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TALKS 
 
 ON 
 
 DRAWING, PAINTING, MAKING, 
 DECORATING 
 
 FOR 
 
 PRIMARY TEACHERS 
 
 LOU ELEANOR, COLBY 
 
 CHICAGO 
 
 SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
 
Copyright, 1909 
 
 By SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 TO THE HUNDREDS OF EAGER, EARNEST, 
 SYMPATHETIC TEACHERS WHOSE RESPON- 
 SIVE AND APPRECIATIVE WORDS HAVE 
 BEEN A DELIGHT AND INSPIRATION TO 
 ME, AND TO THE MANY OTHER PRIMARY 
 TEACHERS, NOT LESS EARNEST, WHOM IT 
 HAS NEVER BEEN MY PRIVILEGE TO MEET. 
 
 Lou Eleanor Colby 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/talksondrawingpaOOcolb 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I. DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 
 
 Selecting Stories, 12. Supernatural Stories Undesirable, 14. 
 Seasonable Stories, 14. Dramatic Action and Incident, 15. 
 Small Objects Undesirable, 16. Relating to Other Drawing 
 Work, 17 Costume Poses, 17. Sub-dividing Long Stories, 
 17. Importance Definite Plan, 20. Helping the Children, 
 21. Gettrng Spirit of Story, 22. Criticism, 22. Suggestive 
 List of Stories, 24. 
 
 II. DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 Choice and Care of Flowers, 25. Placing the Flowers, 26. 
 Grasses, 27. Sedges, 28. Flowers, 28. Criticism, 29. Esti- 
 mating Results, 31. Illustrations, 31. Light and Shade, 
 32. Direct Handling, 33. Masses Rather than Detail, 33. 
 Painting Fruit, 34. Spring Work, 34. Shadow Pictures, 35. 
 Pencil Work, 36. Choice and Care of Pencil, 37. Colored 
 Crayons, 38. Many Mediums,' One Aim, 38 
 
 III. DRAWING FROM PEOPLE 
 
 Mediums for Pose Work, 40. Straight Line Drawing for 
 Action, 40. Suggestive Lessons, 41. Changing Line Pictures 
 to Shadow Pictures, 42. Color over Action Lines, 43. 
 Straight Line Figures in Illustrative Work, 43. Regular 
 Pose Work, 44. Brush and Ink and Color, 44. Time for 
 a Pose Drawing, 44. Where to Pose the Child, 45. Costume 
 Poses, 45. Suggestive Verses or Songs, 46. Variety, 47. 
 Occupation Poses, 48. Suggested Poses, 48. Seasonable 
 Poses, 48. Miscellaneous Poses, 48. 
 
 IV. DRAWING FROM ANIMALS 
 
 Drawing Animals Out-of-Doors, 49. Preparation for Out- 
 of-Door Lesson, 50. Placing the Children, 51. Frequency 
 of Out-of-Door Lessons, 52. Drawing Animals in the School- 
 room, 52 Posing the Animal, 53. Suitable Mediums, 53. 
 Good Subjects for Water Colors, 53. Reproductions, 54. 
 When Animals Change Position, 55. Memory Snap Shots, 
 55. Drawing from Stuffed Birds, 56. Drawing Toy Ani- 
 mals, 56. Collecting Pictures, 57. An Animal Game, 58. 
 Wall Pictures, 58. 
 
 V. DRAWING FROM THINGS 
 
 Providing Objects, 59. Choosing Suitaole Objects, 60. 
 Developing Quick Observation, 61. Interesting Objects, 62. 
 Drawing from Block Building, 62. Placing Objects, 63. 
 Object and Background, 64. Presenting the Lessons, 64. 
 Changing Position of Objects, 64. What to Work For, 65. 
 Size of Drawings, 66. Technique, 67. Marking the Draw- 
 ings, 68. Erasers, 69. Objects in Color, 69. 
 
 3' 
 
4 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 VI. PAINTING AND COLOR 71 
 
 Painting Color Washes, 73. Other Suggestive Wash Exer- 
 cises, 74. Seat Work, 75. Rainbow Dolls, 76. Color Days, 
 
 77. Stained Glass Effects, 78. A Fall Exercise, 79. Soap 
 Bubble Painting, 80. The Prism, 80. Tissue Paper, 80. 
 
 VII. MAKING AND DECORATING 81 
 
 The Doll House, 81. Papering and Carpeting, 84. The 
 Curtains, 85. First Making Work, 85. Sixteen Square Fold, 
 
 85. Original Making, 87. Love of Good Workmanship, 89. 
 Transportation Lesson, 89. Decoration of Objects, 90. 
 
 VIII. WORKING IN CLAY 93 
 
 Expense of Material, 93. Objections Easily Overcome, 93. 
 Preparation and Care, 94. Preparing Desks for Modeling 
 Lesson, 95. ( Overworking the Clay, 95. Purifying the Clay, 
 
 95. Story Telling in Clay, 96. Fruit and Vegetables, 98. 
 Modeling Twigs, 98. Modeling Type Forms, 99. Modeling 
 Pottery, 99. Modeling Birds and Animals, 100. Making 
 a Framework, 101. Modeling from People, 102. Results, 
 
 102 . 
 
 IX. CUTTING FROM PAPER 103 
 
 Scissors, 104. First Work, 104. Ways of Working, 106. 
 Cutting from Dictation, 106. Cutting from Objects or Pic- 
 tures, 109. Cutting from Imagination, 113. Cutting for 
 Busy Work, 113. 
 
 x. special Days 1 15 
 
 Thanksgiving, 115. Christmas, 120. New Year, 123. Val- 
 entine Day, 123. Washington’s Birthday, 125. Easter, 126. 
 April Suggestions, 127. May Day, 127. Arbor Day, 128. 
 Decoration Day, 128. 
 
 xi. Care and distribution of materials 129 
 
 Water Colors School Property, 129. Ownership of Boxes, 
 
 130. Place for Boxes, 131. Water Pans, 132. Paint 
 Cloths, 132. Place for Everything, 133. Cleaning the 
 Paints, 133. Pencils, 133. Desk Boards, 134. Scissors, 
 
 134. Paste, 136. Brush and Ink, 136. Saving Draw- 
 ings, 137. 
 
 XII. PLANNING THE WORK 139 
 
 Planning by Supervisor and Grade Teacher, 139. How to 
 Plan, 139. Choice of Plans, 140. Best Plan for Young 
 Children, 140. Two Ways Laying out Work for Month, 141. 
 Topical Program, 142. Daily and Weekly Program, 142. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 This book is meant to be a friend, just a com- 
 panionable friend, to Primary Teachers — one to whom 
 they may go for help; one perchance with whom they 
 may occasionally differ, but only as friends differ, to 
 come together again. 
 
 There is no fixed and unvarying method for teach- 
 ing a child to draw, paint, model, or construct. He 
 who woidd attempt to furnish such might indeed, 
 teach him to handle pencil, brush, scissors, or clay 
 with considerable deftness and precision, but with 
 results bearing the stamp in a large degree of mere 
 cleverness and skill in mimicry. Meantime, the happy 
 years of childhood would have slipped away and little 
 would have been added to the child’s vividness of 
 imagination, his quickness and accuracy of observa- 
 tion, and his power of expression and creation. 
 
 The book is chiefly a record of experiences, a com- 
 pilation of good things done by teachers here and 
 there which are worth bringing together and carrying 
 to all others whose opportunities perhaps have been 
 more limited. While the writer’s own experience as 
 a director and teacher of drawing for several years 
 has been drawn upon, the contents of the book have 
 been determined largely by her observation of the 
 work done by other teachers located in many schools 
 
 and many cities. For this reason it is believed the 
 
 5 
 
6 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 material here furnished will be helpful to primary 
 teachers everywhere irrespective of local conditions. 
 
 In those cities and towns where the grade teachers 
 have the inspiration and the helpful criticism and direc- 
 tion of a Supervisor of Drawing, the book should serve 
 a useful purpose in supplementing the directions of 
 the Supervisor. Jn schools where teachers are doing 
 the drawing and construction work without the guid- 
 anee of a Supervisor, it should easily suggest enough 
 definite, suitable, and interesting exercises in drawing, 
 making, and decorating to cover at least the First and 
 Second Primary Years. It is believed, in fact, that 
 the book will furnish a fairly complete course in the 
 work for any primary teacher who is forced to draw 
 upon her own resources in teaching the subject. 
 
 No teacher will be compelled to take a course 
 in Pedagogy and Psychology in order to understand 
 and use this book. In a manner which we hope will 
 be found clear, direct, and pleasing it makes plain 
 what may be done in the various subjects and how 
 to do it. While a trained and experienced teacher 
 may possibly get more out of it than any other, it is 
 designed to carry a helpful message to the teacher of 
 more limited experience and training. It will at least 
 carry to all in simplest terms the results of approved 
 experience in selection and in method, suggesting 
 through the typical exercises presented under each 
 subject a great variety of related exercises, limited only 
 by the discrimination, the ingenuity, and the resource- 
 fulness of the teacher. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 7 
 
 While the book is non-technical in the educational 
 and art sense, the writer is confident it will be found 
 sound in all the essential principles which underlie 
 form expression of whatever kind, whether practised 
 by primary or upper grade pupils or by the adult. 
 It aims to make the child’s first crude efforts as 
 purposeful as his later and more formal ones — to 
 create standards, to encourage originality and 
 invention, to cultivate freedom along with exactness, 
 to develop seeing power and skill of hand, and to 
 help the pupil sense the quality of beauty in the 
 usefnl thing. 
 
 A special feature has been made of the illustra- 
 tions of vihich there are many, covering every impor- 
 tant point in the text. These, with few exceptions, 
 have been placed in the margin and as near the text 
 reference as possible for the convenience of the teacher. 
 They are not used in the book as examples of 
 technique, but almost entirely to make clear the 
 points covered by the text, and to guard against any 
 possible misinterpretation. 
 
 Another feature of the book which will undoubt- 
 edly appeal to teachers, is the large number of repro- 
 ductions of pupils’ work which appear on its pages. 
 There are many of these distributed throughout the 
 book under the various subjects treated. The originals 
 were selected from many schools and not only serve 
 an admirable purpose in illustrating text points but 
 afford an excellent basis for comparison and for meas- 
 uring local results. 
 
8 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It may be noted that the subject of landscape has 
 been omitted from the book. This omission is due to 
 a growing tendency to teacli landscape in connection 
 with illustrative work. If the teacher is telling the 
 children a story of boys flying their kites out in the 
 green fields beneath the blue skv, it is not drawing 
 from imagination alone when they try to picture the 
 scene. It is landscape drawing as well. The same 
 thing is true when they try to picture the Hans Ander- 
 sen story of the “Snow Man.” The children are 
 intensely interested in having their pictures show how 
 winter looks with its cold gray sky, bare trees, and 
 white ground. When drawing from imagination is 
 carried on in this way, the children cannot fail to 
 learn many things which will prepare them for the 
 actual study of landscape later. 
 
 To all who have assisted me in the preparation 
 of this book by furnishing materials for illustration 
 and otherwise, and especially to Mrs. M. E. Riley, 
 Supervisor of Drawing, St. Louis, Mrs. Ida Hood 
 Clark, Director of Elementary Manual Training, Mil- 
 waukee, Miss Emelia M. Goldsworthy, Art Instructor, 
 W estern State Normal School, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 
 and to Miss Jessie Buckner, Art Instructor, Western 
 State Normal School, Macomb, Illinois, I wish to 
 make grateful acknowledgment of my obligation. 
 
 In closing, the author wishes to express the hope 
 that the teachers will share with the children the joy 
 which comes from such work as this book contains 
 and suggests. To none of the great family of grown- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 9 
 
 up children has it been granted in larger degree to 
 keep the heart childlike than to the Primary Teacher. 
 
 “The happiest heart is childlike, 
 
 It never quite grows old. 
 
 It sees the sunset's splendor 
 As it saw the dawning gold. 
 
 It has a gift for gladness, 
 
 Its dreams die not away, 
 
 ‘Oh what a foolish happy heart’ 
 
 The worldlier people say." 
 
 Lou Eleanor Colby. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Talks ok 
 
 Di ? awing, Painting, Making, Decorating 
 
 I. DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 
 
 If imaginative drawing were taught with the same 
 system and persistence through all the grades as is 
 the language work, the pupil would leave school with 
 as much command over the one means of expression as 
 the other, for drawing is as natural at least to the child 
 as writing and is used by him much earlier. It is not 
 necessary to wait until the pupil is supplied with the 
 regulation paper and drawing pencil before beginning 
 the lessons, for his ordinary pad and pencil may be 
 made to do service in this story-telling work, if nothing 
 else is available. Drawing from imagination for story 
 telling or illustration is the easiest step to take in going 
 from the child’s hitherto unguided home efforts to 
 the carefully planned work of the schoolroom. 
 
 The drawings of primitive races were mere symbols, 
 and it was long ago discovered that the child repeats, 
 in a measure, in his own unguided drawing, the graphic 
 expression of these races. In the mind of every child 
 there seem to be certain symbols which stand for the 
 objects which he tries to represent, and the primary 
 teacher, whether in Maine, California, Minnesota, or 
 Texas, will find that the first imaginative drawings 
 
 show the use of almost the same symbols. Alen and 
 
 11 
 
12 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 boys are almost invariably pictured in this manner 
 (Fig. 1), while the women and girls are rendered some- 
 thing like Fig. 2, with lines added to suggest a skirt, 
 and variation in style of head-dress. The X-Ray 
 effect of this drawing as shown in the girl’s skirt is 
 quite common in the drawings of children. Every 
 teacher is familiar with the pictures of houses which 
 show not only the outside of them, but the furniture 
 within. However, children like to draw, and it should 
 be the effort of the teacher to preserve this spontaneity 
 and enthusiasm while she gradually develops the power 
 of observation and consequently the power to express 
 with more consistency and truth. “Creative imagina- 
 tion is the common factor in all studies,” and every 
 effort made by the pupil in illustrative drawing should 
 serve to stimulate the imagination and quicken the 
 observation and memory. 
 
 The teacher should select stories which are full of 
 interest to the children, and these stories should deal 
 with objects, incidents, and scenes with which the 
 children are familiar, through actual contact or par- 
 ticipation, or by having seen them frequently pictured, 
 so that a mental image has been formed. For instance, 
 the story of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” is 
 intensely interesting to children, but, until the advent 
 of the Teddy Bear, it is doubtful whether children 
 could illustrate it as effectively as now, having had 
 previously on'y a vague notion of the appearance of a 
 bear. Now, however, it may be numbered among the 
 really good stories for child picturing. 
 
 SELECTING 
 
 STORIES 
 
 2 
 
DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 
 
 13 
 
 We have seen a wonderfully good set of drawings 
 based on this story. Before drawing, each scene was 
 represented by using a doll to impersonate Goldilocks, 
 and Teddy Bears of various sizes for the real bears, 
 while boxes served to represent chairs and beds. The 
 delight of the children was evident. They were allowed 
 to discuss the scenes after looking at them. The 
 objects were then covered and the pictures were made. 
 The results were a credit to the children, for, crude as 
 were the pictures, they were full of spirit and action. 
 It is admitted that this method makes the drawing to 
 a certain extent an act of memory. 
 
 If pictures are utilized in an illustrative lesson, 
 there should be several instead of one. For instance, 
 if children are shown a picture of “Bed Biding Hood 
 and the Wolf” before illustrating that story, the 
 chances are every paper will show that particular Bed 
 Biding Hood and that particular Wolf. In fact, the 
 drawings will show little creative imagination on the 
 part of the children. They have simply copied the 
 picture type in so far as they are aide to copy. 
 Before attempting to picture this story again, it is 
 suggested that the teacher make a collection of wolf 
 pictures, cutting them from magazines, posters, or 
 newspapers, and mounting on cardboard. Tell the 
 story as graphically as possible and then talk about 
 wolves — what they look like, where and how they 
 live, etc., showing the pictures as you talk. Then, 
 if the pictures be put out of sight, it will be 
 found that the story pictures made by the children 
 
14 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 show they have made a good step beyond mere 
 copying. 
 
 Do not ask children to illustrate stories which 
 require the drawing of gods, goddesses, or other 
 supernatural beings, for although the average child will 
 undertake anything, the results cannot fail to be de- 
 pressing even when viewed with his childish eyes. The 
 writer once visited a room when the teacher was tellino- 
 the story of the “Nine Muses, ” and the poor children 
 were immersed in gloom trying to picture them on 
 paper. At Easter Time she saw children in another 
 room trying to picture the story of the resurrection with 
 the angel at the tomb. At first it seemed monstrously 
 sacrilegious, but the children were so serious that one 
 could readily see they did not feel it to be so. It was 
 pitiful to see them attempt a subject which only tw o or 
 three of the world’s greatest artists have essayed. The 
 tension of feeling was much lessened when one little 
 fellow said confidentially, as she passed his desk, “Mine 
 is an awfully wild Indian-looking angel. I guess I'll 
 put him behind a cloud, and that'll fix him. He can 
 just be peeking out.’’ The accompanying reproduction 
 (Fig. 3) shows how his drawing appeared after it was 
 “ fixed." 
 
 Much depends upon the selection of seasonable 
 stories, for the children throw all of their enthusiasm 
 into illustrating the thing which fills their hearts and 
 minds We knew a teacher who tested a class by 
 telling the Santa Claus story on a warm May day. 
 The results on paper were unspeakable, and to have 
 
 SUPER- 
 
 NATURAL 
 
 STORIES 
 
 UNDESIR- 
 
 ABLE 
 
 SEASON- 
 
 ABLE 
 
 STORIES 
 
Plate B 
 
DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 
 
 15 
 
 done such a thing often would surely have been 
 most detrimental both to the children and to their 
 illustrative drawing. Use the material which comes to 
 hand while it is fresh. If the band passes the school, 
 let the children go to the windows and watch as well as 
 listen. “How does the drum major dress? How does 
 he walk ? What does he do ? See the fellow blowing 
 the big horn! etc.” When they take their seats let the 
 children draw pictures to show how the band looked. 
 Do not wait until the regular drawing period. Let 
 pupils draw while the picture is fresh in their minds, and 
 the results will justify the slight inconvenience caused 
 by varying the daily program. The pictures shown in 
 Plates A, B, E, F were drawn while the children 
 were still full of excitement over a fire in the neighbor- 
 hood. The drawings were made in two widely sepa- 
 rated cities. In one case the work was done with brush 
 and ink, while in the other, colored crayons were used. 
 Notice how full of spirit and action the crude little 
 pictures are. A circus in town furnishes an oppor- 
 tunity for a fine drawing lesson. It is interesting to 
 note the variety in the pictures here shown (Plates A 
 and E), but although the interpretations were many 
 and varied, one feels that the children worked with a 
 joy and enthusiasm which few other subjects could 
 have elicited. 
 
 dramatic The child is at first satisfied with very crude results, 
 ™ and his figures are almost entirely devoid of action. 
 incident In the most dramatic manner recite the story of the 
 “Gingerbread Man,” laying great stress on that part 
 
16 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 which says of the little old woman, “She ran and she 
 ran and she ran, but she couldn't catch the ginger- 
 bread man." When you inspect the drawings, you will 
 be surprised to find that hardly a child has shown any 
 action in either the gingerbread man or the old lady. 
 The children have shown the old lady’s sunbonnet, her 
 checked apron and her spectacles, for children love 
 detail (Fig. 4), but the old lady herself stands placidly 
 on her side of the paper and the gingerbread man 
 on his. The next day or on the occasion of the next 
 lesson, dress a little girl in sunbonnet and apron and 
 let her run back and forth before the children, or 
 around the room, while the children watch the action 
 of her body and the position of her arms. Have them 
 try to draw a girl running. Then try the story again 
 and you will find that some of the children at least 
 have sensed and expressed the idea of motion (Fig. 5), 
 and although the old lady’s proportions leave much 
 to be desired, the drawings will show more or less 
 successful effort to represent action. This dramati- 
 zation of stories may be made most helpful and 
 should be practiced whenever possible. Knowledge 
 gained in pose drawing will also find its application 
 here. 
 
