Blocks, Drawing and Building

A regular feature of the studio is an area for construction. We keep blocks out, varrying the materials with the addition of recycled objects and find that this area is a favorite with our students as well as with visitors and siblings coming in to the studio before and after class.

In our afternoon class, the four and five year olds often move to building toward the end of the session, here the group gradually moved from their paintings to block building. They created a variety of individual and collaborative structures, working through sharing materials and listening to each others' ideas.

The class was almost so we sugggested drawing their sculptures as a way to remember them. This idea caught on quickly and students settled in with black pens, diagramming shapes and positions of the pieces in their structure.

The act of "drawing what you see" is a complex one and the geometric shapes and familiarity from handling and stacking the pieces seem to lend themselves well to beginning this kind of drawing.

This young artist added a texture to her lines and cut out the drawing so it would look more like the shape of the sculpture.