Forgiving Mediums
After guiding a 3rd grade girl through a charcoal drawing we sat looking at her finished piece. I asked her what she thought about working with charcoal. “I love it. I love that you can try so many things with it and it’s ok if you don’t like it.” What she was eluding to was the fact that charcoal has the capacity to be a forgiving medium…once on the page, it can be changed.
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I don’t usually have students work from photos but in this case it seemed appropriate. A few weeks ago her mother shared a black and white silhouetted photo of her daughter at the beach and said, “Maybe she could use this for a portrait?” It turned out to be the perfect photo...the page was already divided into fourths with a different texture in each section (sky, water in the distance, foamy water, and rocks).
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Now, drawing can be daunting. Drawing from observation or with the goal of representing something is especially daunting. But I’ve worked with this student for over a year and I knew she was ready. I placed a large (18” x 24”), white paper in front of her and saw her eyes widen. “That’s huge!” I handed her a piece of vine charcoal and showed her how to use the side of it to cover the entire page. “The entire page?” “Yes. Go!”
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This student quickly realized that charcoal can be very forgiving. What is a forgiving medium? It’s a material that can be easily changed. You see, vine charcoal (very light and dusty charcoal) can be spread, blended, and erased multiple times. As long at is isn’t a super strong mark with compressed charcoal, you can sort of use the vine charcoal and an eraser to find your place and map things out. Once you’ve done that you can go in with the compressed charcoal. I was taught years ago in a drawing class to think of your eraser and your charcoal as equal drawing tools and I always share this sentiment with my students. You can use your eraser to draw highlights into your charcoal by purposefully removing charcoal in specific places. Don’t like it? Blend your charcoal right over it and try again!
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The most forgiving medium is without a doubt, clay. Clay can be smashed and reformed as many times as you like. The impermanence of the medium makes students immediately free. You can literally try anything and if it doesn’t work, you can smash it. And isn’t it fun to smash things sometimes?
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So…..if you’re at home and you don’t want to get charcoal dust everywhere or you don’t have a kiln to fire your clay, try air dry clay (model magic is a super lightweight and very affordable brand but there are many others, some that mimic the experience of working with real clay much better. - Try this one from Blick Art Supplies). Once this clay dries it can be painted. If you don’t want it to air dry just be sure to store it in an air tight bag. The temporary nature of clay is so good for children. Try having a clay station your children can use at home. It could even be an “experimental clay station”…encourage your kids to make something, observe it, learn from it, and then smash it up and put it away for next time!