Over 100 years ago many Artists rebelled against accepted realism in Art and wanted to create Art that was their own expression. Is any Art created by someone void of expression? I’m not sure because even sculptures of realistic animals seem to look back at you and even paintings convey an expression of a feeling or mood. So how do we teach our students to express themselves? Well, I don’t think that is really a problem, we just can awaken new ideas for expressing themselves through Art and we can help them.
Another way to get students engaged is to let them tell a story in their Art piece. In chapter 8 of “Studio Thinking” by Hetland he talks about “Drawing with meaning”. Expression in Art can refer to content or story. Curriculum that involves the student in developing a way to express an idea or feeling gives them a chance to try out ideas they wouldn’t have otherwise. Creating something that is an expression of themselves is important for self awareness.
Exploring how visual images, lines, colors, etc. can affect the expressive values of a piece of Art is a way for our students to understand the visual world around them. Advertising and graphic designs also use these to create expressive values and having students compare Fine Art with todays graphic rich Media world would be one way to discuss the expressive attributes that are used in both. A lesson could include designing an Ad for a product and finding the best way to express emotions that would help sell it. This could be a group project and the teacher can approve the project before work on a model is started, but think of all the learning objectives that the lesson would have.
Humans are expressive and as long as there is Art it will be an expression of the human hand and soul.
Resources:
Hetland, L. (2007). “Studio Thinking: The real benefits of visual arts education.” New York, NY: Teachers Press.
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