Daily Blog Challenge Day 6 – ‘perspective’
Introduction
I’m actually writing this late at night in order to get it scheduled for today! No one can ever say that I have not been completely committed to this challenge.
I have spent some time thinking about this word and I have started and binned several attempts. As the minute hand passes the twelve, I realise that it is now the morning and still I haven’t typed much, so here goes – it might not be the best but no one said the challenge had to be completed with quality posts!
When I taught art!
Throughout my twenty-two years in the primary classroom, I have taught a wide range of topics and subjects. The curriculum has changed a lot through those years, but I have always tried to teach every subject with enthusiasm and skill. The core curriculum subjects I have always been fine with, although I never actually got to teach phonics. However, when it came to the foundation subjects I really needed to improve my own subject knowledge and skills!
You might not be aware, but I am quite musical. Although there is a lot still to work on with my voice – would you believe I actually taught the school choir for several years and even lead ‘Big Sing’ once a week. Heavens knows the impact this will have on the generation of children I taught!
But one subject I really could not do, and actually continue to struggle with, is art. I often state that I am the most uncreative person on this earth! I struggle with colour combinations. My TA would often just say things like – ‘no’ when I worked with various shades of backing paper! But when it came to drawing and painting I was really at a loss. This frustrated me since a lot of the time the children would ask me how they could draw things to make them look three-dimensional or in perspective (see I got there in the end!). Due to this I actually started to learn how to draw. I didn’t take any classes. I just started to watch tutorial videos on YouTube and across the internet in order to perfect my skills. I really like, and wish I could draw effectively cartoons. And it was through this that I learnt how to create streets and buildings in perspective. I was quite surprised that the actual process was quite mathematical.
But what I was really pleased about was teaching this technique to the children and hearing their cries of exclamation have they realised that their buildings and bottles now looked real! I guess a little learning on my behalf can go a long way when you are a teacher!
Conclusion
Writing this has actually made me feel a bit more positive about my artwork. I’ve progressed from not having a creative bone in my body to acknowledging that maybe a bone in my inner ear, the smallest bone in the human body, might have, if you looked super carefully under a microscope, a speck of creativity!
See you all tomorrow!
