What is art?
Art is seeing, creating, and exploring God's truth, goodness, and beauty in our world. We glorify God by using the creativity He has given us.
What can you talk about for a long time without getting tired? For me, one of those things is my job. I work part time at encouraging kids to have a full time passion of loving Jesus and art. I have worked at my growing school for 9 years, have support from the staff, freedom to make my own curriculum, and I get to teach my own kids since they go to the school too. What could be better?! I feel very blessed to have this job that includes my passions, even with the hard and tiring days.
One grade I teach is Pre-K (4 and 5 year-olds). This age can be a challenge to many and it was to me at first as well. But with many years of experience I now love this grade - their excitement and joy can be contagious. I definitely am the most tired after teaching this grade because part of my success with them has been to have many transitions, walk around the room helping each one when they need it, and always having an eye on everyone to make sure the day is successful and safe. I am not afraid of teaching them to try hard things and I tell them that art class is about practicing and having a good time. I’ve been blown away by their memory of the artist’s names we learn and arty words like “symmetrical.” Hand motions help!
A mentor friend who witnessed my class as an aide to a student once told me my curriculum was balanced, broad, and Biblical. What a gift of words to me! I’ve worked hard at my curriculum over the years and I continue to change and grow it. I’m so thankful for what it has become with the help of inspiration from other artists.
Currently for Pre-K I have three units through each semester of art class. The first one focuses on a few of the elements of art - line, shape, and color, and God’s creation. Elements of art are like building blocks of art. Every artwork has at least one. The rest are form, value, texture, and space, which I discuss more in other grades. I’ll be posting about those other grades soon. Each project is based on a famous artist or art technique. They start my class by being pointed to the beauty of butterflies. I love incorporating wonder and amazement of God’s creations into my projects. Their first project is a symmetrical butterfly inspired by Eric Carle. They paint only one side of this butterfly then squish the sides together to reveal a symmetrical design when the butterfly is opened. I’ve included some pictures of my examples of the projects.
They continue my class by creating a tissue paper rainbow inspired by the best artist of all - God! This one is great for fine motor skills. I use markers to draw lines of each color so the students know exactly where to put the colors. I have a monkey stuffed animal to help us remember the rainbow color order. His name is ROY G BIV, which stands for red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Isn’t it amazing that each rainbow has the same color order!?
I challenge my students to think 2-dimensionally and 3-dimensionally by having them draw 2-D lines then add 3-D lines on top. They make their paper stand up by adding “feet,” which is just bending the paper at the ends of the strips of paper. It’s a great chance to talk about different lines that God has made and to notice them all around us.
They explore different techniques of making circles and dots inspired by Peter Reynolds and the book, The Dot. The book is about a young artist who doesn’t think she’s an artist until her teacher encourages her. She ends up making a whole gallery of different types of dot paintings and then encourages another student that they are also an artist. God made so many different types of artists! My students learn a way of cutting circles by trimming the corners of a square piece of paper. We also look at Kandinsky’s work, which includes a lot of circles. This project is a good introduction to overlapping and thinking about composition (where they put things on the page).
The second unit is about discovering what it means to be a good leader in the eyes of God. We start with talking about leaders they know and what it means to be a leader - follow God, be kind, tell the truth, and show others the right away to do things, etc. We look at art to see if we can tell who the leader is and how the artist made them look like a leader - posed/dressed/bigger/looking a different direction than the rest, higher on the page, etc. Then we practice drawing people with simple shapes like circles, rectangles, and squares and the idea of using circles for where the joints are. This practice allows them to be able to try their best at drawing a leader of their school as a model! The students get to choose her pose and have a chance to ask their leader some questions about being a leader and as a chance to get to know her better. This year they found out that her favorite color is pink. So maybe that inspired this mini artist in her creative hair color choice!
The third unit is about who Jesus is, paired with a famous artist or arty idea. They start by learning about Jesus being a servant and they wash each other’s feet with pretend water (packing peanuts and blue tissue paper squares) as a way to serve their classmates. We discuss other ways they can serve their friends and family as well. While they are taking turns doing this, the rest of the class is doing a coloring page of Jesus washing feet using the colors on a simple color wheel.
They learn that Jesus loves them while creating a colorful pop art self-portrait project inspired by Andy Warhol. I’ve done this project so many years that now I have an example of my son when he was a baby and his own from when he was in Pre-K!
They learn that Jesus can do anything, like walk on water, as they create a clay fish with a surprised face - because that is what a fish might feel when seeing feet walk on water!
They learn that Jesus cares for others while creating a still life of fruit inspired by Paul Cezanne and Jesus feeding the 5,000. We practice looking closely at things in my class, which is a good skill to have later in life as well.
It’s fun to see what they come up with. They often have creative ideas and interesting thoughts. And it’s fun for me to see them grow in their skills as they get older. I love that I can teach my kids and other kids about Jesus, different ways of making art, and how to notice and appreciate beauty in this world.
Lord, I pray for my Pre-Kers, past, present, and future. I pray they come to know and love you at an early age. I pray they enjoy the beauty you’ve placed all around them and that they notice and appreciate the artist you’ve put inside them.
Thank you for the chance to teach them about You and art. Continue to fill me with passion to love them and my job and special insight into how to serve them well. Amen.