 The story of the little bird that carried straw to 
 build a nest in the tree brings in problems of proportion 
 which lead to trouble. Plainly, the bird is the impor- 
 tant factor in the story, and should be given due promi- 
 nence. The straw for building the nest is likewise 
 important. Consequently, we have something like this 
 
 SMALL 
 
 OBJECTS 
 
 UNDESIR- 
 
 ABLE 
 
 4 
 
DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 17 
 
 RELATING 
 TO OTHER 
 DRAWING 
 WORK 
 
 COSTUME 
 
 POSES 
 
 SUB- 
 
 DIVIDING 
 
 LONG 
 
 STORIES 
 
 (Fig. 6), for the drawing paper lias fixed dimensions, 
 and the bird and straw leave little room for the tree. 
 
 When the children are studying trees in connection 
 with their nature work,- or are making- drawings from 
 the schoolroom windows to show how the different 
 trees look, or how they tell the story of “nearness and 
 farness,” let the illustrative work include the drawing 
 of trees. The story of “The Discontented Fir Tree” 
 is familiar to all lovers of Andersen’s Tales and is a 
 fine winter story. The fable of the man who went 
 through the woods hunting for the pot of gold is good. 
 Every teacher can find or recall a dozen equally suit- 
 able stories. 
 
 Costume poses add great zest to the story. Cos- 
 tumes need not be pretentious to satisfy the children. 
 A paper crown is all that is needed to transform a boy 
 into a king; a cap and a kerchief make a pilgrim maiden 
 of a girl, while only a large liat, a cane with a crooked 
 handle and perhaps a toy sheep will create a “Bopeep.” 
 
 Long stories may be broken into several parts or 
 steps so as to furnish several pictures. If too much is 
 told at one time, the child cannot grasp it, and no one 
 picture is imaged clearly in his mind. lie is confused 
 by a number of images. It is better to tell such stories 
 in installments. There is no story in the English lan- 
 guage better adapted for illustrative purposes in the 
 schoolroom than “Johnny Look-in-the-air.” It is most 
 interesting because it deals with familiar objects, and is 
 full of dramatic action and incident. It should, how- 
 ever, be separated into at least four parts and made to 
 
 6 
 
18 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 furnish material for several lessons. Here is the poem, 
 and the accompanying drawings (Plates C and D), 
 made by second grade children, show with what interest 
 they interpreted the story of the poem. 
 
 JOHNNY LOOK-IN-THE-AIR 
 
 i 
 
 As he trudged along to school, 
 
 It was always Johnny’s rule 
 To be looking at the sky 
 And the clouds that floated by; 
 
 Put what just before him lay 
 In his way, 
 
 Johnny never thought about; 
 
 So that everyone cried out, — 
 
 “Look at little Johnny there! 
 
 Little Johnny Look-in- the-air.” 
 
 ii 
 
 Running just in Johnny’s way 
 Came a little dog one day; 
 
 Johnny’s eyes were still astray 
 Up high in the sky, 
 
 And he never heard them cry, — 
 
 “Johnny, mind, the dog is nigh!” 
 
 What happens now ? 
 
 Pump ! 
 
 Dump ! 
 
 Down they fell with such a thump 
 Dog and Johnny in a lump! 
 
 They almost broke their bones, 
 
 So hard they tumbled on the stones. 
 
 hi 
 
 Once with head as high as ever, 
 
 Johnny walked beside the river, 
 
 Johnny watched the swallows trying 
 Which was cleverest at flying. 
 
Pl ATE D 
 
DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 
 
 19 
 
 Oh! What fun! 
 
 Johnny watched the bright round sun, 
 Going in and coming out, 
 
 This was all he thought about, 
 
 So he strode on, only think! 
 
 To the river’s very brink, 
 
 Where the bank was high and steep. 
 And the water very deep; 
 
 And three fishes in a row. 
 
 Stared to see him coming so. 
 
 IV 
 
 One step more! oh! sad to tell! 
 Headlong in poor Johnny fell. 
 
 The three little fishes in dismay 
 Wagged their heads and swam away. 
 But as they were passing by 
 Two strong men had heard him cry; 
 And with sticks these two strong men 
 Hooked poor Johnny out again. 
 
 Oh! you should have seen him shiver 
 When they pulled him from the river. 
 He was in a sorry plight, 
 
 Dripping wet, and such a fright! 
 
 Wet all over, everywhere, 
 
 Clothes, and arms, and face, and hair, 
 Johnny never will forget 
 What it is to be so wet. 
 
 And the fishes, one, two, three, 
 
 Are come back again, you see; 
 
 Up they came the moment after 
 To enjoy the fun and laughter. 
 
 Each popped out his little head 
 And to tease poor Johnny, said, 
 
 “Silly little Johnny, look! 
 
 You have lost your writing book.” 
 
 Look at them laughing, and do you see 
 His writing; book drifting- far to sea ? 
 
 o o 
 
20 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 The original drawings were done with pencil on 
 nine by twelve paper, and each sheet was folded and 
 creased for four scenes. Because these are repro- 
 duced on such a small scale, some of the original effect 
 is lost, but the essential nature of the drawings remains. 
 Notice the attitude of Johnny in Scene J. The first 
 effort shows no action and is much like the symbol 
 drawing referred to at the beginning of this chapter. 
 By letting a small boy impersonate Johnny by walking 
 with upturned head, the children were able to get the 
 effect of action. Scene il was also dramatized, one 
 little fellow on “all fours” playing dog while he and 
 Johnny acted out the lines. Notice in Scene III 
 the variety of positions in which Johnny is portrayed. 
 One of the children has kept the hero’s head “right 
 side up with care,” while inverting the body. The 
 effect is surely grotesque. Scene IV is particularly 
 interesting, showing as it does the various methods of 
 rescue which occurred to the children. 
 
 In cities where the best illustrative drawing is done, 
 it is not done haphazardly but according to a definite 
 plan. Tor instance, in one city visited, no attempt is 
 made to show perspective in the street scenes of the 
 First and Second Grades, but the drawings plainly 
 showed that the children were in no way hampered by 
 this way of working. Many stories involving street 
 pictures may be told to the children, for in a city, 
 buildings and streets constitute much of the child’s 
 environment. “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” is one ot 
 the favorites of the children. The following “Points 
 
 IMPOR- 
 
 TANCE 
 
 DEFINITE 
 
 PLAN 
 
Plate E 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 
 
 21 
 
 HELPING 
 
 THE 
 
 CHILDREN 
 
 to Emphasize” is taken by permission from the Course 
 of Study published for one of our Western cities, and 
 may be helpful to teachers of First and Second 
 Grades. 
 
 POINTS TO EMPHASIZE 
 
 Placing the horizon line. 
 
 Treatment of sky, foreground, and distant foliage. 
 
 Proportional relation of objects. 
 
 Showing figures and animals in action and treating 
 with black crayon. 
 
 Houses, trees, animals, and people placed back in 
 the picture between horizon and lower edge of paper 
 and not on the line. 
 
 Roads lighter in tone than the grass, the rivers, 
 brooks, and lakes reflecting the color of the sky. 
 
 Back of fall trees and houses the sky is visible. 
 
 To obtain the best tone, the crayon must be held 
 close to the paper so that the beveled side may be used. 
 
 How much help should be given to the children is 
 a question often raised by the teacher. Many a class 
 of bright, imaginative children has been made wholly 
 dependent upon the teacher by too much help. It has 
 been demonstrated that the teacher should never put 
 her own idea of the picture on the chalkboard to serve 
 as a guide for the children. It is proper for her to 
 show 7 the children how to draw trees in the mass (Fig- 
 7), and not as in Fig. 8; that she should lead the chil- 
 dren to observe and to express distant foliage as it 
 appears against the horizon (Fig. 9), etc. In giving 
 such help to the children, she is giving them a vocabu- 
 lary by which to express themselves, just as she does in 
 language work. To tell a story and then to illustrate 
 
 9 
 
22 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 it on the board for children to copy, parallels the teach- 
 ing of language and the development of the power 
 of language expression by the parrot-like repetition of 
 the teacher’s sentences. 
 
 We have referred to the dramatization of stories 
 and to the use of an occasional costume pose as an aid 
 to it. Oftentimes the singing of an appropriate song 
 just before the lesson puts the children into the spirit 
 of the story. For instance, before illustrating a soldier 
 story, let the children march around the room singing 
 some patriotic song, or before illustrating “A Windy 
 Day,” let them sing one of those charming songs telling 
 of the pranks of the wind. Every teacher has access 
 to such songs, and in many ways the music and draw- 
 ing may be made helpful to one another. The drawing 
 of some object is often a help in preparing for the 
 illustration of a story. Before illustrating “There Was 
 an Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe," let the children 
 bring old shoes to school and have a drawing lesson 
 from them. The next day when you tell them the story, 
 you will find that the object drawing was good prepara- 
 tion for the imaginative work. 
 
 Criticize kindly and sympathetically. The teacher 
 may often want to laugh at some child’s drawing inter- 
 pretation of stories, but if the work is to go on to a 
 profitable ending, she should repress the laugh. Many 
 a child’s interest has been lessened and his efforts dis- 
 couraged by the thoughtless laugh of a teacher. Learn 
 to look at this work with the heart of a child, but with 
 the eyes and understanding of a true teacher. The 
 
 GETTING 
 
 SPIRIT 
 
 OF 
 
 STORY 
 
 CRITICISM 
 
Plate F 
 
DRAWING FROM IMAGINATION 
 
 23 
 
 most ridiculous drawings of the children should never 
 make a teacher forget this, although many have been 
 known to carry some of the drawings home for the very 
 humor of them. Draw out the child’s opinion of his 
 own effort. Give a word of praise, if possible, remem- 
 bering that children are especially susceptible to this. 
 
 “The love of praise, howe’er concealed by art 
 
 Reigns more or less, and glows in every heart.” 
 
 We once heard a teacher tell the story of the “Bell 
 of Atri,” so well known to Longfellow’s readers. She 
 was telling it in installments, as the story contains 
 material for a dozen lessons. The children were in- 
 tensely interested in that part of the poem which told 
 of the hungry old horse tugging at the rope of the 
 village bell. They were depicting that incident with an 
 interest which was good to see. The teacher inspecting 
 the work came to a discouraged boy whose horse coidd 
 be identified only by its tail. As she came down the 
 aisle, he covered his horse with a smudgy hand, but 
 she asked to see it. Instead of saying, “Mercy! What 
 in the world is that?” she said, “What a fine tail your 
 horse has! Surely, a boy who can draw a horse’s tail 
 like that will be able to draw a good horse some day.” 
 There was a horse hitched to a delivery wagon across 
 the street. She took the boy to the window and called 
 his attention to the shape of the horse’s head, the way 
 his neck arched, etc. She asked him to look at pictures 
 of horses and to draw from a real horse at home. 
 He came back to his seat looking very important and 
 
24 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 happy because his horse had such a fine tail. The 
 accompanying illustration (Fig. 10) shows the picture 
 the boy drew for her after he had studied horses. The 
 horse would not be taken for a thoroughbred, but it 
 represents the earnest loving efforts of a little lad who 
 wanted to “make good.” It is not necessary that the 
 teacher perjure herself by giving undue praise, for 
 children are easily satisfied. 
 
 Every teacher can select stories for illustration 
 better than another can do it for her. She knows her 
 own conditions and the peculiar interests and activities 
 of the community in which she teaches. The following 
 list, however, may be helpful: 
 
 The Mother Goose Rhymes. 
 
 Some of Edward Lear’s Nonsense Rhymes. 
 
 Many of Andersen's stories, particularly 
 The Proud Teapot, 
 
 The Ugly Duckling, 
 
 The Snow Man. 
 
 Also such subjects as 
 
 What My Father Does, 
 
 A Windy Day, 
 
 The Game I Like Best, 
 
 Flow I Help Mother, 
 
 What I Want to Do in Vacation, 
 
 'What I Saw When I Came to School To-day, 
 
 An Accident, 
 
 My Ride on the Street Car, 
 
 Our Baby’s Cat) or High Chair, 
 
 Something We Have at Our House, 
 
 Our Street. 
 
 SUGGEST- 
 
 IVE 
 
 LIST OF 
 STORIES 
 
 10 
 
CHOICE 
 
 AND 
 
 CARE 
 
 OF 
 
 FLOWERS 
 
 II. DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 “How soon can a child begin painting flowers or 
 other plant forms?” is a question often asked. The 
 answer is simple. He can begin as soon as the proper 
 materials are placed in his hands. Many teachers hold 
 that all his earlier work in drawing should be done 
 with the brush either in color or in ink, color prefer- 
 ably; while others believe in the use of pencil or char- 
 coal. Certain it is that the rich glowing colors of the 
 autumn months offer material which cannot be sur- 
 passed for training the color sense of young children. 
 
 It is not necessary or advisable to wait until the 
 children have learned how to paint flat washes before 
 allowing them to attempt simple grasses and flowers, 
 although a lesson should be given on the distribution 
 and collection of materials before any painting is done. 
 The chapter on the Care and Distribution of Materials 
 should be carefully read before taking up the water 
 color work. 
 
 Choose flowers of pronounced and brilliant color 
 rather than those showing more delicate and subtle 
 coloring. If you are a California teacher, you have a 
 score of gay flowers, including the scarlet poinsettia 
 and yellow poppy, unknown to the children of the 
 East or South. Texas children have the wonderful 
 thistles, showing every tone of reddish purple, and the 
 
 Mexican morning-glory whose intense blue has no equal 
 
 25 
 
26 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 1 
 
 elsewhere for brightness. Nasturtiums, zenias, sun- 
 flowers, flowering beans, salvia, and autumn leaves 
 upon the twig are all excellent. 
 
 'The flowers may be cut the evening before they are 
 to be used, in which ease the stems should be plunged 
 into water almost up to the blossom. If this is done, 
 they will remain crisp and fresh and will not wilt and 
 droop during the lesson. Every teacher remembers 
 the short-stemmed, bedraggled little specimens, almost 
 useless as working ma'erial, which her children have 
 brought to school in response to her request for flowers 
 to paint. One lesson from flowers, which have been 
 carefully selected and properly cared for, is worth more 
 than a half dozen from forlorn, wilted specimens. 
 
 A set of tumblers, old cups, or large bottles, nearly 
 filled with sand, should form an important part of the 
 teacher’s drawing outfit for the room. Before giving a 
 lesson, the sand should be moistened and the flower 
 stems stuck in the sand. The tumblers, cups, etc., 
 should then be placed on desk boards. See diagram 
 on Page 135. The sand not only holds the stems firmly 
 in the desired position but gives enough weight to 
 prevent possible accidents by overturning. The flowers 
 may be seen more easily if placed in front of a plain 
 background. By joining two pieces of white paste- 
 board with a cloth hinge, a useful “shadow box" may 
 be made, and a set of these backgrounds should form 
 part of the permanent equipment of every teacher. 
 They are very easily made and extremely helpful. These 
 shadow boxes may be used as shown in Figs. 1 and 2, 
 
 PLACING 
 
 THE 
 
 FLOWERS 
 
 3 
 

 Plate G 
 
DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 27 
 
 GRASSES 
 
 and if the specimen to be drawn is a dry twig, needing 
 no water, or a bit of drooping vine, the shadow box 
 may be used as an easel upon which to pin the study, 
 as shown in Fig. 3. When the plant specimens are 
 large like sunflowers, cannas, cattails, etc., a single 
 specimen properly placed is sufficient for any school- 
 room of ordinary size. It may be placed in a large 
 jar on the teacher’s desk, and if a plain background 
 is placed behind it, the form may be seen easily by 
 every child. 
 
 Green grasses or sedges furnish the best material 
 for the first lesson. In giving this lesson, one might 
 proceed something after this fashion: Having arranged 
 the children’s studies, and attended to the distribution 
 of materials, pin the specimen against a sheet of white 
 paper where all the children can see it, and then, if 
 possible, paint it before them. Show them how the 
 paints are first moistened by dipping the brush in 
 water and quickly drawing it across the blue; then 
 dipping it again and dampening the yellow. (No red 
 will be needed for this lesson.) Show the children how 
 the tip of the brush is to be dipped in water, applied 
 to the yellow and blue cakes, and tried on a scrap of 
 paper to see if the blue and yellow have made just the 
 right green. Show them how to sweep in the stem with 
 the brush so as to make the picture tell the real truth 
 about the slant of the stem. With a few direct strokes, 
 show how the leaves branch out from the stem; how 
 this one stays close to the stem, while the other bends 
 over as though it were tired, and how the brush can 
 
28 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 be made to show the “fluffy hair” on the grass, stand- 
 ing out in all directions. Remove your own specimen 
 and painting, and have children set to work to tell 
 true stories about the appearance of their grasses with 
 brush and paint. What clumsy stems! They must be 
 shown how to hold the brush straight up like a soldier, 
 when they wish to make narrow stems, instead of 
 letting it lie over on its side. This boy has made his 
 grass bright yellow. He must be shown how to touch 
 the blue into it. This girl is so interested in her paint- 
 ing that she forgets to look at her grass, and the result 
 is something like Fig. 4, instead of Fig. 5. “Would 
 you like to have your picture taken to look like this 
 (Fig. 6), when you stood like this (Fig. 7) ? That is 
 what you have done to your grass.” 
 
 Have children take a fresh sheet of paper and show 
 how the stem bends, where the leaves start from the 
 stem, and how the leaves also bend. 
 
 The coarse sedges which grow by the country road- sedges 
 sides and in nearly every vacant city lot, furnish fine 
 material for nature drawing, and their brown tops 
 give the children an opportunity to see how a touch of 
 red added to the yellow and blue changes the color. 
 
 The dry seed pods of early autumn on their brown 
 stems also furnish excellent material, but are possibly 
 better for ink and pencil work than for color. 
 
 After two or three lessons in painting grasses or flowers 
 sedges, the teacher need not hesitate to give the children 
 flowers to paint. The brighter the color, the better 
 will be the lesson. Take for example the salvia. Hav- 
 
 7 
 
DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 29 
 
 CRITICISM 
 
 ing arranged the flowers so that every child has a good 
 view of one specimen and with working materials in 
 readiness on the desks, pin three specimens to three 
 sheets, marked A, 13, C, and fasten on the front 
 chalkboard (Figs. 8, 9, 10). Tell the children to 
 watch while you paint and to raise their hands as soon 
 as they can tell which one you are painting. Of course 
 the very first stroke tells the story, for the “action” of 
 the stem is always of importance in “placing” a draw- 
 ing correctly and in getting the feeling of growth. 
 Show the children how one or two Strokes of the brush 
 serves to show how each red flower hangs from its stem. 
 Then take your flowers and your work down and let 
 them tell you- with their brushes how their flowers look. 
 The teacher may say, “Oh, but I cannot paint.” Any 
 teacher can paint well enough to show primary children 
 how to start right, and many a teacher has been sur- 
 prised at the way she has developed in the power of 
 expression as she has earnestly tried to help the children. 
 The children having painted the flower stalks are now 
 ready for the leaves. Again you pin up your specimen, 
 and this time you show them how careful they must be 
 to wash all of the red out of their brushes before making 
 their green. You show them how you study the shape 
 of the leaf and try to make that shape with the paint. 
 Again you remove your work, and have them go on with 
 theirs, while you inspect their efforts, speaking an encour- 
 aging word here, and making a helpful suggestion there. 
 
