Form Drawing with Imagery

I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately. With writing comes writer’s block.

In those gaps of time where the words don’t flow, I’ve noticed I’ve started doodling forms absentmindedly.

Form drawing was one of those topics I was late to integrate into my children’s education mostly because I didn’t have the knowledge or experience. We did straights and curves in grades one and two, but the more complex forms waited for a few years while I caught up with my knowledge of them.

While I was doodling this weekend I was reminded of the short little stories I would share with my children to help them imagine their forms. These are short, sweet, one minute stories with the main aim of creating an image in the children’s mind around what they were creating.

Take the form to the left. This is a more advanced straights form with mirroring that I believe we did near the end of grade one. I created a short little tale about a log in the woods where animals perch to help the children visualize the lines and balance.

The form below was one of our first curves activities and I used the imagery of bunnies hopping. This would be a great time of year to include this in your lessons. For curves in a row, you could say the bunny family was happily eating grass when baby bunny hopped to a new spot. Then brother bunny, sister bunny and Mama/Papa bunny hopped as well. For the rainbow of curves, you could say one bunny was hopping over the other. It isn’t a long detailed story. It is only a few words to guide them to an image within the movement.

If you would like to incorporate the mirrored straights in your lessons, I’ve broken it down into steps for you below. These steps are only to show the progression of how the words create the imagery. When drawing the form, everything will be drawn on one single form like the example above. I’ve only broken it down to illustrate which parts go with which words. The images below are read like a book. We did this after a hike where there was a large vernal pond and the children, leaning over the pond delighted in the images they saw of themselves and the sky.

1. A log lay in the forest beside a pond.
2. A large bird came and sat on the log
3. His friends soon followed
4. The owl looked down into the pond and saw the log reflected in the water
5. Then he saw himself.
6. And all his friends.

Form drawing is such an enjoyable activity to integrate into lessons. And it supports so much more than just writing development. There is spatial awareness, balance in form, drawing varying sized straights and curves, size comparison, symmetry, linear relationships, optical effects, patterns… the list goes on!

Form drawing might be making a regular appearance here on the blog. I forgot how much I enjoy falling into its simple rhythms!

Until next time,
Marina