This book contains the secrets of children's painting.

My father is a student studying painting. When he was in love, he saw his slender fingers lying on the drawing paper, sketching out thousands of scenes, and his eyes turned into stars every second. When he was pregnant, he often fantasized about his father teaching his children to paint. The years when fathers love filial piety are calm ... However, the fantasy is "sky blue and misty rain", but the reality is "the pen is put aside here". Children often leave a bunch of messy lines and run away, leaving some old mothers at a loss.

Later, after reading torii Zhao Mei's "Cultivating Children from Paintings" (hereinafter referred to as Bird Book), I realized that there was a lot of emphasis on artistic enlightenment. As the reference book said, I lowered my psychological expectation in time and adjusted the way to guide my children to draw. Sure enough, my children gradually took drawing as a part of their lives. Here, I want to share with you some of my feelings after reading the book for your reference.

How do people "teach" children to draw? Give the child a pen and let him draw a sun. If the child's painting is rough, we will think that the child is a little talented and can be cultivated well. Or take your child to an early education class or an art class. The teacher took the children to complete a "delicate" work, took photos and sent them to everyone, then secretly ticked off the list of enlightenment in his heart, thinking that our children had learned what others had learned and had a clear conscience.

So sometimes this process of enlightenment is more like a process of verification, a process of proving that my children are not behind others or that my children are better than their peers.

After reading the bird book, I know that children can't enter until they are nine or ten years old, which is what we often call the visual realism period. Before that, if children were forced to "teach" to draw concrete things, they might also "draw like", but in the long run, they might just copy what adults have taught them, but they can't draw what they want. The worst result is that they don't like painting.

What are the disadvantages of losing interest in painting, or what are the advantages of loving painting? The book has demonstrated the relationship between aesthetic education activities and personality development and emotional ability, so there is no need to go into details here. You can see for yourself and think for yourself. Here, I only mention a viewpoint on aesthetic education that has been verified by my own practice.

One day, I took my children to the small park downstairs to play. When the child sees a small flower in the bush, he wants to pick one. I said no, but he begged again and again. Then I suddenly remembered this sentence in the bird book, and told the child that you like flowers, and we can buy a pot and grow it ourselves. Really took the baby to the market to buy a pot of longevity flowers, changed the pot for watering flowers, and most of them were flowers every day, or scribbled small flowers on drawing paper at will, and the children enjoyed it. One day I asked him, can I pick one of your little flowers? The child immediately said no! Sure enough, children can establish moral order through aesthetic activities without discipline.

China people will use the language related to aesthetic consciousness to judge the value of personality, describe kind people and say that their hearts are "beautiful", so if aesthetic consciousness is not formed, the formation of moral consciousness will become passive water.

The above can be regarded as the concept that children should establish or change before painting, and then talk about how to do it.

When we go to the art gallery to see adult paintings, we just need to enjoy them quietly, while children's paintings need to be heard. "Because there are people who listen carefully and understand the painting content, their painting activities are complete." Therefore, it is necessary to cultivate children's enthusiasm for painting through language guidance.

Before the age of 3, parents can chat with their children while watching them draw. At this stage, children often explain while doodling. We can ask the child what he is drawing, and the child's answer may be uncertain. Apple for a while, peach for a while. This is the normal performance of meaningless graffiti period. Parents can follow their children's words, this apple is very big. Who is eating? Are apples sweet? Slowly let the children experience the happiness of being understood and cared for.

Children aged 2-3 can draw a closed circle, a long straight line or doodle. Parents should give affirmation or encouragement when they find out. What seems easy to us is actually a milestone leap for children, which means their enthusiasm for independent practice.

After the age of 3, painting became a planned activity. Children doodle meaningfully from the beginning, and the answer will not change. Therefore, when looking at three-year-old children's paintings, we should pay attention to asking more detailed questions, and at the same time pay more attention to combining life practice.

For example, I take my children to the botanical garden to observe the pond, and when I get home, I propose to draw a pond together, and the children will pay close attention. He found that some stagnant water in the pond was dirty, while other flowing water was clean. When drawing, I can distinguish the two by the color and the strength of my pen. When I see his "dirty pond", I will exaggerate that it is dirty, which means I can "get" his painting.