 There is little time for individual criticism, but as 
 the same mistakes are likely to be made by nearly all 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
30 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 the children, practically the same criticisms and 
 suggestions apply to all. Over and over the children 
 must he taught the right way of using their brushes, 
 and of mixing their color in the brush instead of in the 
 cover of the box for all flower painting. One very good 
 device for showing; mistakes and making suggestions 
 to all the children at once, is to place somewhere in 
 the front of the room where all can see, large sheets of 
 cheap paper, the most glaring faults in the children’s 
 drawings being pointed out and corrections suggested 
 on these sheets before the entire class. Some teachers 
 get old sample books of wall paper and hang them up 
 so as to use the backs of the separate samples for this 
 purpose. 
 
 Teachers will sometimes find the children scrubbing 
 their leaves with a vim which promises ill for the brush 
 and which produces effects something like this. (Plate 
 G, Fig. 1.) In such cases, step to your large sheets, and 
 filling your brush with water and blue and yellow 
 paint, show the children how to let the color flow on 
 the paper instead of scrubbing it in. (Plate G, Fig. 2.) 
 If you find children drawing a green outline for each 
 leaf (Plate G, Fig. 3), show them it is not necessary 
 to make a “fence” around the leaf, and illustrate how 
 the leaf may be painted with no enclosing line (Fig. 2). 
 Constant reiteration and infinite patience must be 
 practiced by the teacher. Children will be found who 
 do not look at the thing they are painting. Show them 
 how you use your eyes every minute while painting 
 and impress upon them that how well they paint 
 
. 
 
 'ij ' 
 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 
 Plate H 
 

 
 
 
 
 
DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 31 
 
 ESTIMA- 
 
 TING 
 
 RESULTS 
 
 ILLUSTRA- 
 
 TIONS 
 
 depends upon how well they see the thing they are 
 trying to picture. 
 
 After the papers have been collected look them 
 over at your leisure. You will probably ask, “Did it 
 pay?” after looking at some of the worst of the papers 
 with their shapeless spots of red and green, and their 
 smudgy finger marks. You will recall the labor of 
 arranging the flowers and distributing the paints and 
 the water, and will feel like saying, “No, it did not 
 pay.” Looking again at the papers, you notice how 
 this child really tried to show the drooping stem or the 
 leaf as it bent over. You remember as you look at 
 another child’s paper how happy he was when he told 
 you that his stem was the best he had ever painted. 
 The chances are that when you are through with the 
 papers, you will have found that many of the children 
 are seeing and thinking as they paint, and saying, “Yes, 
 it did pay,” you will look forward with anticipation to 
 the next lesson. 
 
 (Plate H.) The four paintings here reproduced 
 show the result of such a lesson as above described, 
 taught to First Grade pupils on September twentieth. 
 Two of the children whose work was selected for 
 reproduction here entered school for the first time 
 early in the month, while the other two entered in 
 January preceding. The lesson was taught by the 
 regular grade teacher — not by a Supervisor. Although 
 the four sheets shown were selected as the best in the 
 set, there were a score of others nearly as good and 
 only two downright failures in the room. 
 
32 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Many Supervisors say they teach the children to 
 look for the shadows on the leaves from the start, 
 while others say they care nothing about light and 
 shade at this stage and are content to work at first 
 merely for form and local color. 
 
 Experience has shown that children can be led very 
 early to see that places on flowers, leaves, and other 
 objects, which the direct light cannot reach, appear 
 darker, and to express that darkness in their crude and 
 childish way. On the whole it may be well to say 
 nothing about light and shade to First Grade pupils, 
 unless perhaps to exceptionally talented children who 
 are ready for it, but in the Second Grade the children 
 may be led by means of many simple devices, not only 
 to see the light and shade on flowers and leaves, but to 
 represent it more or less effectively in their drawings. 
 One of the ways by which children may be led to 
 observe shadow is this: Have them hold out their two 
 hands with the palms exposed to the full light; then 
 have them bring the hands together so that the palms 
 form a sort of deep cup into which scarcely any light 
 can penetrate. Lead them to notice there is a differ- 
 ence in the appearance of the palms when exposed to 
 the full light and when held to form a cup and the light 
 partly shut out; that they show dark and light spots in 
 the latter position which are not apparent in the former. 
 Call attention to the same thing on the surface of 
 leaves and flowers, and let them paint the parts darker 
 that seem darker to them. In this way the teacher can 
 gradually lead the children toward expressing light and 
 
 LIGHT 
 
 AND 
 
 SHADE 
 
Plate I 
 
 

DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 33 
 
 DIRECT 
 
 HANDLING 
 
 MASSES 
 
 RATHER 
 
 THAN 
 
 DETAIL 
 
 shade as well as color, although it is not well to force 
 them until they appear to he ready for it. Plate G, 
 Figs. 4 and 5, show the same flower painted first with 
 no effort at light and shade and then shown with 
 simple shadows. 
 
 Too much stress cannot be laid upon the necessity 
 for “direct handling'’ in the water color work, and an 
 explanatory word regarding the meaning of this term 
 will not come amiss, it is a well known fact about 
 water colors, that the more they are mixed and “fussed 
 with,” the more muddy and flat and lifeless they be- 
 come. Consequently, if one wishes brilliancy and 
 “snap” in his flower painting, he takes his colors 
 directly from the cake of paint and does no mixing in 
 his box cover. The Second Grade pupil who painted 
 the petunia (Plate I, Fig. 1), used “direct handling,” 
 and in spite of the wavering lines of the stem and his 
 inability to show how the center of the flower looked, 
 he put real vigor into the drawing because of the 
 crisp rich color. Had he mixed his blue and yellow in 
 his pan to get his green, and his blue and red to get his 
 purple, his colors would have been flat and lifeless. 
 (Plate I, Fig. 2.) Had he used a green or purple from 
 some box containing these colors ready-mixed, his 
 result would have been even less satisfactory. 
 
 Children are lovers of detail, and their natural 
 tendency is to give undue importance to the unimpor- 
 tant things. They see the notches on the edge of the 
 leaf, the veins in its surface and many other details, 
 and in trying to represent these, they lose sight of the 
 
34 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 large shapes and masses entirely. Large flowers placed 
 at some distance from them are especially helpful in 
 overcoming this tendency, as they can see only the 
 masses, while the details are lost to them. There is no 
 flower better than the sunflower for such lessons, and 
 paper nine by twelve inches instead of six by nine size 
 should be used. 
 
 In arranging fruit for the children to paint, try to 
 get it attached to a bit of twig with a leaf or two. To 
 paint an apple, a cherry, or a plum without anything 
 to show its “growth,” results in nothing but a more 
 or less meaningless shape. The twig with leaves adds 
 interest by showing growth and gives the children 
 something more to study than the isolated fruit. In 
 painting such a twig as shown in Plate G, Fig. 6, 
 let the children paint first with clear water the size 
 and shape of the apple. Then, while the paper is still 
 wet, let them drop the yellow and blue on this wet 
 surface and touch in the red to show the apple’s “rosy 
 cheek.” They must work rapidly, adding leaves and 
 stem after the fruit has been painted. Although this 
 may sound like a recipe, it is offered simply as one 
 good way of getting a result. There are doubtless 
 many other ways just as good. 
 
 Delightful as the rich coloring of the fall flowers, 
 fruits, and foliage are to the children, they are not 
 more fascinating than are the first spring twigs and 
 blossoms. Even before the buds begin to swell, the 
 children begin to talk of the coming days. Their 
 language lessons and nature songs are full of 
 
 O O O 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 FRUIT 
 
 SPRING 
 
 WORK 
 
DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 35 
 
 thoughts of the great miracle which is soon to take 
 place. 
 
 Only to think, just under the snow 
 Flowers and grasses are waiting to grow, 
 
 Hark, do you hear them rushing about. 
 Whispering softly, “I want to get out!” 
 
 Only be patient a few weeks more. 
 
 And the warm, kind sun will open the door. 
 
 The brown twigs with the delicate green buds, just 
 bursting out, make splendid subjects for painting 
 lessons, and the little box which each child in some 
 schools has on his desk and in which he plants a few 
 kernels of corn or a few beans, furnishes material for 
 some fine painting lessons in connection with his 
 nature study. Some of the charming child literature 
 about growth should surely find its way into these 
 lessons. 
 
 THE LITTLE PLANT 
 
 In the heart of a seed. 
 
 Buried deep, so deep, 
 
 A dear little plant 
 Lay fast asleep. 
 
 “Wake!” said the sunshine, 
 
 “And creep to the light.” 
 
 “Wake!” said the voice 
 
 Of the raindrop bright. 
 
 The little plant heard, 
 
 And it rose to see 
 What the wonderful 
 
 Outside world might be. 
 
 shadow The children enjoy making shadow pictures, and 
 there is much educational value in these exercises. Of 
 
36 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 13 
 
 course the problem of color does not enter into this 
 work, but it is important to select studies which are 
 strong: in form and irregular in outline. 
 
 To explain shadow pictures to the children, hold 
 a sheet of paper to the window in direct sunlight. 
 Placing your hand behind it, let them see liow the 
 shadow of your hand on the paper tells exactly the 
 shape and the position it is in. Place a spray of 
 flowers behind the paper, letting the children note 
 the shadow made by it and the color of the shadow. 
 Follow this by having the children paint shadow 
 pictures of their flowers. Arrange specimens the 
 same as for painting lessons, choosing those having 
 simple and strongly characteristic growth. 
 
 The persimmons shown in Plate J, Fig. 1, make 
 an excellent shadow study for First Grade pupils, and 
 many fall sedges, seed pods on the stem, and sprays 
 of berries or burrs would be equally good. The flat 
 washes which the children make in connection with 
 their color exercises (Page 73) form effective 
 
 backgrounds for these silhouette effects, and the 
 mounting of these panels on backgrounds of suitable 
 proportion adds greatly to their attractiveness. (Plate 
 J, Fig. 2.) In the Chapter on Special Days, there 
 are suggestions for using these shadow pictures in 
 decorating booklet covers, calendars, etc. 
 
 When nature work is done with pencil, the studies 
 should be arranged with as great care as when they are 
 to be done in color. Some difference of opinion exists 
 as to the respective value of outline and mass work, 
 
 PENCIL 
 
 WORK 
 
Plate J 
 
DRAWING FROM NATURE 
 
 37 
 
 CHOICE 
 
 AND 
 
 CARE 
 
 OF 
 
 PENCIL 
 
 but the greater number of Drawing Teachers and 
 Supervisors favor the mass work for young children 
 as being a broader method and one better calculated 
 to lead the child away from the representation of petty 
 details. Mass work with pencil also gives a better 
 rendering of “texture” than can be obtained in outline. 
 This is plainly shown in the drawings of pussy willows 
 here reproduced in the margin. Both were drawn by 
 Second Grade children and are carefully drawn, but 
 the outline (Fig. 11) gives no suggestion of the contrast 
 between the dark shiny stems and the light color of 
 the fluffy catkins, while the mass work (Fig. 12) shows 
 this contrast plainly. Notice how the texture of the 
 rough shaggy burrs (Fig. 13) is shown by the First 
 Grade child, and how well this way of working is 
 adapted to bringing out the fluffy down of the milk- 
 weed against its hard brown pods. (Fig. 14.) Even 
 the First Grade boy who has been in school but two 
 months has brought out this difference very well. 
 
 For any effective work by young children a very 
 soft pencil is necessary — one whose large lead lends 
 itself easily and naturally to the drawing of shapes 
 in outline or to expressing these same forms in various 
 degrees of darkness to show color, or light and shade 
 as is done in mass drawing. The pencil should be 
 sharpened to a conical point, and in doing mass 
 work, should be held so that the pressure does not 
 come on the point of the lead but on its beveled sides. 
 This gives the child a broad line and enables him to 
 represent the masses of dark and light cpiickly and 
 
38 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 easily. Much needless waste of the teacher’s time and 
 wear of the pencils may be avoided by following some 
 of the suggestions given in the Chapter on the Care 
 and Distribution of Materials. 
 
 There is no color medium so well adapted to 
 Nature Work as water colors, yet in many of the smaller 
 places the local conditions make the use of paints in 
 the schools impracticable. In such places colored 
 crayons are used as a substitute and often with in- 
 teresting results. The crayons chosen should be 
 free from oil, and should be handled in much the 
 same manner as are the pencils in mass drawing. 
 Because of the bluntness of the crayons they are better 
 suited to the drawing of large specimens than to the 
 rendering of those showing more delicacy of line and 
 form. This same thing; is true of charcoal which is 
 frequently used in place of pencil in the First and 
 Second Grades. 
 
 Whether we work with water colors, brush and ink, 
 pencil, crayon or charcoal, there should be one aim 
 underlying all of the Nature Work — to get the child 
 not only to look at the thing he is drawing, but to see 
 it and to carry its form in his mind and set it down 
 upon his paper as truthfully as he can. The little 
 girl was right when she looked up at her teacher and 
 said, “I know now what drawing is. It is thinking 
 and then marking ’round the think.” 
 
 Teach the children to think while they draw. 
 
 COLORED 
 
 CRAYONS 
 
 MANY 
 
 MEDIUMS 
 
 BUT 
 
 ONE AIM 
 
Plate K 
 
III. DRAWING FROM PEOPLE 
 
 The Primary teacher, who is looking only for imme- 
 diate and showy results, would better never attempt 
 to teach pose drawing unless she is prepared for dis- 
 appointment, for the very best presentation of the 
 lesson will be attended by results which such a teacher 
 would count failures. Fortunately, the day has passed 
 when we work for paper results alone; when the chil- 
 dren, regarded as so many oiled and cleverly manipu- 
 lated machines, were made to turn out drawings hav- 
 ing a certain number of meaningless straight lines or 
 curves. ' 
 
 The understanding and sympathetic teacher of today 
 feels that the crude, grotesque pose drawings into 
 which the child puts his loving, joyous, spontaneous 
 effort, are worth far more to his interest and develop- 
 ment than the joyless overworked drawings by which 
 results were estimated in former days. To the con- 
 scientious teacher who, having cheerfully given her 
 children the best help possible in pose drawing, yet 
 feels at the close of the year that they have made 
 but little progress, we would suggest the following 
 plan: When the first school days come, give a pose 
 lesson. Give it to the best of your ability. Even go 
 to the trouble of writing the children’s names on the 
 papers, if they cannot yet write their own. Lay the 
 
 exercises away and do not look at them till the fol- 
 
 39 
 
40 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 o 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 
 \ 1 /? 
 
 k 
 
 A 
 
 ! G 
 
 -r 
 
 t 
 
 
 lowing spring. Then try the same pose again and 
 compare results with the first lesson. The drawings 
 will still appear very crude, yet will undoubtedly show 
 many encouraging evidences of growth. 
 
 Perhaps the pose was that of a child washing at 
 a toy tub. The first set of drawings were more or 
 less symbolical. (Fig. 1.) Pupils who saw the back 
 or side of the child posing drew the same symbol 
 as those having a front view. There was absolutely 
 no action. Now you find that the children are using 
 their eyes. In many cases you find they have repre- 
 sented the pose as seen from their position. (Figs. 2 
 and 3.) You have no reason to be discouraged. Edu- 
 cationally, pose work is particularly good in that the 
 children must learn to concentrate their attention — to 
 see when they look, inasmuch as the children can 
 pose well only a short time. The lessons may also be 
 made to correlate delightfully with the Language Work, 
 the Changing Seasons, and the Special Days, and be- 
 cause of the variety of subjects from which to choose, 
 there is little danger of monotony. 
 
 Great diversity of opinion exists among Supervisors mediums 
 as to the best mediums and methods for teaching this p^ E 
 work. Some advise brush and ink or water color, work 
 and some pencil or charcoal. 
 
 Some teachers believe strongly in the value of straight 
 
 straight line drawing for action, while others are less drawing 
 
 enthusiastic about it. If it be admitted that the main FOR 
 
 , . 1 ACTION 
 
 province ot this work m the Primary Grades is to 
 
 prepare the children for illustrative drawing, then the 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
DRAWING FROM PEOPLE 
 
 41 
 
 drawing of straight line figures has a real value, for 
 we know of no better way by which children may be 
 led to see and represent action than by the use of 
 these exercises. They do not take the place of real 
 pose work, and only an occasional lesson is needed 
 to accomplish our purpose. 
 
 SUGGEST- A boy stands on the desk, facing the school; 
 lessons ^ ie s t an d s very straight like a soldier and is given a 
 pointer to represent a gun. Ask the children to hold 
 their pencils the way he is standing. Ask them to 
 draw one line to show how he is standing. It should 
 be a vertical line. Let him lie straight on the table. 
 Ask them to draw one line to show how he is lying. 
 The result should be a horizontal line. Let him stand 
 with side to the school and bow. A single straight line 
 would not represent his position while bowing, and 
 so two straight lines making an angle are drawn. Next 
 let him stand with arms akimbo and feet far apart, 
 and let the children tell how many lines it will take 
 to show his position now. The children count the lines 
 (Fig. 4) aloud while the boy poses, and then draw 
 them to make the picture. Another boy takes a pose 
 just as simple, and in like manner the children draw 
 another “straight line boy.” Almost every position 
 and action may be shown in this way, Figs. 5-10. After 
 the children have gotten the idea of action in this 
 manner, let them go a step farther. Talk to them 
 about the bones — the way our flesh and clothes cover 
 them, and tell them that in the next lesson we will 
 clothe our straight line children. 
 
 10 
 
/ 
 
 42 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 12 
 
 Pose a boy and a girl and draw the action lines changing 
 
 on the chalkboard while the pupils watch closely. pjcTURES 
 
 Talk while you work, asking the children to notice how TO 
 
 . ' . . . SHADOW 
 
 much you have shown in your lirst picture. (Fig. 11.) pictures 
 They will easily see you have shown two people, one 
 taller than the other, and that you have made them 
 appear very thin when in reality the children you are 
 drawing are not thin. Show their real shape in some 
 shadow pictures. Work over the skeleton figures, 
 saying you are clothing them, until you have this 
 result. (Fig. 12.) In clothing your straight line chil- 
 dren take pains to retain the same action shown in 
 Fig. 11. The children will be delighted with the final 
 shadow picture you have shown them, and impatient 
 to try it themselves. Let them do a straight line 
 figure and then change it into a shadow picture. 
 
