“In drawing and then observing coloured planes, children gain access to a quite different, more feeling-imbued dimension. A new fluidity of perception is initiated.”
Thomas Wildgruber, Painting and Drawing in Waldorf Schools. .
. We worked on form drawing this morning. I have been focusing on developing my own connection with form drawing in my own time and now that I’ve practiced it more I’m more comfortable bringing it to the children with feeling and understanding.
Form drawing is really such a magical activity. The symmetry calms and the focus needed helps balance the rhythm of our breathing. With intention it can have a healing effect. It is so much more than a way to develop fine motor skills or a precursor to writing.
For first grade we practiced many of our forms by walking them first. Now we are more inclined to first practice forming it with a rope. We had already done that preliminary work before today so we jumped right into drawing.
For this form, my children created a circle carrying a lemniscate in its centre. The form was drawn all in one fluid movement, starting at the top, and moving around the outer circle in a clockwise direction. So our path was top right and around the circle back to the top where we would dip into the circle to make the lemniscate, right down to left, up right to left to meet that first spot where we started. We typically draw a form by following the path multiple times. This helps really fall deeply into the rhythm of the form and helps alleviate any propensity to perfection. The more times you go over the form your body finds a way of balancing out the blips and wonky lines you might have started with!
Today we added colour to first the inner space and then after redrawing the form, added colour to the outer spaces. The children then went on their own path and used different colours to create rainbows, both layering on top and creating new lines. It was wonderful to hear them express their surprise when the planes shifted after repeating the rainbow pattern!
What forms have you practiced lately?
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