In short, when watching children's paintings of different ages, we should adjust the guide according to the content of the paintings. For example, there are anthropomorphic expressions in children's paintings and animals are painted like people, so we can cooperate with children to describe animals with anthropomorphic names.

I have seen some "ugly" photos of mothers in the circle of friends. This is the masterpiece of their own children. Some of the mothers in the painting have big mouths, some have explosive hair, some are seriously out of balance, leaving only big heads and limbs. Mothers will have different reactions when they see such pictures. Some just think that children's paintings make people laugh, but they don't observe them carefully. Some people may feel anxious. Can't the child draw? Do you want to enroll in an interest class?

After reading the bird book, I know that children of different ages can control lines and graphics of different colors, but this does not prevent children from drawing seriously. Appreciating children's works is not holding a bunch of rainbow farts without thinking, but carefully observing which parts of children's paintings are carefully drawn, and finding out such parts to encourage and praise, so that children can feel that their creations are really intentional and regard their parents as bosom friends.

We often say that children's paintings are made by masters, but in fact, masters are lazy. Pointing out the scribblings and perfunctory points in children's paintings positively, and guiding children to enrich the contents of paintings with language is the correct way to open accompanying paintings.

The most important thing in children's painting is "talking". Let's talk about what not to do as much as possible and why.

We often say that we should conform to children's growth and development and don't encourage them to do something. Then how can we determine when to guide children to do something? There is an interesting point in the book that "the order in which children's behaviors appear corresponds to the order of human evolution."

For example, the start time of graffiti can be used as an indicator for children to walk independently, because human beings can free their hands after walking upright, so when each child has the ability to pick up a brush is obviously different.

For another example, don't teach children words too early, because there are words before painting in human history. If children learn to write too early before they gain the ability to draw, when they hear a word, their minds will not be associated with the specific image, but with the word, and the painting content will be very poor.

There are also the reasons mentioned above that children should not be taught to draw adult paintings, which can also be seen from the history of art development. For example, medieval murals and Dunhuang murals, these great works of art are not superb in "skills", without perspective and anatomy, and the characters are "two-dimensional", but this does not prevent early painters from expressing their emotions and depicting the atmosphere in their paintings. Since the invention of photography technology, people will unconsciously say "this painting is really like a photo" when watching a painting. See? The development of technology sometimes narrows our aesthetics.

Therefore, children's paintings look naive and nothing, but they are real and natural. If parents must play the role of a prophet and teach their children how to draw in the future, children will subconsciously think that only "real" paintings are good paintings, and if they can't draw them themselves, they will lose confidence in painting. What should I do if I have "taught" preschool children to draw, or if my children have developed a sense of painting aversion? That's what I'm talking about.

The bird book says, "If parents didn't draw for their children first, two or three-year-old children would never ask their parents to draw for them." The focus of drawing with children is "chatting" rather than "demonstrating", but in the current educational environment, parents and teachers will more or less "teach" their children to draw, because if they don't demonstrate, some taciturn parents don't know what to do when drawing with their children, and if the teacher can't teach a "work", parents will feel that their children have learned nothing.

I don't think we should be too absolute about anything. About "teaching" children to draw, it depends on the specific situation. If children really like their parents' painting demonstrations and have not lost their enthusiasm for exploring painting, it is ok for parents to show by themselves, but they can innovate and add some artistic content in the process of demonstration, instead of drawing directly, and don't ask children to follow the gourd painting gourd ladle.

If children leave their brushes and run away because of their parents' persistent demonstration, and their interest in painting is obviously reduced, we can try the methods mentioned in the Bird Book to provide water or sand in their living environment, so that they can play freely and are not afraid of dirt, and soon the children can recover their autonomy and self-confidence. You can also create more opportunities to play side by side, so that children and children can draw together and stimulate their enthusiasm. Therefore, sometimes art classes are not for learning anything, but for finding a place to "paint together" and creating an occasion for children to "show" their works.

After reading the bird book, my biggest gain is that I have an overall understanding of the development of children's painting, and then I can better understand children's painting. When choosing kindergartens for children at the beginning of this year, we will pay special attention to the painting display wall at the school gate. Although I am not an expert, I can also see the artistic teaching attainments and ideas of some school teachers.

Of course, Bird Book also has some shortcomings, such as lack of coherence and utopian views, which may also be related to translation. It is good for everyone to combine their own reality and take the essence when reading.