 The following incident is related to show how easily 
 interest may be awakened in this kind of work. Once 
 when the writer was passing out of a schoolroom, she 
 saw some excellent action drawings in line pinned on 
 the door. One was like this (Fig. 13), the difference 
 in the size of the two figures probably being an acci- 
 dent. Taking advantage of this, and using brush and 
 ink, she rapidly changed the skeleton picture into a 
 shadow picture (Fig. 14), while making up a story to 
 fit the picture, about the boy, who came to school 
 late and was told by his teacher that it mustn’t happen 
 again. The imaginations of the children easily fitted 
 the picture to the story, after noticing the position, 
 size and clothing of the two figures. The children 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
DRAWING FROM PEOPLE 
 
 43 
 
 COLOR 
 
 OVER 
 
 ACTION 
 
 LINES 
 
 had never tried to clothe their skeleton figures before, 
 and a gale of delight swept over the room when they 
 discovered how easily this could be done. Immedi- 
 ately afterwards, under the direction of the grade 
 teacher, the pupils were given an opportunity to draw 
 from a new pose in the same way, which they did 
 with great enthusiasm and excellent results. 
 
 As an easy sequence to these shadow pictures, 
 simple color poses may be worked out in the same 
 way. Fig. 15 shows a child’s version of 
 
 Jack be nimble, 
 Jack be quick, 
 Jack jump over 
 The candle-stick 
 
 Probably a boy was asked to jump while the other 
 children watched the action of his legs and arms dur- 
 ing the performance, afterwards drawing such figures 
 as these (Figs. 16, 17, 18) and covering the pencil lines 
 with color to show the boy’s red sweater, blue trousers, 
 and black stockings. Although the colors are not shown 
 in this reproduction, the effect may be easily imagined. 
 straight Exercises in pose drawing like those described will 
 figures P rove a g rea t kelp in illustrative drawing. Children 
 in will learn not only to show action and proportion, but 
 TIVE may be led also to show nearness and farness by 
 work Y ar yi n g the size of their figures based on the facts of 
 observation. (Figs. 19, 20.) It should be noted, how- 
 ever, that while action drawing lias a place of its own 
 which nothing else can fill, it does not and cannot 
 take the place of the regular pose drawing. 
 
 W. ~ 
 
 ! 
 
 § 
 
 Jt 
 
 & 
 
 18 
 
44 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 'The most commonly used medium is either a 
 pencil with a large soft lead, or charcoal, which may 
 be used for both outline and mass work. If mass 
 work is desired, do not allow the children to outline 
 the shapes first, but teach them to show the shape 
 directly in the mass, using the pencil almost as though 
 it were a brush. Fig. 21 is an outline, Fig. 22 is a 
 mass drawing. In Fig. 22, one can plainly see that 
 the girl’s sunbonnet is lighter than her blue dress, 
 and that her stockings and shoes are darker than her 
 dress. No attempt should be made to show light and 
 shade except in the very simplest way. Fig. 23 shows 
 the effect when the shape is first outlined and then 
 filled in. Such work should be discouraged at this 
 stage. In some cities all of the pencil pose drawing 
 is done in “mass;” in others it is done in outline. 
 
 Brush and ink are considered excellent for this 
 work because they make it difficult for the child to 
 show unnecessary details, such as shoe-buttons, polka- 
 dots, etc. Plate K shows a few reproductions from 
 children’s brush and ink efforts in pose work. 
 
 By way of adding a little variety to the silhouette 
 work, try an occasional pose drawing in brush and 
 ink and one color. The use of red for the apples, 
 doll carriage, sunbonnet, and watering-can in these 
 pose drawings gives a note of color which delights the 
 children and in no way detracts from the value of 
 the lesson. (See Plate L.) 
 
 Fifteen or twenty minutes are usually allowed for 
 a lesson in pose drawing, but that does not mean 
 
 REGULAR 
 
 POSE 
 
 WORK 
 
 BRUSH 
 
 AND 
 
 INK 
 
 AND 
 
 COLOR 
 
 TIME FOR 
 A POSE 
 DRAWING 
 
 20 
 
Plate L 
 
DRAWING FROM PEOPLE 
 
 45 
 
 WHERE 
 
 TO 
 
 POSE 
 
 THE 
 
 CHILD 
 
 COSTUME 
 
 POSES 
 
 that a child should pose for that length of time. In 
 doing the little action drawings, only a couple of 
 minutes are needed for each pose, and the sheet, when 
 finished, should contain a number of small drawings 
 rather than one large one. In the more studied work 
 where one position is used for the entire lesson, the 
 model poses for a minute or two, then rests a minute, 
 returning to the same position after each rest. Chil- 
 dren do not need a long time for a drawing lesson 
 of this kind. They do not know how to work slowly 
 and carefully, and fifteen minutes for the work and 
 five minutes for the distribution and collection of 
 materials, is ample time. In places, however, where 
 the period is only fifteen minutes, including the time 
 for distribution and collection of materials, teachers 
 must necessarily work at a disadvantage and must plan 
 to cover less ground. Plate M shows four reproductions 
 of pencil drawings made by Second Grade children. 
 
 The teacher’s desk makes a good place to pose 
 the children, for when a child stands upon it, he 
 may be easily seen from all parts of the room. A 
 large piece of manila paper may be used to protect 
 the desk from being marred or otherwise injured. 
 
 Reference was made to this subject in the Chapter 
 on Drawing from Imagination, and much more might 
 be said in this connection. A fur or lap robe and 
 a cap pulled over the ears make an Esquimo pose 
 which lends interest to the Agoonac Story. Diminutive 
 Indian, fireman and soldier costumes, etc., are the 
 proud possession of many a small boy who will bring 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 
46 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 them to school without urging, while, thanks to the 
 imagination of the child, a newspaper folded into a 
 cocked hat and combined with a flag, a toy gun, a 
 sword, or a drum will give a variety of military poses 
 at least. A boy who is invited to stand up before 
 the children on some rainy day and let them draw 
 his picture in mackintosh, rubber boots, and a big 
 rubber hat is as proud as a king, and some rainy- 
 day song or verse helps out the picture, as 
 
 “In mackintoshes, rubber boots, with lovely big um- 
 brellas 
 
 We dare the rain, defy the flood in these our storm 
 dispellers. 
 
 Our big umbrellas we upraise, and ’neath their tent- 
 like shelter, 
 
 We march and keep as dry as bones, nor hurry helter- 
 skelter.” 
 
 Getting the children into the “spirit of the lesson” 
 is half the result, and whenever a verse is found which 
 suggests a good pose, cut it out and use it. Here is 
 one which would be fine for a gardening pose: 
 
 IN THE GARDEN. 
 
 BY W. E. KEYES. 
 
 Betty’s watering the pinks, 
 
 Arthur’s pulling weeds; 
 
 Laura by the arbor stoops, 
 
 Sowing foxglove seeds; 
 
 Tommy’s in among the phlox. 
 
 Raking carefully, — 
 
 Every child is hard at work, — 
 
 Busy as a bee! 
 
 SUGGEST- 
 
 IVE 
 
 VERSES 
 
 OR 
 
 SONGS 
 
 30 
 
Plate M 
 
DRAWING FROM PEOPLE 
 
 47 
 
 Stout old Yellow-Belt, the bee, 
 
 Visits every bed; 
 
 Glances at the gardeners, 
 
 Shakes his dusty head; 
 
 Zigzags homeward with his sack 
 Full of honey piled, 
 
 Thinking proudly, “Why, I’ve been 
 Busy as a child!” 
 
 — Youth’s Companion. 
 
 And what coidd be finer as an introduction to a kite- 
 flying pose than this. Although the kite is stationary 
 and pinned to the wall and the boy simply holds a 
 string attached to it, he cannot fail to catch some of 
 the spirit of real kite-flying after hearing the rhyme. 
 
 KITE-FLYING. 
 
 BY CAROLYN WELLS. 
 
 My kite goes up so very high, 
 
 1 think that it must scrape the sky. 
 
 And when I pull it down, I'll find 
 Some blue stuck on to it behind. 
 
 It wags its tail like anything — 
 
 I have to have the strongest string;. 
 
 It nearly pulls me way up-town — 
 
 It's just like fishing, upside down. 
 
 — Youth’s Companion. 
 
 variety Many teachers have the notion it will not do to 
 have the children of the First and Second Grades 
 draw anything but back views. This will result sooner 
 or later in a deadly monotony and a consequent lack 
 of interest. Children will get much more out of a 
 difficult pose which interests them than out of a simple 
 one which does not. They love variety. 
 
 37 
 
 36 
 
48 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Children like poses which show some activity. 
 Housekeeping poses, showing girls dusting, scrubbing, 
 sweeping, or washing are always interesting to them. 
 So also are the ones in which the boys represent car- 
 penters, fishermen, hunters, soldiers. 
 
 The following is a list of poses which should prove 
 helpful, and any teacher will be able to add to the 
 list such poses as she finds especially suited to her 
 own conditions. 
 
 Seasonable 
 
 Poses 
 
 Fall 
 
 Winter 
 
 Farmer boy bringing vegetables 
 to market or carrying sickle. 
 Halloween poses. 
 
 ! Boy with gun. 
 
 Puritan poses] Girl with knitting 
 l or spinning wheel. 
 
 [ Sled poses. 
 
 { Child bundled up to protect 
 J from Jack Frost, 
 j Christmas poses. 
 
 | Boy putting on skates. 
 
 > j t U l 111 V/JLJL kJIVU 
 
 Valentine postman. 
 
 f 
 
 Spring Gardening poses 
 
 With rake. 
 With hoe. 
 With spade. 
 With water- 
 ing-can. 
 
 Miscellaneous 
 
 Poses. 
 
 Sweeping. 
 
 Fishing. 
 
 Painting. 
 
 Pulling. 
 
 Pushing. 
 
 Carrying pail. 
 
 Climbing. 
 
 Drumming. 
 
 Digging;. 
 
 Bowing. 
 
 Washing. 
 
 Ironing. 
 
 Carrying banner. 
 Etc. 
 
 OCCUPA- 
 
 TION 
 
 POSES 
 
 SUG- 
 
 GESTED 
 
 POSES 
 
 43 
 
 44 
 
IV. DRAWING FROAI ANIMALS 
 
 DRAW- 
 
 ING 
 
 ANIMALS 
 
 OUT-OF- 
 
 DOORS 
 
 The chapter on animal drawing follows immedi- 
 ately the one on pose drawing because they are so 
 closely related in method, and because power gained 
 in the former may be immediately applied in the 
 latter and under practically the same conditions. The 
 chief difference is that the children are more tractable 
 for the poses than their furred and feathered friends. 
 The tendency of animals, however, to constantly change 
 their position stimulates quick accurate observation on 
 the part of the children. 
 
 If your school is so situated that there is a horse, 
 a cow, a goat, or a donkey, in some neighboring lot 
 or yard, you have ideal conditions for an occasional 
 animal lesson, for these large animals stand much more 
 quietly than the smaller ones which are brought into 
 the schoolroom for study. Besides, most animals are 
 less nervous and restless when in their own environ- 
 ment than when taken out of it and into the strange 
 surroundings of a school, and the presence in some 
 cases of their hereditary enemies. In a few favored 
 schools which chance to be located near a city park 
 in which a Zoo is maintained, the children have had 
 some fascinating lessons in drawing buffaloes, deer, 
 bears, and ostriches. Standing outside of the grat- 
 ing, pencil and pad in hand, the children have 
 tried to tell all about the shapes of these erea- 
 
 49 
 
50 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 2 
 
 tures, and their keen interest so stimulated their sense 
 of observation that the results were most creditable, 
 ddie swans in the park lagoon have frequently served 
 as objects for the children to draw. Very often a pet 
 pony or burro has been brought into the school-yard 
 and has furnished the children with a fine subject for 
 a drawing lesson. 
 
 It is a great treat for the children to take paper, frepara- 
 pencil, and a book on which to rest the paper, and J }.™ EOR 
 go out of doors for a lesson, but before leaving the door 
 room they should be prepared in a measure for the LESSON 
 lesson. By careful questioning the teacher should 
 direct the attention of the children to leading char- 
 acteristics in the form of the animal they are about to 
 draw. 
 
 If it should happen to be a donkey, she would 
 want to direct attention especially to the ears and 
 tail, comparing with the horse with which they are 
 more familiar, having the children tell in what respects 
 the donkey is like and unlike a horse. Impress upon 
 them that they are going to tell in their pictures just 
 how the donkey looks; that they are going to tell his 
 shape when looked at from the side, from the front 
 and from behind. If the teacher has some toy animal 
 to show the children, she can, by placing the toy in 
 various positions, make clear why there will be a 
 difference in the pictures of the donkey, depending 
 upon whether he is seen from the side, the front, etc. 
 
 Even small children may be led to understand that 
 what they see when they look at the donkey depends 
 
 3 
 
DRAWING FROM ANIMALS 
 
 51 
 
 PLACING 
 
 THE 
 
 CHILDREN 
 
 upon where they are sitting or standing when they 
 draw. If the teacher is clever with her chalk, she 
 can illustrate her meaning by a few rapid strokes on 
 the chalk board, but these should be quickly made 
 and as quickly erased. The success of the lesson 
 depends largely upon the way in which the preliminary 
 work is done. 
 
 An out-of-door lesson should never be given when 
 the weather is such as to threaten the health of the 
 children from exposure. If, however, the day is warm 
 and bright and the ground dry, the children may sit 
 on the grass in groups of eight or ten, with these 
 groups not too widely separated. This plan is better 
 than massing; all of the children together. Each child 
 can get a better view of the object and at the same 
 time this placing will ensure greater variety in the 
 drawings on account of the greater variation in points 
 of seeing. Sometimes the boys sit on the fence while 
 the girls stand and look through the bars. Sometimes 
 the steps of the schoolhouse are used as a “grand stand,” 
 and, as before suggested, a pet pony or goat is brought 
 into the school-yard for a drawing lesson. 
 
 If the children are arranged in groups or along 
 the fence, it is an easy matter for the teacher to pass 
 in and out among them with a suggestion for this 
 child and a word of encouragement for that. In case 
 the school steps are used, she will find the top step 
 a fine vantage point, and seated just above the chil- 
 dren, she can view the work of the entire class and 
 frequently give suggestions that are needed by each 
 
 6 
 
52 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 and all. Occasionally, some boy or girl from an upper 
 grade, who is especially talented, assists the teacher in 
 these out-of-door lessons. 
 
 This work depends largely upon local conditions, 
 such as climate, location of school, number of pupils, 
 etc., but generally speaking, such lessons should be given 
 as often as the time assigned to drawing, and the other 
 drawing work will permit. Rightly taught, the work 
 has great value, strengthening the children's powers of 
 observation and expression, stimulating their interest in 
 nature study, and furnishing material for their lan- 
 guage lessons. 
 
 Out-of-door lessons are impossible in many city 
 districts, and in such cases the animal should be 
 brought to the schoolroom. Pet dogs, rabbits, parrots, 
 chickens, geese, and pigeons are suitable for such les- 
 sons. Provide your animal, either by bringing it your- 
 self or by having it brought by the children. If you 
 depend upon the children to bring an animal for some 
 particular lesson, you would better not depend upon 
 any one child, as he is quite likely to forget. We 
 recall instances, however, when such was not the case. 
 In a district where fowls are plentiful, we knew a 
 teacher who asked eight of her boys to bring a rooster, 
 thinking she would be sure to get one specimen for 
 the painting lesson in the afternoon. Contrary to her 
 expectations, they remembered “to a man,” and eight 
 crowing, flapping birds held by eight red-faced boys 
 awaited her arrival when school opened. It was to 
 say the least an “embarrassment of riches.” 
 
 FREQUEN- 
 CY OF 
 OUT-OF- 
 DOOR 
 LESSONS 
 
 DRAWING 
 ANIMALS 
 IN THE 
 SCHOOL- 
 ROOM 
 
 10 
 
DRAWING FROM ANIMALS 
 
 53 
 
 POSING 
 
 THE 
 
 ANIMAL 
 
 SUITABLE 
 
 MEDIUMS 
 
 It is not a bad plan to use two animals widely 
 differing in shape and proportion for one lesson, for 
 instance, a pigeon and a rooster or a bulldog and a 
 terrier, alternating the pose of one with the other and 
 thus bringing out the characteristics of each more 
 strongly. If the lesson is limited to fifteen minutes, 
 as it is in a few places, it is advisable to devote the 
 entire period to one animal. 
 
 The teacher’s desk makes a good “model stand” 
 on which to place the animals, after all other objects 
 have been removed and it has been covered with 
 newspapers. The animal should be made to feel at 
 home. A few cabbage leaves for the rabbit will 
 insure some very interesting poses and will help to 
 keep him quiet. Com sprinkled over the desk for 
 the pet rooster will be much appreciated by his royal 
 highness. It is not necessary or desirable that the 
 animal remain rigidly quiet, even were it possible. 
 Much of the value of the lesson depends upon its 
 liability to move at any instant, thereby making the 
 children alert and quick in their drawing. However, 
 the boy or girl who owns the pet, if a pet animal has 
 been brought, can stand near the desk and occa- 
 sionally quiet it with a word or a comforting stroke 
 of its fur or feathers. 
 
 For the out-of-door lesson, the pencil is probably 
 the best medium, but for those that are given in the 
 schoolroom, charcoal, crayons, brush and ink, or water 
 colors may be used. 
 
 The parrot is especially hue for painting on account 
 
54 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 of his bright plumage, but he is quite a rare bird com- 
 pared with the rooster, which eau be found in almost any 
 district. There is no better animal than the rooster 
 for representation in color. He is excellent for pencil, 
 or brush, or ink, but tor treatment in color he is hard 
 to excel because his shape is so characteristic, and 
 because his colors are so rich they appeal very strongly 
 to the children. S he chief points to be given promi- 
 nence in studying the rooster are his small head, his 
 comb, his arched neck, the short distance between his 
 neck and his tail, the height of his head as compared 
 with that of his tail, the slant of his legs and the 
 shape of his feet. Children always draw the feet of 
 any bird or fowl as though the creature were bal- 
 ancing on tip-toe. A few strokes of your chalk or 
 brush will show them that the claws are more nearly 
 level than upright. 
 
 In this connection, it may be well to call atten- 
 tion to the importance of studying carefully the feet 
 and legs of any animal before drawing it. The 
 characteristic shape of many animals is determined 
 largely by their legs— whether they are straight or ben t ? 
 thick or slender, slanting or vertical, and by the way 
 in which they are joined to the body. In drawing 
 birds, children almost always place the legs under the 
 middle of the body instead of farther back, and they 
 frequently forget to notice that the legs are seldom 
 vertical. 
 
 Plate N shows reproductions from the work of 
 First and Second Grade pupils. Notice that although 
 
 
 C 
 
 v; ■ x: i \ 
 
 J b 
 
 "X 
 
 •y\ 
 
 - ■ ... 
 
 As / 
 
 //■'7 ' 
 
 
 
 u t l 
 
 GOOD 
 
 SUBJECTS 
 
 FOR 
 
 WATER 
 
 COLORS 
 
 REPRO- 
 
 DUCTIONS 
 
 19 
 
Plate N 
 
DRAWING FROM ANIMALS 
 
 55 
 
 WHEN 
 
 ANIMALS 
 
 CHANGE 
 
 POSITION 
 
 MEMORY 
 
 SNAP 
 
 SHOTS 
 
 the work is very crude, the children have grasped the 
 distinguishing features of each rooster and have shown 
 them in their paintings. They were encouraged to 
 dip the colors directly from the cakes of paint and 
 to put them on the paper with no mixing in the box. 
 Those that look flat and dull in color were prob- 
 ably done by mixing a wash in the box cover. 
 
