2019

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While gathering works from my nephew’s portfolio to analyze for this project, he stayed by my side and pointed out all his favorite pieces and his intentions in creating them. When my sister showed me Breakfast Burritos, Liam still happily pointed out his favorite details and the choices he had made, despite having tried to throw it away. I feel that Liam is in a key formative stage of his artistic development, and he has learned a great deal since creating Breakfast Burritos. As an enthusiastic young artist from a nurturing, creatively inclined home, I believe that Liam has the potential to be a very successful student of art. That is not to say that he will surely be extraordinarily talented but that he has the capacity to learn from and appreciate the process and value of creating art. As both an aunt and an aspiring art educator, I am blessed to have Liam in my life.

Ship, Liam – TX, 2018

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References Apples still life. (2019). Liam.

Armadillo. (2019) Liam.

Breakfast burritos. (2018). Liam.

Chameleon. (2019) Liam.

Disco party. (2018) Liam.

Eisner, E. (1978). What do children learn when they paint? Art Education, 31(3), 6-10.

Flowers still life. (2019) Liam.

Jaquith, D. B. (2011). When is creativity? Art Education, 64(1), 14-19.

Louis, L. L. (2005). What children have in mind: A study of early representational development in paint. Studies in Art Education, 46(4), 339-355.

Ship. (2019) Liam.

Sleeping fox. (2019) Liam.

Toucan. (2019) Morgan Smith.

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