Art Fu

We often try to integrate other disciplines into our movement curriculum, and with Lewis Elementary’s annual school-wide “Art Night” fast approaching, we looked to challenge students to engage in a right brained, quick-sketch figure drawing lesson that comes straight out of the classic drawing instruction guide, Drawing From The Right Side of The Brain by Betty Edwards. This particular exercise encourages the artist to draw what is observed rather than what is known, by tracing only the outline, or shape of a given object or figure (in this case students took individual turns posing in the center of the artists’ circle for all others, and holding their favorite Kung Fu stance for 30-seconds at a turn). To discipline oneself to completely disregard what is known, or the brains’ attempt to interfere and replicate a foot that looks like an accepted image of a foot can actually be quite liberating. It requires one to ignore the inner critic, and let go of any inpulse to echew realism, by “getting squiggly with it!”