 There should be no attempt to make large, fin- 
 ished drawings of the animals. The animal moves so 
 often that such a thing would be quite impossible. 
 The children should start anew each time the animal 
 changes his position, and the sheet at the end of the 
 lesson should show a number of small incompleted 
 sketches rather than a finished one of large size. 
 Frequently, there will be only the beginnings of many 
 sketches when the lesson is over. Notice in the mar- 
 ginal sketches which are reproduced from children’s 
 drawings, how they have worked in this way. 
 
 An occasional lesson may be given by first select- 
 ing some animal which is easy to draw, like the 
 rabbit. Place him on the desk, and after the chil- 
 dren have looked at him for a few moments (if he 
 remains in one position for that length of time) remove 
 him from sight and let the children draw from mem- 
 ory what they saw. Then place him on the desk in 
 some other position and let them try again. This is 
 always interesting and may be made a fine exercise 
 in quick observation. Do not expect too much, for 
 the children often do the most unexpected things. An 
 Ohio teacher related that in giving a lesson from the 
 
56 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 rabbit in her room, she called attention to its long 
 ears, its little stubby tail, etc., and then set the chil- 
 dren to work. One little fellow produced this result 
 (Fig. 28 ) and explained to the astonished teacher that it 
 was bunny’s two ears, two eyes, month, body, and tail. 
 
 Teachers often ask if they cannot have pupils 
 sketch from a stuffed bird which is sure to “stay 
 put,” as one little fellow expressed it, instead of from 
 live specimens, which cannot be counted upon to pose 
 quietly. There seem to be two reasons why this 
 would be inadvisable. First, such a plan would destroy 
 the chief value of animal drawing, namely, the quick, 
 spontaneous effort of the children to take in all they 
 can at a glance and to work rapidly and with con- 
 centration — to get all they can before the model 
 changes its position. In the second place, the interest 
 and delight with which the children study the rooster 
 or parrot, and try to show how he looks in this posi- 
 tion or that, does not extend to the poor dead bird, 
 standing motionless on his perch. “Is he awfully 
 dead ?” asked one little child in an awed whisper 
 when a stuffed robin was put before him to draw. 
 
 Sketching toy animals comes more under the head 
 of object drawing than animal drawing, but a few 
 words regarding it may not be amiss in this place. 
 A rocking horse or a Teddy Bear are splendid objects 
 to draw, and there are other toy animals which are 
 made so well that the children actually get a good 
 idea of proportion from drawing them. The jointed 
 elephant which is a part of the “Humpty Dumpty 
 
 DRAWING 
 
 FROM 
 
 STUFFED 
 
 BIRDS 
 
 DRAWING 
 
 TOY 
 
 ANIMALS 
 
 28 
 
DRAWING FROM ANIMALS 
 
 57 
 
 COLLECT- 
 
 ING 
 
 PICTURES 
 
 Circus,” and which is so constructed that trunk, legs, 
 head, and even ears are movable and adjustable, and 
 which may be made to stand in any number of most 
 natural positions, is a model which is most delightful 
 to the children. The author believes that were she 
 teaching in a Primary Grade, she would possess her- 
 self of this toy as a part of her equipment. 
 
 The study of pictures is a great aid in familiar- 
 izing children with various animal forms, and teachers 
 will find that a collection of pictures is invaluable. 
 
 Encourage the children to bring pictures of animals 
 to school. They will take delight in doing this, and 
 you will be surprised to see how many pictures are 
 brought in response to your request. The newspapers, 
 magazines, old picture books, and souvenir postal 
 stands will furnish their quota. In one room we know, 
 over one hundred and fifty pictures of dogs were 
 brought by the children, and from these the teacher 
 selected a hundred that were good enough to mount 
 on manila paper. To these she added a few especially 
 fine ones which she cut from her own magazines or 
 begged from her friends, and altogether the collection 
 when completed and mounted in a book was the 
 most delightful one of dog pictures we have ever seen. 
 In this book his canine majesty is depicted under 
 every possible emotion from deep grief to violent joy, 
 and in almost every position. 
 
 From this collection of pictures the children learned 
 the characteristics of various dogs, so that they were 
 able to tell very readily the difference between a collie 
 
 30 
 
 32 
 
58 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 and a bull-dog, a greyhound and a terrier, a spaniel 
 and a beagle, etc. It is not to be wondered at that 
 during the animal drawing which followed this picture 
 study and in which live dogs served as models, the 
 children evinced unusual interest with a high average 
 of results. 
 
 Another teacher made a collection of animal pic- 
 tures, and, after mounting them on cardboard, cut 
 each picture into six pieces. Occasionally, on a Friday 
 afternoon, the children played the following game in- 
 stead of doing the regular drawing work. The small 
 pieces were mixed up and each child was given a 
 certain number of pieces which he laid on his desk, 
 sorting to see what he had. The teacher next 
 asked every child who had a part of a horse picture 
 to stand. These children then brought the sections to 
 the table or to an empty seat and arranged them so 
 as to form the complete picture. In like manner, 
 various groups of children arranged the other animals. 
 To them it was a game, but in reality they were 
 learning much which would be put to practical use 
 in their drawing later. 
 
 In choosing pictures for the walls of a Primary 
 room, select one really fine animal picture, if possible. 
 One reproduction of a Landseer or a Bonheur, a Van 
 Marcke, or a Troy on is worth more than many pic- 
 tures of less merit. 
 
 AN 
 
 ANIMAL 
 
 GAME 
 
 WALL 
 
 PICTURES 
 
PROVID- 
 
 ING 
 
 OBJECTS 
 
 V. DRAWING FROM THINGS 
 
 No kind of drawing has undergone a greater change 
 in the method of teaching it than this. The days when 
 young children were given wooden blocks (the simple 
 geometric solids) to draw, after touching and counting 
 their edges, corners, faces, and surfaces, have happily 
 passed away. Drawing from objects has now been 
 made most interesting by letting the children draw 
 things which play a part in their environment and 
 their activities instead of those early geometric abstrac- 
 tions which , could make no intrinsic appeal to the 
 childish mind. A Drawing Course in which drawing 
 from objects received little attention would be like a 
 building with a weak framework, and this weakness 
 and instability would be detected not alone in lack 
 of power to draw things as they appear, but in story 
 drawing, in the color work and in all other kinds 
 of drawing as well as in the making. 
 
 Several things must be considered when preparing 
 for and giving a lesson in object drawing, not the 
 least important of which is to provide a suitable object 
 or suitable objects. It was a wise woman who, when 
 asked for her recipe for cooking a hare, said “First 
 catch your hare.” The discriminating selection of an 
 object or objects should just as surely precede a lesson 
 in object drawing. Many schoolrooms are completely 
 
 barren of anything suitable for this kind of lesson. 
 
 59 
 
60 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 There is, to be sure, the much used waste basket. 
 But it is not a very interesting thing at the outset 
 and when it has been drawn as often as the teacher 
 finds “object drawing” designated on her program, it 
 loses any charm it may once have possessed. Besides, 
 the children usually work with more interest when 
 something is put before them with which they are 
 not so familiar and which is more in the nature of 
 a surprise to them. They have seen the waste basket 
 day after day and consequently do not use their eyes 
 when asked to draw a picture of it, but draw more 
 from imagination than from observation. It is not 
 difficult to plan ahead for an object, the teacher bring- 
 ing it into the schoolroom or having some pupil do 
 so. Some schools include in their collection of “still 
 life” not only the beautiful and inexpensive pottery 
 now so available and used chiefly in the upper grades, 
 but crocks, kitchen and garden utensils, and a few 
 large toys, such as a cart, a wheelbarrow, etc., to be used 
 in connection with pose work or object drawing. In many 
 places the teachers ask the children to bring to school 
 old leaky teapots, coffee pots, kettles, watering cans, etc. 
 These are kept in some closet or corner of the base- 
 ment, and prove a never-failing source of supply for 
 every grade when object drawing is on the program. 
 
 Not only should one provide an object for the 
 lesson, but it should be a suitable one. A child will 
 draw things' which interest him with much more ob- 
 servation and spontaneity than things which do not. 
 A wooden sphere is doubtless the easiest thing which 
 
 CHOOSING 
 
 SUITABLE 
 
 OBJECTS 
 
DRAWING FROM THINGS 
 
 61 
 
 DEVELOP- 
 
 ING 
 
 QUICK 
 
 OBSERVA- 
 
 TION 
 
 could be placed before him, blit it is cold and mean- 
 ingless. He will draw circle after circle to represent 
 it, but mechanically and without interest. If you give 
 him the sphere in the form of his big brother's base 
 ball, putting the bat with it, the story is a different one. 
 You may possibly choose to have him make a large 
 drawing on one side of the paper (Fig. 1), and on the 
 other side several smaller ones for practice in quick 
 observation. 
 
 The children may divide the sheet for the smaller 
 drawings into four equal spaces by lines, and in the 
 four spaces thus formed they may make one-minute 
 sketches to show how the ball and the bat look when 
 placed in different positions (Fig. 2). 
 
 While drawing the ball and bat how the children 
 would enjoy having a base-ball pose. The results 
 might be damaging if the action were carried too far, 
 but one is sure the lesson would not be without in- 
 terest and delight for the children (Fig. 3). 
 
 Cut a sheet of paper into any odd form (Figs. 
 4, 5, 6). Hold it before the children for a minute, 
 slowly passing your fingers over the margin to call 
 attention to direction, slant, etc. Put it behind you 
 and let the children draw or cut the shape as they 
 remember it. Instance after instance could be given 
 showing how this kind of work has developed the 
 observation of children. It not only trains them 
 to observe quickly but they are stimulated to accuracy 
 by the rivalry which the exercise arouses and the 
 desire of each to excel the others. 
 
 3 
 
62 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Just as the drawing of the baseball will prove 
 much more interesting; than the drawing of the geomet- 
 rical sphere, so will there be more inherent interest 
 in the drawing of a berry box or a milk can than 
 in the drawing of a cube or cylinder. Children’s toys 
 are line for object drawing — Noah’s ark, Teddy Bear, 
 sled, wheelbarrow, cart, fire engine toys (Fig. 7) — 
 indeed any of the hundreds of toys which interest 
 them so much. If the locality is such that toys are 
 scarce, there are always tools at hand, such as hammer, 
 ax, saw, etc. ; garden implements, such as watering 
 can, spade, rake, shovel, and hoe, and kitchen utensils, 
 including teakettle, rolling-pin, pail, dipper, etc. 
 Potted plants are also excellent for this work. Peach, 
 market, and clothes baskets are good subjects. We 
 once saw a fine lesson given in a school located in 
 one of the poorer districts of a large city, with the 
 clothes basket for a subject. Two of the children 
 had been asked to go to their home near by and 
 bring a clothes basket. The teacher had seen the 
 basket in a neighboring yard and had asked the 
 mother if she would loan it. The children came back 
 with the basket and their baby brother asleep in it, 
 for it served as his cradle. While the lesson was in 
 progress the baby awoke and popped his head and 
 arms above the basket and the children added him 
 to their pictures. It goes without saying the result 
 was most interesting. 
 
 Although it is now a rare thing to require little 
 children to draw the wooden type models, these blocks 
 
 INTEREST- 
 
 ING 
 
 OBJECTS 
 
 DRAWING 
 
 FROM 
 
 BLOCK 
 
 BUILDING 
 
 7 
 
DRAWING FROM THINGS 
 
 63 
 
 may be used to splendid advantage in block building 
 from which pupils may draw. The suggestions offered 
 in the marginal sketches may prove helpful. The 
 playing blocks belonging to the children may be 
 brought to school if there are no blocks furnished for 
 the school, and many interesting lessons in building 
 and drawing may be evolved therefrom. 
 placing If the object is large, like a watering can or large 
 objects may be seen easily by all the children, the 
 
 former by being placed on a chair, which in turn is 
 placed on the teacher’s desk; the latter by being 
 pinned to the wall in the front of the room. If, how- 
 ever, the objects are small, several should be pro- 
 vided so that each child may plainly see the thing 
 he is trying' to draw. We once visited a room where 
 fifty primary children were trying to draw one little 
 china cup which stood on the teacher’s desk. It was 
 scarcely better than no lesson. There should have 
 been “desk boards” placed across the aisles resting 
 on the desks and at least seven cups placed as shown 
 by the crosses in the -diagram on Page 135. Tor this 
 purpose any ordinary board will answer. Boards upon 
 which dress goods are wound are often available at 
 the dry goods stores. These are light and easy to 
 handle, and a set of them on each floor of a building 
 will be sufficient. Many teachers prefer to have their 
 own desk boards to avoid confusion. The teacher 
 who thinks this causes too much trouble and takes 
 too much time should remember how much more 
 time and trouble are involved in placing chairs, tables, 
 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
64 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 boxes, etc., in the aisles on which to place the objects 
 to be drawn. A little trouble at the outset is worth 
 while, as the desk boards remain as a permanent 
 convenience for this work. Let one boy be responsi- 
 ble for placing the boards across the aisles properly 
 and returning them to their place after the lesson. 
 
 An object may be seen much more easily against 
 a plain background. For instance, if the children are 
 to draw a coffeepot, throw your white apron over 
 the back of the chair which has been placed on the 
 desk to hold the object, and let this white surface 
 serve as a background against which the form of the 
 object may be seen plainly. For the smaller objects 
 such backgrounds may be used as are suggested on 
 Page 26 in the Chapter Drawing from Nature. 
 
 Put the same animation and sparkle into the 
 lessons which make the language lessons so delightful 
 when conducted by a good teacher. In doing this 
 each teacher must devise her own methods of pre- 
 sentation and put her own personality into the work. 
 Personifying objects often appeals to the children. 
 Perhaps you have arranged a pail and a dipper 
 (Fig. 14). Talk about the large Mrs. Pail and the 
 little Miss Dipper. Have the children note their 
 positions and let them show by gestures how Mrs. 
 Pail holds her hands clasped above her head, and 
 how Miss Dipper holds her arm out as though she 
 were pointing, etc. (Figs. 15 and 16). 
 
 Objects may be turned and drawn as they appear 
 in each position (Figs. 17, 18, 19). This may be 
 
 OBJECT 
 
 AND 
 
 BACK- 
 
 GROUND 
 
 PRESENT- 
 ING THE 
 LESSONS 
 
 CHANGING 
 
 POSITION 
 
 OF 
 
 OBJECTS 
 
 16 
 
DRAWING FROM THINGS 
 
 65 
 
 WHAT 
 TO WORK 
 FOR 
 
 done in one lesson, or, if the object is difficult, the 
 work may cover several lessons. For instance, the 
 watering can looks very different according as we see 
 the front, side or back. Remember also that each 
 child in the room sees the object from a different 
 position and therefore does not see exactly the same 
 thing, although he is looking at the same object. Try 
 to have him show what he sees. If he does not see 
 the spout, he should not draw it. Do not draw a 
 picture of the object on the chalkboard. This is 
 deadly to the development of power in the children. 
 
 You cannot expect great results from small chil- 
 dren, but if you work in the right way and toward 
 the right end, you may be sure you are laying the 
 right foundation for greater results later. The main 
 object of this work is to quicken the child’s observa- 
 tion and to help him express truthfully what he sees 
 in so far as he is able. If you wish him to express 
 the big facts of proportion, action, etc., how do you 
 set to work ? 
 
 Let us suppose that you have chosen for the lesson 
 an umbrella. You choose this because the day is 
 rainy, and the umbrella may be easily seen. You 
 have placed the umbrella on your desk against a 
 white background. Paper and pencils are distributed 
 and all is ready. You first ask the children to turn 
 their papers in such a way as to make the drawing- 
 fit the space. This is better than to show them how 
 to turn the paper. You ask them to show you (by a 
 gesture) how the umbrella is standing — whether it 
 
66 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 stands “straight up" or slants, and if the latter, which 
 way. Then let them draw one line on their paper 
 to show how the umbrella stands. Let it be a “secret” 
 line, that is, drawn so lightly that no one can see it easily 
 but themselves. Pass around quickly and see if they 
 have the idea. Many will be found right, but some 
 will be found too short. Tell the children you want 
 long umbrellas, not stingy ones. You have now cov- 
 ered the first stage (Fig. 20, A). Have the children 
 study the umbrella again and find out how much of 
 it is handle, liow much cloth and how much tip. Let 
 them make marks to show the divisions (Fig. 20, B). 
 Call their attention to the way the cloth part looks, 
 the way the ends of the ribs group themselves closely 
 around the handle, etc. Let them draw. You were 
 looking for something like C or 1). What you found 
 were drawings more like E and F. But do not 
 become discouraged. You have probably given a 
 good lesson judged by child measure. Teach as well 
 the next time, and the next, and the results will take 
 care of themselves. 
 
 Among young children there seems to be an almost 
 universal tendency to draw too small, and this ten- 
 ency must be overcome before there can be any real 
 freedom in the work. The teacher can easily show 
 her preference for large drawings by judicious praise 
 of such efforts, and by referring to the small and 
 cramped ones as “stingy drawings" or in some other 
 equally expressive terms. One teacher, in whose 
 room the work showed exceptional freedom and bold- 
 
 SIZE OF 
 DRAW- 
 INGS 
 
DRAWING FROM THINGS 
 
 67 
 
 TECH- 
 
 NIQUE 
 
 ness, explained her way of obtaining these results as 
 follows: She said they always used 9x12 manila paper 
 when drawing with charcoal, and 6x9 when drawing 
 with pencil and for water color work, urging the 
 children to draw large by every argument which 
 occurred to her. She placed great stress on drawing 
 first a few suggestive lines (“blocking in”), claiming 
 if the first lines and shapes are cramped and dwarfed, 
 the finished drawing will be so. When, however, a 
 child persistently made tiny drawings, she said she 
 resorted to the expedient of giving him a very small 
 sheet of paper, telling him it was wasteful to give 
 him a large sheet since he never used but a small 
 part of it. lie was assured that just as soon as he 
 wanted to draw larger, he could have a larger sheet. 
 She increased the size of the sheet gradually as he 
 learned to draw larger. 
 
 Another teacher accomplished the same end by 
 hanging up an old sample of wall paper, as mentioned 
 in another chapter, letting some pupil who had made 
 an especially large and good drawing of some object, 
 take a piece of soft charcoal and make a large draw- 
 ing on the back of the wall paper which was kept 
 on exhibition for a day or two. 
 
 In the old days when school drawing was in its 
 infancy, great stress was laid upon the manner in 
 which the child should hold his pencil in order to 
 get the “broad gray line” which seemed to be the 
 end of all drawing work. The children were given 
 many drill exercises in pencil holding, according to 
 
68 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 fixed directions, and the luckless child, who grasped 
 his pencil too near the point, received extra drill in 
 order that the uniform rule might be enforced with 
 every pupil. We now show the pupil how to hold 
 the pencil in the way that gives the most freedom, 
 recognizing that the thing we are striving to develop 
 is not power to hold the pencil at a given angle or 
 in a hard and fixed position, but first power to see 
 and then to express with their pencils what they see. 
 
 The child who holds his pencil in a cramped, tense 
 grip so as to make freedom of drawing impossible 
 should of course be shown the better way of holding 
 it. But to go to the pupil, who with intense interest 
 is trying to make the spout of his teapot look just 
 as he sees it, and interrupt his eager effort by asking 
 him how he is holding his pencil, would be like inter- 
 rupting the happy song of a child by asking him 
 about the position o°f his larynx. 
 
 There comes a time when technique is given its 
 necessary place — and a very important place in the 
 drawing work, but that time may wisely be postponed 
 until the child is well along; in the grades. 
 
