Drawing with Children - Mona Brookes

Uses methods detailed in Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Mona Brooks. Here, she begins by advising us on providing an atmosphere for creativity, choosing supplies and using a variety of media. The lessons and method are based on training children to perceive their environments in terms of five elements of shape. By visualizing or "overlaying" objects with combinations of these basic shapes, children can quickly begin to draw impressively (or accurately?) and then go beyond this step to creating their own compositions. Lessons progress from learning and constructing the five elements to drawing "flat" pictures, then 3-D still lives. The course even teaches children to draw accurate representations of people. The book can be used by anyone able to read and understand it. However, younger children will probably need some guidance in putting the techniques and methods into practice, since there are few actual assigned exercises in the book. Because of the young age of the artists, the "before" and "after" pictures in the text are particularly striking. Newly revised and expanded, including two additional chapters explaining how to teach children with learning problems or special needs and how to implement drawing in the teaching of other subjects.