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Melissa A. Maccini

Professor Amber Ward

Art Education 130

04 October 2016

Artistic Development Analysis and Research Paper

For this assignment, I made the choice to observe two children I know and love

quite dearly instead of observing random children in the Childrens Center. I felt that the

insight I could gain in one observation would be helpful for my project and that they

could also benefit from the experience. Gigi and Josette (Joie) are sisters. Gigi is nine-

years-old and in the third grade. Joie is seven-years-old and is in the first grade. They

both attend Saint Ignatius Parish School, a private Catholic Elementary School in

Sacramento. I met the girls when Gigi was five-years-old and Joie was three-years-old

because we were neighbors. I have been the nanny to the girls for the last couple of years.

Their parents are on-call doctors, one working for Kaiser Permanente and the other,

working for Sutter Hospital. Suzanne is an urologist while Jaime is an anesthesiologist.

They have incredibly stressful jobs with very inconsistent schedules. Both of Gigi and

Joies parents are very much involved with the girls, but their jobs do require significant

time away from them. I do my best to keep the family together, and help watch after and

raise both Gigi and Joie. Sadly, Suzanne and Jaime have recently chosen to separate. It

has been a very hard experience on the girls and is taking the family some getting used to

all the adjustments. Since this is an experience they are struggling with, an art project

would help them express some of their feelings. This assignment could provide each girl
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a creative outlet without the definition and structure that they receive from their normal

school work including school art projects.

I had a belief that a project aligned with the philosophies of Maria Montessori

would be most appropriate. While Montessoris beginning work was centered on clinical

observations of children with special needs, she did later move to research with very

young children and the children in their early school years. She referred to the child

before age six as the absorbent mind and the six to twelve age group as the conscious

mind. Montessori saw the conscious mind period as a time where the child makes lots of

changes (Aubrey & Riley, 2016). Gigi and Joie both fall into this conscious mind period.

During the period that Montessori saw as a childs metamorphosis years, Gigi and Joies

normal routines have been significantly changed because of their parents separation. The

family unit change has taken away some of the choices and flexibility that they have

become accustomed to and forced them to adapt to two houses and lack of two parent

time. So not only are they changing, but their life as they absorbed in the early years is

also changing. This has created some emotional challenges for them. It should also be

noted that Gigi and Joie are in classrooms with over thirty-five students in each room. In

order to accommodate the large number of students in the class, the Catholic education

while very family and support oriented tends to be very structured and does not allow

much room for individuality. Because of the rigidness of the academic environment and

the fact that the separation was happening to them, this project was designed to allow

both girls to become the agents of their own project where they were able to exhibit some

self-control and gain confidence in their own choices much like they would experience in

a Montessori environment (2016). Aubrey and Riley described Montessoris method as

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providing the importance of freedom and individual choice by allowing the child to

choose their own activities. They also wrote of Montessoris belief that this was a time

where children have a natural desire to help others (2016).

In order for each girl to have an opportunity to experience the freedom to choose

what they wanted to create, no direct instruction was given prior or during the project.

They were made aware that they were helping me with my college course and that I

would be observing their work. Different art mediums and elements were provided

allowing the girls the freedom to choose how they would proceed. The table was set with

a book of construction paper with various colors and sizes of paper, a box of colored

pencils, a box of Crayola Washable Markers, a box of Crayola Crayons, and a pair of

scissors. The only stipulation was a time limit of twenty-five-minutes, but Gigi and Joie

were not able to see the time on the clock. Each girl was isolated from the sibling in a

main work area where they are comfortable doing work and play. I was the only other

person in the room so that I could make the observations.

Gigi, the nine-year-old, was the first to start the project and she chose a smaller,

plain piece of construction paper. She chose to work with colored pencils as her preferred

medium, and started with the color brown. She began in the center of her paper and then

worked her way downward to create what appeared to be a tree trunk. She later, worked

her way up from the center of the paper to create branches. She maximized her space in

the center of the construction paper, and continued to draw. She colored well, adding

small detail to the branches by making them curve different ways. Gigi did not draw any

leaves, flowers, fruit, or animals in the tree. She continued by drawing a swing from the

biggest branch in the tree with a girl sitting on the swing. The girl had on a blue dress,
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and had long brown hair. She did not draw any facial features on the girl. She drew the

girl as if she would be facing the person who would be looking at this girl swinging on

the tree. Gigi switched her choice of medium from colored pencils, to crayons, and

chooses a dark blue color. She drew a line starting from the bottom of the page, moving

upward and very rapidly coloring the white page until it is entirely covered in dark blue.

She started with soft strokes, in the same direction all throughout the paper and then

applied a lot of pressure the more she colored. She moved the paper in different

directions, but kept a horizontal drawing stroke. She left a slight bubble around the tree,

not wanting to mix the blue with the brown colored pencil. She maximized all of her

paper, and created a nighttime sky.

