I'm now completely sold on teaching 'collaborative' art lessons in the classroom. I think the benefits are:
- It takes away the stress associated with producing something perfect. Since I knew that, no matter what I did, I would not be able to control exactly what the final artwork would look like, I felt like I had the freedom to experiment and try out new techniques, rather than obsessively trying to make every brushstroke perfect.
- Since we've been told in lectures that students tend to stop enjoying art once they reach the stage where they want to make their artworks realistic, I think that taking the focus away from perfection is really very important.
- It adds an element of mystery and surprise to the lesson. I was really excited during the tutorial because I didn't quite know what I'd be taking out of it.
- It creates a sense of community. While in previous art tutorials I'd felt very 'solitary', throughout the tutorial I was very aware of what everyone else was doing. I discussed how I planned to paint my pieces. I talked about different painting techniques. I feel like creating a collaborative artwork opened a door in my head, which gave me the freedom to interact more with others.
- I imagine that this sense of community could be extended from the classroom to the entire school, depending on how the artwork is produced.
- It was incredibly motivating. Since I knew that I was painting for someone else (rather than for myself) I felt like I had a goal to reach. I wanted to produce something wonderful! And so I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, which probably wouldn't have happened if I'd simply been working on my own.
I searched the internet for some other collaborative artwork ideas and this is what I found (click on the pictures to go to the original site).
http://www.beacon.org/client/pdfs/6619_ch1.pdf
What I found interesting in this is the suggestion that by collaborating, children can create an artwork that is much more complex than anything they'd be able to create on their own, which must be very inspiring!
(This isn't something that could be used in the classroom for creating art, but I did find it very interesting! It could possibly be used for art appreciation.)