 Almost the first thing which the child learns in marking 
 school is how to write his name, and he should mark DRAW _ 
 every drawing he makes, even when his writing is INGS 
 uncertain and almost illegible. As soon as possible he 
 should learn to add the date to his signature. 
 Throughout the entire school course, every drawing 
 should bear the child's name and date of lesson. There 
 should be a uniform place for these on the sheet for 
 
Plate O 
 
DRAWING FROM THINGS 
 
 69 
 
 ERASERS 
 
 OBJECTS 
 
 IN 
 
 COLOR 
 
 convenience in looking over the work and because it 
 identifies the work and contributes to its appearance 
 in case of exhibition. Some Supervisors ask to have 
 all drawings signed on the back, while others prefer 
 to have the name placed in the lower left hand corner 
 of the drawing side, and the date in the lower right 
 hand corner. Again, the signing of the pupil’s name 
 to a drawing gives him a certain feeling of responsi- 
 bility, and is an added incentive to best effort, for 
 even primary children soon learn that if the work is 
 unsigned, neither carelessness nor excellence can be 
 traced to the individual who is responsible for them. 
 
 Erasers should not be used by pupils in the pri- 
 mary grades. Their use would encourage carelessness 
 and lead to untidy results. If available at any time, 
 the freedom and spontaneity of the work would be 
 impaired. The children should use very light lines 
 (“secret lines” as we have termed them elsewhere in 
 this Chapter) for blocking in the drawings, covering 
 these up with heavier lines or with the mass work 
 in the finished drawing. 
 
 In addition to the flowers, fruit and vegetables 
 which furnish such fine color lessons, let the children 
 try occasionally to render other objects in color. If a 
 bit of pottery is chosen, work only for the local color 
 and the form. For instance, a green vase in which 
 you might see high lights and graduation of light and 
 shade (Plate O, Fig. 1) would simply be green to the 
 child (Plate O, Fig. 2), and it would be wrong to 
 attempt to force him to see anything else at this stage. 
 
 25 
 
70 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 lie lias many years before him. If water color is 
 the medium, do not let the pupil outline with pencil, 
 
 but let him “wash in” the shape first with water, 
 
 and then paint his green wash over the moist surface. 
 Chinese lanterns are fine for any grade. In the first 
 
 grade there will be little or no perspective, but let 
 
 the child work to tell as much of the truth as he can 
 about the form and color of the lanterns. Do not 
 let the children paint simply fancy “make believe” 
 lanterns (Plate O, Fig. 3). Hang up a real lantern 
 and encourage them to tell as much as possible with 
 their brushes about its true shape and color. 
 
 Avoid the hard lines and edges (Plate O, Fig. 4) 
 by having the children first paint the form of the 
 lantern in clear water, washing in the color on this 
 moist surface (Plate O, Fig. 5). Show how the colors 
 may be made to blend by this method. Do not 
 expect to make artists of all the children any more 
 than you expect to make bookkeepers and expert 
 accountants of all the children who study arithmetic. 
 
 Note. — Figures 21 to 25 inclusive of this chapter are reproductions of 
 pencil drawings done by primary children. 
 
VI. PAINTING AND COLOR 
 
 Those who have studied the effect of color upon 
 children say that working with bright colors under 
 careful and wise direction contributes to the develop- 
 ment of child character. To paint the school room 
 walls a bright red, however, they say would be a 
 harmful thing to do, for, although stimulating to 
 mentality when used moderately, when used in large 
 masses, it tends to over-excite the mind, causing 
 nervousness and lack of self-control. On the other 
 hand, exercises involving the discriminating and 
 moderate use of bright colors may be made to serve a 
 good purpose in developing the color sense. 
 
 Children love color before they go to school. They 
 
 sense it and crave it almost from birth. They may 
 
 be taught how to make it and use it at school, but 
 
 the love for it seems to be inborn. Apparently, the 
 
 more barren and colorless the environment of a race 
 
 or an individual, the more passionate will be their 
 
 craving for color. The Indians of the Western plains 
 
 paint into their gaudy designs all the hues which 
 
 nature has denied them in the somber alkali desert 
 
 which serves as their stage setting. The woman of 
 
 the dingy Ghetto obeys the same instinct, when she 
 
 ties around her neck the glaring kerchief and decks 
 
 herself with the bright multi-colored beads or artificial 
 
 stones which appeal to her love of color. To take 
 
 71 
 
72 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 this inherent love of color and direct it to an appre- 
 ciation of harmonious and truly beautiful color is one 
 of the provinces of the school, and it may be the 
 happy privilege of the primary teacher to open 
 the door through which the child may enter into the 
 kingdom of beauty. Children are veritable barbarians 
 in the absence of a discriminating taste, and when 
 they enter school the most glaring colors and the most 
 antagonistic combinations appeal to them more strongly 
 than the less intense colors in harmonious relation. 
 The earlier color exercises should aim to gratify the 
 child's craving for strong color while leading him to 
 finer discriminations in color relations and harmony. 
 The full development of these finer discriminations 
 will be the work of years, and we should no more 
 expect the primary child to surrender his love of strong 
 color for a love of the more subtle and subdued tones 
 than we should expect him to turn with joy from his 
 Fairy Tales or Mother Goose rhymes to Shakespeare’s 
 plays or Browning’s poems. 
 
 The flowers and objects which are chosen for early 
 painting should be rich, intense, and brilliant in color, 
 because the painting of these objects satisfies the child’s 
 desire for bright colors, and because he is incapable 
 of producing the more subtle tones. This subject is 
 treated in the Chapter on Drawing from Nature under 
 Flower Painting. Besides lessons in which the aim is 
 to see and repres?nt form and color correctly, there are 
 many delightful exercises with color sense training for 
 their chief motive. Some of these exercises are given 
 
PAINTING AND COLOR 
 
 73 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 COLOR 
 
 WASHES 
 
 in the following pages, and it is hoped they may sug- 
 gest many others which will be equally helpful. 
 
 Let the children paint flat washes showing tints 
 of the primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. Let 
 them paint panels without first draw ing enclosing lines 
 with pencil. In painting a “flat wash,” the child 
 should first moisten the entire surface of each cake 
 of paint by filling the brush with water, and drawing 
 it across each one in succession. Then into one of 
 the compartments of his paint box let him dip enough 
 water for the wash — say about a teaspoonful, for an 
 oblong of ordinary size. After this, let him color 
 this water the desired tint, and beginning from the 
 top paint downward from left to right, always working 
 with his brush full of the tint. The papers should 
 be six by nine inches in size, and when finished will 
 lie like Figures 1, 2, and 3. In the same way washes 
 of the secondary colors may be made (Figs. 4, 5, and 
 6) by mixing red and yellow^ for orange, blue and 
 yellow^ for green, and blue and red for violet. These 
 panels should be saved and utilized as backgrounds 
 for brush and ink work. 
 
 The child wdio painted the spray, Plate J, Fig. 2, 
 used a tinted background which w as done at the time 
 of the flat wash lessons just mentioned. 
 
 In schools where the tinted papers are not available 
 for use by the children, these color washes may be 
 saved and used in making strips for weaving or in 
 connection wdtli the lessons in Paper Cutting, or in the 
 making of little booklets for Number Lessons, etc. 
 
 (! :> i 
 
74 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 An exercise which affords opportunity both for 
 color mixing and the study of color relation is based 
 on the following rhyme: 
 
 Tom Tinkum had six toy balloons. 
 
 And all of these were white; 
 
 He took 1 lis paints and took his brush 
 And worked with all his might. 
 
 “The first one of the row,” Tom said, 
 
 “I'll paint my very brightest red, 
 
 And then Til mix my red with yellow 
 For orange,” said the little fellow. 
 
 “And now I’ll paint a pretty one 
 All round and yellow like the sun. 
 
 By mixing yellow with my blue 
 I’ll get a lovely bright green hue. 
 
 Of blue my next balloon shall be, 
 
 The color of the sky, you see. 
 
 And now my red and blue I'll mix 
 To make a violet — number six.” 
 
 Have the children draw the pose from a child, 
 afterward adding the balloons (Fig. 7). Here is 
 another rhyme which may be recited to the children 
 in giving such a lesson: 
 
 “The man who toots the big tin horn and has the 
 toy balloons to sell, 
 
 I’m sure would have a lot of interesting things to tell. 
 He must know the secret forests where the toy balloons 
 all grow, 
 
 And I think that when they get away, he knows just 
 where they go. 
 
 I wonder if they wander round until they get back 
 home ? 
 
 Or if the man up in the moon doesn’t sometimes cap- 
 ture some ? 
 
 OTHER 
 
 SUGGEST- 
 
 IVE 
 
 WASH 
 
 EXERCISES 
 
 7 
 
PAINTING AND COLOR 
 
 75 
 
 SEAT 
 
 WORK 
 
 It may be all the toy balloons that bounce and bump 
 away 
 
 Meet somewhere up above the clouds like little folks 
 at play. 
 
 And never stop their romping game away up there so 
 high, 
 
 Till captured by the witch who sweeps the cobwebs 
 from the sky. 
 
 The man who sells the toy balloons might tell me 
 how it is, 
 
 But he only passes down the street and toots that 
 horn of his.” 
 
 The following exercise is excellent for seat work. 
 Each child cuts an oval tablet. He traces around 
 this six times with his pencil and then colors to rep- 
 resent the three primary and three secondary colors. 
 After this* he cuts out these ovals. His basket is cut 
 free-hand (See Page 10.5), and the ovals and basket 
 are mounted on tinted papers. 
 
 8 
 
 EASTER EGGS 
 
 Ilumpty Dumpty has country cousins, 
 
 Who come to the city in spring by the dozens; 
 
 They make such a brilliant show in town 
 You'd think that a rainbow had tumbled down — 
 Blue and yellow and red and green, 
 
 The gayest gowns that ever were seen; 
 
 Purple and orange and oh! such style, 
 
 They are all the rage for a little while; 
 
 But their visit is short, for no one stays 
 After the Easter holidays. 
 
 — Woman’s Home Companion. 
 
 Children take great delight in working out the fol- 
 lowing exercise. The page (Fig. 9), when completed, 
 
 !) 
 
76 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 contains the rhyme and colored squares as well as 
 crude little illustrations to represent leaf, sun, orange, 
 apple, violet, and sky. The paper must be nine by 
 twelve inches in size to allow for the exercise. 
 
 The green leaf is a pretty fellow, 
 
 And jolly is the sun so yellow; 
 
 The orange is a golden ball, 
 
 And red the apple in the Fall; 
 
 The violet has a purple hue. 
 
 And over all, the sky is blue. 
 
 A most delightful lesson in color may be given by rainbow 
 using a set of “ rainbow dolls.” There should be twelve DOLLS 
 dolls dressed in the six leading and six intermediate 
 spectrum colors (Figs. 10 and 11). The children may 
 play many games with them — games which are in reality 
 the best of lessons, and the boys usually enjoy them 
 as thoroughly as do the girls. Sometimes the various 
 children choose the one wearing the “prettiest color.” 
 
 Then they are placed in a row on the chalk rail in 
 order of choice by the children. For instance, if the 
 red doll is chosen, it is placed first in line. Then some 
 child chooses the doll most like red. it may be red- 
 orange or red-violet. Another follows and chooses the 
 doll most like this last, and so on till the twelve dolls 
 are arranged in a row, showing color relationship. 
 
 Talk about relatives and how relatives often resemble 
 
 each other and how people are often named after their 
 
 relatives. Tell them it is so with colors. Taking, * 
 
 say, red and orange, let them discover there is a color 
 
 that looks much like red and also much like orange 
 
 and which is named after its relatives, either red- 
 
 10 
 
PAINTING AND COLOR 
 
 77 
 
 orange or orange-red. The same comparisons may 
 be made with the other colors. Sometimes the chil- 
 dren play the rainbow dolls are going to a party, and 
 each wants to wear flowers to match her dress. The 
 children discuss what flowers “red” should wear, 
 what would match red-orange, etc. Sometimes they 
 bring these flowers to school and arrange them in a 
 “flower spectrum.” The teacher may make a set of 
 rainbow dolls by cutting out fashion pictures and 
 tinting them in the spectrum colors. 
 color -‘Color Days” are always a joy to children. Golden- 
 DAYS rod or yellow leaves brought into the schoolroom on 
 “Yellow Day” seem to bring added sunshine to the 
 room and to the children. A “Green Day” in the 
 spring when the leaves first appear furnishes oppor- 
 tunity for a similar color exercise. Let every child 
 bring or wear something having the color which is 
 chosen for the day. On one occasion, when visiting 
 the schools of a large city, the writer found them cele- 
 brating “Yellow Day” in one of the attractive new 
 buildings, located in the better residence section of 
 the city. All the rooms were lovely, and in one every 
 girl wore a butterfly bow of yellow crepe paper, and 
 the boys wore yellow rosettes made of the same material. 
 There were masses of yellow flowers, and the children 
 were very happy. In the afternoon of the same day 
 she visited a school in a slum district, and here again 
 it was “Yellow Day.” The teachers had taken pains 
 to get such flowers as could be had, but the children 
 instead of bringing flowers, golden fruit, or lovely 
 
 11 
 
78 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 bits of ribbon, brought can labels or bits of faded cloth. 
 One child had a bit of yellow string which he presented 
 as his contribution. 
 
 There is no better exercise adapted to children 
 for the free use of rich glowing colors than those which 
 aim at stained glass effects, and the children delight 
 in the varied and marvelous color combinations which 
 may be produced by mixing red, yellow, and blue. 
 II ave children first dampen each cake of paint, letting 
 the water remain on them while the teacher paints 
 quickly a stained glass panel before them (Fig. 12). 
 Do this by first dampening the paper with the brush 
 or a small bit of cloth dipped in water. On the moist 
 surface drop rich spots of red, yellow, and blue, tip- 
 ping the paper so that the moisture will carry the 
 paint and cause the colors to flow together. Do not 
 work too long with it, as too much flowing will cause 
 the colors to get brown or gray. In this connection 
 the writer recalls an interesting incident which was 
 related to her. The children of a primary room had 
 been painting sunset effects. They had also learned 
 a little poem in their language work which contained 
 the line “Blue eyes came from heaven.” Some of 
 the children noticed that the teacher had brown eyes 
 instead of blue, and seemed puzzled to know where 
 she came from, as obviously only “blue eyes came 
 from heaven.” One little fellow whose sunset colors 
 had become hopelessly mixed, exclaimed, “I know! 
 Miss B. came from heaven just at sunset and the 
 colors got mixed.” 
 
 STAINED 
 
 GLASS 
 
 EFFECTS 
 
 10 
 
PAINTING AND COLOR 
 
 79 
 
 A 
 
 FALL 
 
 EXERCISE 
 
 If the teacher can do a stained Mass effect as 
 
 o 
 
 suggested, she can get delightful results from the 
 children, and will be amazed at the variety of colors 
 and the beautiful blendings which will come from 
 their efforts. These exercises may be saved and 
 utilized in making little booklet covers for the Special 
 Days (Figs. 13, 14, 15, and 16), or book-marks 
 (Figs. 17 and 18), or cornucopias (Fig. 19). A dark 
 grayish tone of construction paper serves to bring out 
 the bright hues of the decoration. In making the book- 
 mark (Fig. 17), the star should be pasted across the top 
 so that its lower edge only may slide over the leaf. 
 When making such markers as the one shown in Fig. 
 
 o o 
 
 18, have the children cut a stencil of gray paper and 
 mount it over the colored paper. The bright stained 
 glass colors will show through the openings with pleas- 
 ing effect. The making of the butterfly cornucopia 
 (Fig. 19) is described in detail under the Chapter on 
 Special Days. 
 
 Akin to the stained glass effects are the glowing 
 little bonfires which the children paint in the Fall, 
 and to which Stevenson refers in the lines 
 
 “Sing a song of Seasons 
 Something bright in all 
 Flowers in the Summer 
 Fires in the Fall.” 
 
 They first “build the fire” by painting a few tiny 
 crooked sticks. Then they paint with clear water 
 that spot where they are going to paint the fire. Next 
 they turn the paper upside down and by putting a 
 
 17 
 
 19 
 
80 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 stroke of rich red and yellow near the sticks, and 
 letting the colors run as in the stained glass exercise, 
 they get the result shown in Fig. 20. These should he 
 done very small, else their lire when finished will look 
 like the burning of Baltimore or San Francisco. 
 
 W1 lat child does not delight in the exquisite colors 
 to be seen in soap bubbles? Let the children blow 
 soap bubbles and watch the lovely colors. Then let 
 them paint a page of bubbles. Make each bubble 
 by first painting a freehand circle of water, and before 
 this dries, drop in a tiny bit of color, letting it run as 
 in the stained glass lesson. Only faint color is used 
 this time (Fig. 21). 
 
 The prism is a delight to the children, and it brings 
 the “Rainbow Colors” right into the schoolroom. 
 Every primary room should be supplied with a glass 
 prism. 
 
 The spectrum colors may be represented by placing- 
 red, blue, and yellow tissue paper in the windows so 
 that the light falls through them. By overlapping 
 various sheets of paper, every color is produced. For 
 instance, orange is produced by one thickness each of 
 red and yellow. If red-orange is desired, it may be 
 obtained by using two sheets of red over one of yellow, 
 etc. These exercises will prove a joy to all and will 
 pave the way to the more formal study of color in the 
 upper grades. 
 
 SOAP 
 
 BUBBLE 
 
 PAINTING 
 
 THE 
 
 PRISM 
 
 TISSUE 
 
 PAPER 
 
 21 
 
THE 
 
 DOLL 
 
 HOUSE 
 
 VII, MAKING AND DECORATING 
 
 Whether we call it Constructive Design, Industrial 
 Work, Manual Art, or simply Making in the 
 Primary Grades, it is now conceded to be an essential 
 factor in arousing the interest and developing the 
 imagination and inventive faculty of children. When 
 one of our great merchant princes said “Education 
 should consist of Headucation and Ilanducation,” he 
 voiced in original terms the sentiment of all who are 
 giving thoughtful attention to our present day educa- 
 tional problems. Someone has aptly said “the hands 
 of the child are often the sensitive feelers with which 
 he lays hold of higher things in his growing time.” 
 The croaking pessimist who predicted that hand work 
 would crowd out the “regular studies” is heard no 
 more. If he still croaks, his weak minor note is lost 
 in the happy chorus of millions of boys and girls whose 
 school work has been vitalized by giving intelligent 
 direction to their motor impulses and activities through 
 a variety of constructive exercises. 
 