As I am observing her drawing, I was also observing her. I noticed that she was

quiet, kept to herself as she colored and took time to think what to do next. She appeared

nervous. She wanted to be sure that she was creating something that would be pretty, but

also beneficial for my assignment. She has always liked structure in her routines, and it is

out of her comfort zone to have very little to no rules when doing an assignment. When

she reached what I believe to be the ending of her piece, she begans to ask me questions

and have a conversation with me. She became comfortable and relieved. She added more

detail to her drawing by picking up a yellow crayon and creating a moon. She colored a

circle in the upper right corner of her paper with a yellow crayon, over the sky, which

added a cloudy, distant effect. She then took a red crayon and drew shooting stars over

the sky, giving the same effect. She wanted to finish the piece and begins to rush. She

was not as careful with her coloring strokes or details. Eventually, the time ran out and I

asked her to put everything down. I proceeded to ask her questions about what she had
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created, and ask her to explain the drawing to me. She replied with, My sister asked me

one day to draw a picture of a tree with a ghost or girl on a swing and I remembered that

so I decided to do that picture for her now. This piece is special to me. I asked her,

why? She responds, Anything that my sister does that is good, I find special. I drew

this for her because she asked me to a while ago and I never did. I wanted her to know Ir

remembered and to make happy. I asked her, Was this assignment hard or difficult for

you? She responded saying; It just came to me when I looked at the colored pencils. I

noticed a brown pencil and it triggered my memory and I remembered to draw a tree for

Joie, my sister. My last question was, Did you choose a white piece of construction

paper as a background for a reason? Her response was, I chose white because I didnt

know what I was going to start with. I didnt know what I was going to draw or what

colors I would use, so I chose white to be safe. She was very excited about this activity,

and wants me to do something like this again. I think I will.

Gigis drawing does support Montessoris belief that children between the ages of

six and twelve like to help others. Gigi was inspired to do this project because her sister

had wanted a picture similar to this. She wanted to do something to make Joie happy.

Also, support of Lev Vygotskys theories could be found in the work that Gigi did. She

did need the support and encouragement to work to her capabilities, but once she had

achieved success she had the confidence and excitement to want to do a similar project.

Vygotsky also focused his theories around the social and cultural process and said they

played a critical role in their construction of knowledge (Aubrey & Riley, 2016). One

perception of the faceless girl and the darker colors might be an expression of the sadness

and unknowns that Gigi is feeling. Also, when reading and looking at the drawings in
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Lowenfeld and Brittain writings, Gigi did align with some of the Schematic Stage, but

you could tell that she is transitioning into the Gang Age. The drawing did reflect her

knowledge of the environment and there was little or no overlapping. More aligned with

the Gang Age, she had the sky now came down to the horizon and her little girl was rigid

but had some detail in clothes and less stick person like (1987).

Next Gigi went into the other room and then Joie joined me in the room and took

a seat at the table with the same materials provided to Gigi. Joie began working

immediately. She chose the pink paper because pink is her favorite color. She chooses

crayons as her medium, and did not use anything else but the box of crayons to create her

drawing. She picked up a pink crayon, and started to draw pieces of candy in the middle

of her paper. She only drew three pieces of candy to start with, and she separated them

from one another. Joie only chose the bright colors and applied significant pressure. She

continued drawing adding a collage of similar size hearts and flowers covering the entire

paper. As she continued the designs got larger and encompassed the smaller designs. Joie

added a large peace sign followed by an exclamation point and a huge M in the middle of

the peace sign. Her project was complete. She had chosen similar bright colors

throughout the project. When asked to describe her project, Joie began by saying these

are all things I love. She said she chose the pink paper because it would create a pretty

background and the she likes pink cotton candy and lollipops. She was really proud of

what she drew and she put the M on the page for her mom because she wanted to give her

the picture for her birthday. The peace sign represented her class at school which is the

Peacemakers.
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Joies drawings also showed that she was aligned with Preschematic Stage

because her drawing used the entire paper and the items seem to float around the page.

The size of the objects was not proportion to one another. She did want the art to be a

communication of herself by adding her name and drawing the peace sign to represent

her and her classmates. She also had some characteristics of the Schematic Stage because

until the end when she added the big M and peace sign, she did not overlap her drawings

and she repeated her drawings over and over again.

As Maria Montessori observed, the observation of Joie and Gigi demonstrated

that children in the conscious mind period do enjoy the opportunity to create and define

their work. The girls were able to demonstrate self-control and create a product that they

can be proud of. Both girls projects did demonstrate the influence of their social

background that Vygotsky wrote about (Aubrey & Riley, 2016). The stages of

development as described in Lowenfeld and Brittain could clearly be seen. Both girls had

characteristics of two areas as described by the authors. Joie had some pre-schematic and

schematic while Gigi showed signs of the schematic and gang characteristics which are

interesting because their age is at the top end of one stage and the very beginning of the

next stage (Lowenfeld & Brittain, 1987). I would definitely want to provide another

opportunity for the girls to perform a similar project, but give them a little direction like

draw a person doing something of your choice. I think that would provide even more

context to support or not support Lowenfeld and Brittainss theories. I also wonder if my

intimate knowledge of the girls influenced what I saw in their art work. I think I would

like to include both Gigi and Joie and a couple of other children their age including a

male to observe the similarities and differences of their choices and outcomes. I do
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support Maria Montessoris theory that students need an opportunity to express

themselves without always lots of direct instruction and required outcome.

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References

Aubrey, K. & Riley, A. (2016). Understanding and using educational theories. Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage, 19-31, 47-58.

Lowenfeld, V & Brittain, W.L., (1987). Creative and mental growth. Upper Saddle River,

N.J., 471-479.