I was trying to come up with another idea for art class – we have done a lot with pencil and very basic elements of visual art. I just am not going to set up paints in my classroom. So I thought about doodling – which kids do so much on their papers when they are bored. I thought that maybe they wouldn’t let themselves get hung up on creating something that looked like an actual object.

They did the doodles yesterday – and today they had to follow directions on creating a small construction paper frame (including math…). They were to use the frame to isolate a part of their doodle that they really liked and then color just that part. They would mount the frame over that piece, leaving the rest of the doodle so viewers could see the whole inspiration.

We don’t have any display bulletin boards, so I decided to mount the doodles on the empty lockers outside the classrooms, and some of the kids cut out letters for “Doodle Art” in school colors. The display looks quite nice. I think the kids were quite surprised at how a simple doodle could turn into a piece of art. Some of my “harder” eighth grade boys spent a lot of time looking at the designs, pleased to show off their own. I’ll try to get pictures.

We are moving from the doodles to “digital doodles,” letting the kids fool around with Photoshop and try some of the brushes and shapes. They are much freer to try things in Photoshop since they can just delete layers.