 The constructive work of the lower grades naturally 
 bases itself upon the interests and activities of the 
 child, and the doll house, that delight of every childish 
 heart, has done not a little to furnish a nucleus for 
 the making of a great variety of objects. In many of 
 our cities, the doll house has become almost an “‘insti- 
 tution” in every First and Second Grade, and the 
 
 si 
 
82 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 furnishing; of this house is a never-failing source of 
 delight to the children. One finds all sorts and con- 
 ditions of doll houses, from the one made from the 
 humble orange crate, which is turned upon end and 
 made to serve as a two-story cottage, to the finely 
 constructed one with • chimney, windows, and stair- 
 way, and which in reality is a miniature house. Four 
 rectangular bandboxes glued together after the covers 
 are removed may be used for a doll house with four 
 corner rooms, having windows and doors cut in its 
 wall and partitions. A table of any kind will make 
 a convenient resting place for the house while the 
 work goes on. The covers of the boxes may be 
 replaced by a large sheet of cardboard or glass for 
 the roof, which may be removed whenever a new 
 article of furniture is to be put in place. , 
 
 Sometimes the school janitor becomes interested in 
 the toy-house, and if he is at all skillful with hammer and 
 saw, there is no limit to what he may evolve from an old 
 dry-goods box. Very often the larger boys in the upper 
 grades make the doll houses for the primary children. 
 This is done sometimes in connection with the Manual 
 Training, but quite as frequently it is done at odd 
 times out of school hours. A very interesting house 
 of this kind is pictured here (Figs. 1 and 2). It was 
 made by the school boys of one of our Western cities. 
 As the house was to be built like those of the pioneer 
 days, there was much searching of old books for pic- 
 tures and descriptions of the early houses. Every part 
 of the house was made by the boys and they be- 
 
 3 
 
MAKING AND DECORATING 
 
 83 
 
 came positively enthusiastic in its construction. They 
 gathered branches an inch in diameter which served 
 for logs. The bricks for the fireplace were made by 
 the children of a Second Grade and were fired at a 
 neighboring brick kiln. The mortar and plaster were 
 mixed by the boys, and the house when completed 
 was furnished by the primary children. Standing in 
 the lower hall, it is a splendid piece of community 
 work in which every room in the school has partici- 
 pated. 
 
 Fig. 3 shows a doll house from another city. 
 The house shown in Fig. 4 was made by pupils in one 
 of the New York Schools. It is entirely different from 
 the others and contains six rooms. The one shown in 
 Fig. 5 wa^ made in one of the Iowa schools, and is 
 quite unique in style, having open sides which make 
 it especially convenient for furnishing. Another sug- 
 gestive house is shown in Fig. 6. This was made in 
 one of the Wisconsin schools. That the doll house 
 should be furnished entirely by the children hardly 
 needs to be said, yet occasionally a teacher loses sight 
 of the educational value of this exercise entirely and, 
 in her desire to make a fine showing, does so much 
 herself that the value of the exercise to the pupils is 
 greatly minimized. This has been done to such an 
 extent that some of the best Art Supervisors have felt 
 that the doll house was not of sufficient value to justify 
 its presence in the schoolroom. Certain it is that only 
 as its furnishing is done by the children, does it serve 
 its best educational purpose in the school. 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
84 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 Ji 
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 7. 
 
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 9 . 
 
 After the doll house is completed and stands empty, papering 
 it may be placed in a corner of the room, and the carpet 
 making for a time made to center around it. First ING 
 come the drawing and painting lessons in which the 
 children design the wall paper. Possibly a professional 
 designer might hesitate to use the word “design” in 
 connection with the quavery little stripes, the queer 
 sprangly flowers, and the ill-spaced brush stroke 
 repeats, made by the children, but working happily 
 and earnestly they could not feel more important 
 were they professional mural decorators. Figs. 7 and 
 8 are reproduced from children’s designs. The child 
 whose design is chosen for a room in the doll house 
 is as proud as a king. As it would be too tedious 
 and also undesirable for him to paint the paper for 
 the whole house, the teacher selects several assistants 
 and each paints enough paper like the chosen design 
 for one wall of a room. Sometimes the teacher cuts 
 little stencils from the children’s designs, and the chil- 
 dren use these stencils in doing the surface covering. 
 
 The children may be led to see that a design which 
 is very pretty for a bedroom may not be at all suitable 
 for a kitchen, where plainer walls are better. The 
 more geometric planning of oilcloth or linoleum for 
 the kitchen floor adds variety to the design work 
 (Fig. 9). Rugs may be woven for the floors of the 
 various rooms. Sometimes these are merely woven 
 with strips of paper which the children have 
 cut (Fig. 10), and sometimes with raffia, chenille 
 (Fig. 11), real carpet yarn, or narrow strips of 
 
 10 . 
 
 11 . 
 
MAKING AND DECORATING 
 
 85 
 
 THE 
 
 CURTAINS 
 
 FIRST 
 
 MAKING 
 
 WORK 
 
 SIXTEEN 
 
 SQUARE 
 
 FOLD 
 
 cloth, the latter like veritable though diminutive rag 
 carpets. 
 
 Bits of dimity or scrim may be used for the window 
 curtains. Sometimes the childish hands fashion queer 
 little stencil designs for the curtains (Fig. 12), or paint 
 the borders with free-hand brush strokes (Fig. 13). 
 Reed and bead portieres for the wide doors leading 
 from room to room may be made by stringing straws 
 and kindergarten beads. 
 
 F or the making work of very young children, wood 
 is out of the question, and heavy construction or bogus 
 paper or light weight cardboard seems to be the most 
 suitable material, because it is easily bent or cut by 
 the small fingers, holds its shape well and is at the 
 same time inexpensive. Before attempting the furni- 
 ture — indeed before the children do any original 
 making — they should be given a few dictation 
 lessons. 
 
 The making from dictation of a square or oblong 
 box or basket (Figs. 14, 15, 16, 17), or some other 
 equally simple object based on the “sixteen square 
 fold'' furnishes excellent preliminary work. These 
 boxes and baskets may be decorated with simple brush 
 stroke borders and used for Christmas or May Day, 
 if desired. The time spent in thoroughly mastering 
 these early dictation exercises is well repaid in the 
 original work which is developed later on, and as the 
 sixteen square fold is the basis of much of the con- 
 struction work, it is important that it be well under- 
 stood. 
 
 15. 
 
 17. 
 
86 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
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 In giving the first dictation lesson, it will be a help 
 to the children if the teacher draws an oblong on the 
 front chalkboard, calling this oblong the top of her 
 desk, and faces it, as she gives her directions, just 
 as the pupils face their desks. It will be an advantage 
 if she uses a large square of paper, making each fold 
 as she dictates to the children. She should go so 
 
 o 
 
 slowly that the children may easily follow each step 
 in the folding. After this she may test the pupils by 
 collecting the first squares and having each child fold 
 one independently. After each child is provided with 
 a square of paper, the dictation in the first instance 
 may proceed somewhat as follows: 
 
 Place square so that its front edge rests on the 
 front edge of the desk. Fold front edge of square 
 over so that the front and back edges are even. Crease 
 firmly, using finger nail for pressing. Open. Fold 
 front edge to middle crease. Open. Turn the back 
 edge around so that it becomes the front edge, and 
 fold to middle crease. Turn the paper so that these 
 creases run from front to back of the desk, and then 
 repeat the dictation for the other folds. The children 
 will find their paper has been creased into sixteen 
 squares. 
 
 To make the square box, cut away all of the squares 
 which are indicated by the dark tone in Fig. 18, then 
 cut on the heavy lines and fold and paste. Fig. 19 
 shows how two squares are cut away in making the 
 oblong box, and Figs. 20 and 21 show the patterns of 
 a square and oblong basket. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 " - b, 
 ISgtsSS 
 
 IllPlite 
 
 ^ m&m 
 
 mu 
 
 yltkiMS 
 
 y 
 
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 ■’ 
 
MAKING AND DECORATING 
 
 87 
 
 ORIGINAL 
 
 MAKING 
 
 The children soon discover that what they learn 
 in the making of these boxes and baskets may be 
 applied to the making of innumerable things. The 
 creative impulse is strong in most children, and while 
 there is need of much guidance by the teacher, she 
 should always leave ample opportunity for them to 
 work out their own ideas. Figs. 22, 23, 24, and 25 
 show some of the original designs worked out by four 
 small pupils. The teacher suggested how to use the 
 square box for the body of the bureau. She also sug- 
 gested how oblong boxes may be made to serve as 
 drawers for the dresser, but the knobs or handles, 
 shelves and mirrors, as well as the general spacings, 
 were worked out by each child for himself according 
 to his ow'n ideas of fitness and pleasing effect. Could 
 we show the entire set of fifty bureaus from this school, 
 it would be found that the results reveal quite a degree 
 of creative ability along with more or less skillful 
 manual manipulation. Of course there were a few 
 children who, at the end of the lesson, had only a 
 poor, battered, crumpled object to show in place of 
 a bureau, but these children were the very ones who 
 needed such work most, and possibly the next time 
 the teacher gave a lesson of this kind, she seated these 
 children in a little group near the front of the room 
 and made -a special effort to help them. 
 
 It may be well to state that for such making lessons 
 it is necessary to give more time than is given to the 
 ordinary drawing work. Teachers usually plan to put 
 several periods of drawing together when making of 
 
 22 
 
 25 
 
88 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 28 
 
 this kind is to be done. This gives time for distribu- 
 tion of scissors, paper, and paste, for general sugges- 
 tions, and for careful clearing up after the lesson. 
 The paste is usually provided by putting a little on 
 small pieces of paper placed on each desk of every 
 other row so that two children may paste from one 
 desk. 
 
 In the lesson on making cradles, the same origi- 
 nality is shown. Figs. 26, 27, and 28 show only 
 a few of the ideas worked out by childish minds 
 and hands. Every child in the room made a cradle, 
 and while many made the old Puritan cradle 
 (Fig. 26), as dictated by their teacher, they were 
 encouraged to devise and construct other styles 
 of cradles. The chairs and sofa (Figs. 29, 30, 31, 
 and 32) are just as interesting both in form and 
 construction, and possibly chairs constructed on these 
 lines would be fully as comfortable as much of the 
 so-called art furniture which is shown in the stores. 
 Again, we see how the square box was used as a basis 
 for the original making of the piano (Fig. 33) ; how 
 the worker labored over the making of the music rack, 
 and the keyboard whose tiny keys were drawn on a 
 strip of white paper which he pasted in place. The 
 making of the kitchen stove (Fig. 34) was full of 
 delight to the children, inasmuch as those who did 
 especially well were allowed to use a heavy sheet of 
 black paper instead of the bogus paper with which 
 their construction work was usually done. The child 
 whose stove is here reproduced was especially skillful. 
 
 31 
 
MAKING AND DECORATING 
 
 89 
 
 LOVE OF 
 GOOD 
 WORK- 
 MANSHIP 
 
 TRANS- 
 
 POR- 
 
 TATION 
 
 LESSON 
 
 During one of these lessons, given to Second Grade 
 children which the writer observed, one little girl held 
 up the paper chair on which she was patiently labor- 
 ing, examined it critically and then looked at her 
 teacher. When the teacher asked her what she thought 
 of it, she replied, “I think it is awfully un-neat.” The 
 word was very expressive and deserves coining. There 
 is very little petty jealousy among young children, 
 and though each child works earnestly and laboriously 
 and with much puckering of his round face and much 
 activity of his chubby fingers in the hope that his 
 chair, table, dresser, or stove may be chosen for the 
 doll house, the children who are not so fortunate as 
 to win this honor, often quite swell with pride as they 
 point to the work of some other boy or girl. The 
 'making of such objects may not necessarily depend 
 upon doll houses to be furnished. Indeed much of 
 that reproduced here comes from a city where it is 
 not deemed advisable to use the doll house. 
 
 In this same city we observed a lesson in trans- 
 portation (Figs. 35 to 47 inclusive), which would 
 delight any primary teacher. Along with the making 
 of various articles of furniture, the children had been 
 given a dictation lesson for making a little cart or 
 
 wagon, and had learned that the box principle enters 
 into their construction. They had also discovered that 
 the wheels and shafts have to be made of two thick- 
 nesses of paper in order to be firm enough. The 
 teacher led the children to talk about ways in which 
 people travel. They told her of trips they had made. 
 
90 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 41 
 
 42 
 
 44 
 
 This one had been down the river in a steamboat, 
 another had ridden on her father’s express wagon, 
 while others had traveled in street cars, automobiles, etc. 
 The result was most interesting. Canoes, sleds, autos, 
 street ears, indeed, almost every conceivable vehicle 
 and many inconceivable to “grown ups” were made 
 by the children. In such lessons it is quite a study 
 to watch the children as they work out various ways 
 of putting things together. One boy puts his wheels 
 on by rolling a piece of paper so as to form a 
 stiff rod for the axle, which he inserts in his wheels. 
 Another conceives the idea of pasting a band across 
 the bottom of his cart or auto, bending the ends of 
 this band downward and pasting the wheels to these. 
 As a rule, the girls are neater about this work, but 
 do not show the same inventive power, although they 
 evince the same interest. Only a few samples of these 
 objects can be shown here, and these very much 
 reduced in size, but they give an idea of how such 
 lessons may be worked out in a school where con- 
 structive design is taught logically and carefully, and 
 with a desire to develop creative power. 
 
 Very young children take little interest in merely 
 making designs , that is, working out problems in 
 what the artists technically term “pure design” 
 without reference to definite application. They take 
 genuine pleasure, however, in decorating their Thanks- 
 giving, Christmas, or Easter booklets, their Valentines, 
 calendars, needle books, scratch pads, blotter pads, 
 etc. In the chapter devoted to Special Days we shall 
 
 DECORA- 
 TION OF 
 OBJECTS 
 
 46 
 
 45 
 
 47 
 
MAKING AND DECORATING 
 
 91 
 
 have occasion to refer to booklet and calendar-making, 
 and decorating. We shall take occasion to show here 
 only a few examples of simple decoration from First 
 and Second Grades. Notice that the children have 
 been led to see the beauty of simplicity, as illustrated 
 by the needle book (Fig. 48) with its single broad 
 marginal line and brush stroke at corners. It is a 
 useful little thing, too, with its flannel leaves sewed in 
 between the two heavy paper covers. We see the same 
 simplicity in both the match scratch (Fig. 49), and the 
 blotter pad (Fig. 50). 
 
 Figures 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, and 56 show some 
 of the decorations which the children of the Second 
 and Third Grades made for their box covers. 
 There are several ways of working out such designs. 
 One way is to fold and cut the paper as in the 
 making of “snow flakes.” This is the easiest for 
 very young children, but as the best results are often 
 accidental, it is not strictly speaking design. To 
 illustrate: The children have made square boxes 
 
 which they wish to decorate. Each child is given a 
 square of thin paper the size of his box. He folds it 
 on its diameters and diagonals, and cuts it in some 
 such way as shown by Figs. 57, 58, and 59. He opens 
 his paper and finds he has forms shown by Figs. 60, 
 61, or 62, according as he has cut. Laying this stencil 
 on his box cover, before the cover is pasted, he paints 
 through the holes with this effect (Figs. 63, 64, and 65). 
 The box illustrated by Fig. 55 was done by a Second 
 Grade pupil in the way above described. 
 
 48 
 
 49 
 
 55 
 
 50 
 
 51 
 
 56 
 
 54 
 
 53 
 
92 
 
 MAKING AND DECORATING 
 
 
 [ 
 
 ^ <7 
 
 D£> 
 
 <fd 
 
 C> 
 
 A Ok 
 
 61 
 
 This does very well in the beginning, but in order 
 to have a method by which children actually plan for 
 beauty, and by which they design in the true sense, the 
 following is suggested, which was probably used in 
 working out all of the designs here shown, except Fig. 
 55. Assume that the children have a square surface to 
 work upon. Using a ruler, they mark oil' the edges 
 in quarter-inch dots connecting with very light lines, 
 which divide the surface into many little squares. 
 With these lines and squares to guide them, they may 
 work out a great variety of designs. Fig. 66 shows 
 a square decorated in this way, and the light “work- 
 ing lines” have been left in one corner to show the 
 method. The first lesson should be dictated from the 
 blackboard. Cheap paper ruled in squares of different 
 sizes is carried by many school supply houses, and the 
 children delight in working out designs upon this 
 paper. This is excellent seat work. 
 
 63 
 
 * © V 0 
 »:*« 
 
 i * i 
 
 
 - 4 
 
 
 ' 
 
 1 % 
 
 i _ra ea_ & 
 
 64 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 65 
 
 
 4 
 
 66 
 
VIII. WORKING IN CLAY 
 
 EXPENSE 
 
 OF 
 
 MATERIAL 
 
 OBJEC- 
 
 TIONS 
 
 EASILY 
 
 OVER- 
 
 COME 
 
 There is no medium richer in possibilities for the 
 form training of children than clay. It responds 
 almost instantly to the touch of their young fingers, 
 and by working with it they obtain an idea of solidity 
 and form which may be obtained in no other way. 
 Then, too, the very nature of the clay discourages a 
 tendency toward detail in execution to which children 
 usually give undue importance in their drawing, and 
 compels them to work for large effects. This fact 
 alone is a strong argument for the use of clay in every 
 primary school. 
 
 The small expense incident to the use of clay 
 should also be taken into account. A very small 
 expenditure at the beginning of the school year fur- 
 nishes material for the entire year, as the clay, with 
 proper care, may be used over and over. Sixty pounds 
 of clay should furnish a primary room of fifty pupils 
 with enough material for a year. 
 
 An objection sometimes urged by teachers against 
 the use of clay is the difficulty of keeping it in the 
 proper condition. This ceases to be a serious objec- 
 tion, however, when one knows how to care for it, 
 and especially if the teacher is on friendly terms with 
 the janitor, who, busy as he is, can easily find five 
 minutes a day to care for the clay. A tactful teacher will 
 
 know how to handle the situation. Someone has said: 
 
 9:3 
 
94 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 “ Man is naught but a lump of clay 
 Gifted with hopes and fears 
 And woman can mould him any way 
 If she softens him with her tears.” 
 
 However, no teacher will have to resort to this melo- 
 dramatic way of attaining her purpose. Even should 
 conditions render it impossible for the janitor to 
 attend to the clay, it is not difficult for any teacher 
 to keep it in condition for her own work. 
 
 Clay may be bought in bulk by the barrel or half prepara- 
 barrel, in powdered form, in five-pound bricks, or in 
 the shape of prepared clay or plasticine. The last care 
 named form would be ideal were it not for the cost, 
 the clay having been mixed with some oily prepara- 
 tion which keeps it plastic and workable all the time. 
 
 To prepare the powdered cla^, it should be placed in 
 bags of thick cloth or canvas and suspended in a 
 crock half full of water over night. It is then ready 
 to be pounded or kneaded into shape and cared for 
 as described below. 
 
 If the clay is in bulk or in brick form, it must be 
 broken into small pieces, put into a large stone jar 
 or crock and nearly covered with water. After some 
 hours the clay will have become thoroughly saturated 
 and should then be put into a strong bag and pounded 
 or kneaded into plastic condition. It should then be 
 put back into the crock, pierced with pencil holes, 
 sprinkled with water, covered with a moist cloth and 
 the jar carefully covered. When desired for use, the 
 clay may be cut into lumps of uniform size by means 
 
WORKING IN CLAY 
 
 95 
 
 PREPAR- 
 
 ING 
 
 DESKS 
 
 FOR 
 
 MODELING 
 
 LESSON 
 
 OVER- 
 
 WORKING 
 
 THE 
 
 CLAY 
 
 PURIFY- 
 
 ING 
 
 THE 
 
 CLAY 
 
 of a large knife or by sawing with fine linen twine. 
 In some places the clay is kept in “working condition” 
 all the year, while in many other places all of the model- 
 ing work is done in two or three consecutive weeks 
 in order to save the extra labor of keeping the material 
 always in readiness. Educationally the first method 
 is by far the better, but practically the latter method 
 is often necessary on account of conditions. 
 
 Before giving a modeling lesson, each desk should 
 be covered either with paper or oilcloth. If news- 
 papers are used, they should be thrown away after 
 the lesson, but if heavy manila paper is available, it 
 may be cut into pieces the size of the desk and the 
 same papers made to serve for many lessons. Oil- 
 cloth is the best material for this purpose. Slates 
 are also frequently used. In some schools pie tins 
 are used as trays on which the modeling is done. 
 
 Clay, however well prepared for modeling, soon 
 becomes dry and hard when worked over and over in 
 the children’s hands. The modeling lessons, there- 
 fore, should be carried on with a good “swing” so 
 as to allow no time for useless handling. 
 
 A few of the best pieces should be allowed to dry 
 that they may be kept for a permanent exhibit. After 
 the lesson the clay should be gathered up and taken 
 to the basement to be pounded and put away again 
 in a crock as heretofore described. 
 
 Frequent handling by many fingers and confining 
 the clay in close jars to keep it plastic may cause it 
 to become musty after a time. For this reason it 
 
96 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 1 
 
 should be given an occasional sun-bath by spreading 
 it on boards out of doors and letting the sun and 
 wind purify it. When thoroughly dry, break it into 
 small pieces and put it away for future use as when 
 first purchased. 
 
 Much of the clay modeling in the lower grades 
 is done in connection with the History and Language 
 W ork. The rude bits of pottery which the children 
 fashion in connection with the Hiawatha Tale, or the 
 Esquimo Agloos, and the animals which they make 
 to illustrate the Agoonac story come under this head. 
 We h ave seen some especially delightful work in this 
 line. The Esquimo village always forms an interest- 
 ing piece of community work with its blocks of ice, 
 polar bears, sledges, and Agloos, all modeled in clay. 
 The writer once visited a room where the children 
 were busily engaged in a unique piece of community 
 work. They were building a Pilgrim house. Some 
 were modeling the logs and some the chimney blocks, 
 and already the building had begun to look quite 
 like a house. Standing on the sand-table, it was to 
 be the nucleus of much of their cutting, modeling, and 
 construction work. We have seen the Old Plymouth 
 Settlement, a Street in Holland, and Robinson Crusoe’s 
 Island illustrated largely in clay. We have also seen 
 a series of modeling lessons carried on in connection 
 with the Christmas Story and with results that brought 
 evident joy to the children. 
 
 They were told about that strange Eastern coun- 
 try where the shepherds guide their flocks to grazing 
 
 STORY 
 
 TELLING 
 
 IN 
 
 CLAY 
 
 8 
 
WORKING IN CLAY 
 
 97 
 
 grounds often far from the home fold and how care- 
 
 o 
 
 fully they guard their sheep from the wolves, and how 
 the faithful shepherd dog helps his master protect the 
 sheep from any prowling foe. 
 
 The sand-table became for the time an Oriental 
 pasture upon which the children built a fold for the 
 sheep by sticking twigs upright in the sand to form 
 a circular stockade. On one side was the opening 
 where the sheep might enter and at this opening- 
 watched the faithful shepherd dog. Within the fold 
 were the sheep and lambs resting after their long day 
 of grazing-. In the margin are shown two of the lambs 
 and also one of the dogs which guarded the entrance 
 to the fold. They are not wonderful. They show 
 simply actual work of childish fingers guided by a 
 teacher, retaining to a large degree the “child 
 heart." 
 
 Nor did the lessons cease with the modeling of 
 things connected with the shepherd story, for there 
 were the wise men who came across the desert on their 
 camels, and from pictures or toys the children gained 
 an idea of these strange, awkward animals and great 
 was their delight in modeling them. They fashioned 
 them in a recumbent position, as it would have been 
 impossible for the children to model their long slender 
 legs in clay. The pottery reproduced on the margin 
 of another page of this chapter was a feature of these 
 lessons, for the children were told about the scarcity 
 of water in the desert and about the water jars which 
 are fashioned from the clay of that country. 
 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Among the simpler forms from which children 
 may model, nothing better can be found than fruits 
 and vegetables. In choosing specimens for this pur- 
 pose it is best to avoid those that are too nearly sym- 
 metrical. For instance, if an orange were selected, 
 the children would be likely to merely roll a mass of 
 clay between their palms till it became spherical and 
 call it an orange. If, however, a pear, a carrot or 
 a beet is chosen, their irregular shapes will not only 
 arouse the child’s interest but will stimulate greater 
 skill and ingenuity in his modeling. Whenever possi- 
 ble, it is best for each child to have the object to be 
 modeled on his desk, as he will gain a better notion 
 of its form by handling it. 
 
 In modeling, the children may use a clay tablet 
 and merely show the form in “relief” upon this tablet, 
 or they may model “in the round.” These two ways 
 are plainly shown in the pear and the beet here repro- 
 duced. (Figs. 8 and 9.) 
 
 Although teachers frequently require First and 
 Second Grade children to model tw r igs, such work 
 may well be postponed until the Third Grade. It 
 should never be attempted without first modeling 
 a tablet on which to work. The twigs chosen for 
 such lessons should be rugged and coarse and not 
 fine and dainty in form with flat leaves. The clay 
 tablet should not be merely a slab of clay cut from 
 the large lump with some mechanical instrument. It 
 should be roughly modeled by the child with his own 
 hands, and exactness and smoothness of surface are 
 
 FRUIT 
 
 AND 
 
 VEGETA- 
 
 BLES 
 
 MODELING 
 
 TWIGS 
 
 9 
 
WORKING IN CLAY 
 
 99 
 
 quite non-essential. Each child should have a twig 
 on his desk placed in the position which he thinks the 
 most pleasing. He should draw a line on the tablet 
 to represent the slant of the stem and upon this line 
 he should model his twig, putting the clay on bit by 
 bit, trying to show where the edge of the leaf curls 
 over, where the burrs or nuts or bursting leaves stand 
 highest and where they rest close to the tablet. 
 
 modeling It is no longer considered desirable to have chil- 
 forms dren model geometric solids such as the square prism, 
 the ovoid, the cylinder, etc. In the clay, as in the 
 drawing work, objects may be selected which resemble 
 these types and which carry greater interest for the 
 child. He will model bricks for the Christmas chim- 
 ney with far more enthusiasm than could be aroused 
 by the square prism, and he will enter into the model- 
 ing of eggs at Easter time with a zest such as 
 no wooden ovoid could have produced. A football 
 appeals to him more strongly than the most perfect 
 wooden ellipsoid, and he will labor to model the 
 cylindrical boiler and smokestack of a toy engine, 
 or the cannon with its spherical balls with a joy and 
 eagerness which the abstract wooden models could 
 never evoke. 
 
 modeling As has been suggested in another paragraph of 
 pottery pp g c } ia p t e r , the children delight in fashioning from 
 the clay, bowls, jars and other simple pottery forms, 
 and these lessons may often come as the outgrowth 
 of the History and Language Work. In modeling a 
 bowl, there are three methods which may be used by 
 
100 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 11 
 
 the child with equal ease and with the same general 
 results. lie may model a circular tablet and then 
 around its edge, bit by bit, build up the wall of his 
 dish, shaping it as he goes; lie may use the “coil 
 method” by making short strips of the soft clay, mold- 
 ing the first to the base and building up the bowl, 
 layer on layer, and working the whole into a solid 
 wall as he goes, or he may take a lump of clay and 
 by pressing his thumbs into the mass, form a cavity, 
 proceeding next by pressing and molding the clay 
 outward or inward to form the curved sides of his 
 bowl. When modeling vase forms or pitchers, if the 
 child wishes to make a handle, he should be taught 
 not merely to stick the handle on the body, but mold 
 it to the body so that it will be strong and solid if 
 fired in a kiln. 
 
 In a few schools where there is a kiln for firing 
 and where the regular potters' clay may be used as 
 an occasional “special treat,” the children have made 
 little jars which after firing have been put to actual 
 service. Each child has filled his jar with earth in 
 which he has placed the seeds for his nature lessons. 
 
 It is a great pleasure to him to have his own jar, to 
 plant and water his seeds and watch their growth 
 from day to day. Usually, however, the children 
 fashion their pottery from common clay which shares 
 the fate of their other creations by being broken up 
 for use in other lessons. modeling 
 
 Birds and animals make fine objects for the chil- BIRDS 
 
 J _ AND 
 
 dren to model, and in this day of artificial Easter animals 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
WORKING IN CLAY 
 
 101 
 
 fowls and rabbits, plaster casts, Teddy Bears, and 
 stuffed animals, it is not difficult to find sugges- 
 tions for subjects. Bears and elephants are especially 
 good because of their clumsy legs which support 
 the body so well, and because these animals are 
 so accurately reproduced in toys which are easily 
 available. 
 
 Modeling from “live” animals is interesting and 
 the rabbit furnishes one of the best subjects. Turtles 
 are also easily modeled. Let the children try to tell 
 the story of the “Hare and the Tortoise” in clay. 
 The writer once saw a baby alligator serving for both 
 a nature and a clay lesson. Animals with slender legs 
 should not be attempted unless represented in reclin- 
 ing positions or modeled on some framework, which 
 is usually too difficult for small children. We have 
 seen children laboring to model a clay duck standing 
 on its two slender clay legs, till they were utterly dis- 
 couraged, one small boy saying to his duck as he gave 
 its leg a vicious thump, “There, I'll give you the 
 rheumatism and I guess that'll make your legs stiff 
 enough.” 
 
 making In modeling animals or people, sculptors always 
 
 frame- erec ‘t a skeleton or framework of wood or metal, and 
 work U pon and about this mold their clay. This suggests 
 a plan which may be utilized where cornstalks are 
 obtainable. The cornstalks may be cut into lengths, 
 and the children can fashion them into frameworks 
 on which to model. The accompanying illustration 
 shows this quite clearly. (Fig. 20.) 
 
 15 
 
 18 
 
 lt> 
 
102 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Children are sometimes allowed to use bits of 
 slender twigs, toothpicks, or pieces of wire to rein- 
 force the legs of their birds or animals. In case a 
 standing pose is attempted, a clay tablet should first 
 be fashioned for the model of animal or person to 
 stand upon. 
 
 Neither modeling upon a framework nor rein- 
 forcing by means of sticks or wires should be en- 
 couraged except in the case of children with excep- 
 tional talent, as the simpler modeling lessons requiring 
 no framework are better adapted to Primary Grades. 
 
 Human figures in violent action are much harder 
 to model than those in simple sitting or standing 
 positions on account of the bends of arms and legs 
 which make it difficult to balance the figure properly. 
 For this reason children should not be required 
 to model figures in which the action is pronounced- 
 The clay soldier shown here makes an excellent 
 subject for a lesson on any patriotic day, such 
 as Lincoln's Birthday, Washington’s Birthday, or 
 Decoration Day. The child may build up a mass 
 of clay at the back of his soldier and thus make him 
 stand firmly. A “pea-stick" is used to reinforce the 
 gun and bayonet. 
 
 The clay work of primary children is bound to be 
 crude, but they will put much happy effort into it, 
 and the things which appear almost shapeless to those 
 who have traveled far from childhood will show to 
 the sympathetic and helpful teacher the beginnings of 
 many things that are to be. 
 
 MODELING 
 
 FROM 
 
 PEOPLE 
 
 RESULTS 
 
 20 
 
IX. CUTTING FROM PAPER 
 
 There is probably no kind of form training for 
 young children about which teachers differ more 
 widely and whose educational value has been longer 
 a question of dispute. This is especially the case 
 with freehand cutting. Teachers who defend this 
 work maintain that the nature of the medium and 
 the process compel the child to a conception of the 
 whole mass and therefore to the elimination of petty 
 details which is desirable in early form expression. 
 On the other hand, those in opposition claim that the 
 same training for big effects may be secured through 
 the use of clay or the making of brush and ink sil- 
 houettes. Its friends call attention to the disciplinary 
 value of concentrated attention which goes with this 
 work, since any lapse of attention or slip of the scissors 
 results in mistakes which cannot be easily rectified. 
 Those less friendly point to the many children who 
 are required to hack out meaningless shapes of paper 
 under the pretense of “busy work” and remark that 
 it is a pitiful waste of time and material. 
 
 It must be admitted that unless the work in paper- 
 
 cntting is carefully planned for the purpose of training 
 
 and not merely to keep the children “busy” it will 
 
 prove wasteful and valueless. The author is. a strong 
 
 believer in the occasional paper-cutting lesson. 
 
 Although she has often seen work which has tem- 
 
 103 
 
104 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 porarily weakened her faith, she lias always returned 
 to the conviction that paper-cutting lessons rightly 
 handled will help the form concepts of children and 
 their expression of these concepts. 
 
 'The scissors used for this work should be sharp- 
 pointed and should work easily. Round-pointed 
 scissors are not a good tool for paper-cutting. They 
 limit the possibilities of such work. Whenever possi- 
 ble, schools should own sets of scissors to be supplied 
 to pupils for the cutting lessons, although we know 
 in some localities they are brought from home, causing 
 annoyance to mothers in many cases and exposing the 
 children to some danger from accidents. 
 
 The first work should lie very simple, as the cut- 
 ting of freehand circles, to teach pupils how to handle 
 the scissors and turn the paper, while “feeding it into 
 the mouth of the scissors” as they cut. Many changes 
 may be rung on this circle-cutting. For instance, the 
 best large circle in each row may be called a plate 
 and the owner of this plate may be allowed to 
 gather all of the best and “roundest” small circles in 
 his row. The children may play that these little 
 circles are cookies, tarts, or crackers. Fig. 1 shows 
 how one girl, who. wished to make her tart very real- 
 istic, finished it. This girl knew that lard was one 
 of the ingredients of tarts and that lard came from 
 the pig, so the picture of a pig, smeared over with 
 red crayon to represent jelly appeared on her circle. 
 The children may make baskets from their freehand 
 circles. To do this requires only a few strokes of the 
 
 SCISSORS 
 
 FIRST 
 
 WORK 
 
CUTTING FROM PAPER 
 
 105 
 
 scissors, as shown in Fig. 2. The black parts repre- 
 sent the portions of the circle which are cut away to 
 make the basket. They like to make watches, using 
 white paper for the face of the watch and tinted paper 
 for the larger circle which represents the case (Fig. 3). 
 Drawing the face of the watch, and cutting and [fast- 
 ing the paper links for the chain is good desk work. 
 The whole exercise is fine to teach division of time 
 and how to tell time. There are many little rhymes 
 which may be used with such lessons. 
 
 “Sixty seconds make a minute 
 How much good can I do in it ? 
 
 Sixty minutes make an hour 
 
 I'll do all the good that’s in my power.” 
 
 The children may reproduce the schoolroom clock 
 in freehand cutting. 
 
 “There’s a neat little clock, 
 
 On a high shelf it stands 
 And it points to the time 
 With its two little hands. 
 
 May we like the clock 
 Keep a face true and bright 
 And hands ever ready 
 To do what is right.” 
 or 
 
 “When our clock strikes I always dread 
 To look, for fear it's time for bed. 
 
 And when we leave our play to see 
 It seems to smile and wink at me. 
 
 2 
 
 My mother says, and she knows best, 
 That children must lie down to rest. 
 Yet our old clock stands in the hall 
 And never goes to sleep at all. 
 
106 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Oh! Wouldn’t it be lots of fun 
 If we could be wound up to run, 
 
 And never had to stop our play 
 Nor lose a minute all the day? 
 
 I love our old clock when I’m sick, 
 
 I listen to its tick-tack-tick. 
 
 And in the dark it says to me, 
 
 “I go to keep you company.” 
 
 — Youth’s Companion. 
 
 5 
 
 Freehand paper-cutting is commonly done in three 
 ways — from dictation, from objects or pictures and 
 from imagination. The dictation exercises develop 
 power of true and quick observation and are excellent 
 for stimulating attention. The cutting from objects 
 or pictures develops feeling for proportions and masses, 
 and the imaginative or illustrative cutting trains the 
 same powers that are exercised in illustrative 
 drawing. 
 
 To present such a lesson well, the teacher should 
 plan the steps carefully before dictating to the children, 
 so that each step may be clear in her own mind. Say 
 you plan to cut out a boat in connection with some 
 language lesson relating to the Pilgrims. Each child 
 is given a small square of paper while you use a large 
 square. After telling the children to watch very care- 
 fully what you do, you make the first cut (See dark 
 line, Fig. 4). The children cut their squares in the 
 same way, laying their scissors down after each oper- 
 ation, for, if allowed to hold them, their attention is 
 diverted. Fig. 5 shows the next cut, the children try- 
 
 WAYS 
 
 OF 
 
 WORKING 
 
 CUTTING 
 
 FROM 
 
 DICTA- 
 
 TION 
 
CUTTING FROM PAPER 
 
 107 
 
 ing meantime to guess what they are making. The 
 cut in Fig. 6 must be very carefully made so that the 
 mast and sail shall not be detached from the boat. 
 When the step shown by Fig. 7 is reached, the children 
 will know beyond question what they are making. 
 Figures 8 and 9 show the completion of the cutting, 
 and, if time remains, smaller boats may be cut from 
 the oblong- which was left after cutting as in Fig. 5. 
 Any other simple boat form may be dictated as easily 
 as this. If the teacher wishes to increase the chil- 
 dren’s pleasure in this exercise, she may step to the 
 chalkboard and with a few strokes of the crayon 
 laid sidewise indicate a sweep of river or sea, and 
 upon this background mount a few of the best boats 
 (Fig. 13),, using a mere touch of paste. In mounting 
 the boats, lead the children to discover that the plac- 
 ing of the large and small boats may be made to tell 
 the story of nearness and farness. If two tones of 
 paper are available, the children may make pretty 
 little posters to use in decorating Pilgrim books or 
 Christmas calendars. Much variety may result from 
 varying the shape of the oblong, the location of the 
 horizon line and the position of the boat or boats. 
 This may also be made a lesson in the simple prin- 
 ciples of composition, for even primary children may 
 be taught to see that if the boat is placed exactly in 
 the middle of the space, and the skyline cuts the 
 picture into two equal parts (Fig. 10), the picture is 
 not as pleasing as with the arrangement shown in 
 Figs. 11 and 12. 
 
 13 
 
16 
 
 108 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 S H 
 
 M 
 
 Igf 
 
 pill 
 
 HI 
 
 THE PAPER SHIP 
 
 Last night I sailed in my paper ship, 
 
 I sailed away and away; 
 
 And never did sailor sail so far, 
 
 And never was sail so gay; 
 
 I sailed away to an unknown land, 
 
 Away, on an unknown sea, 
 
 W1 lere all the people were dolls, my dear. 
 And all of them talked to me. 
 
 Another good dictation exercise is the cutting of 
 the key as shown in Figs. 14 to 18. After cutting the 
 key from dictation, the children may like to cut key 
 rings, cutting keys of various kinds and putting them 
 on the key rings. 
 
 The teacher should encourage the children to give 
 reasons why all keys are not made alike, why they 
 have holes in the top, and why the top is rounded 
 instead of sharp-cornered. There are many pretty 
 poems and songs relating to keys which may be used 
 in connection with this lesson. Two such are reprinted 
 below. 
 
 I know of a jewelled castle. 
 
 Where is hidden a golden key, 
 
 That opens the door of the castle fair 
 Called the “Castle of Courtesy.” 
 
 Its owner a bright-eyed maiden 
 
 Who wakes with the morning light, 
 Takes out the key from its hiding place. 
 And bears it around ’till night. 
 
 18 
 
CUTTING FROM PAPER 
 
 109 
 
 She opens the door of the castle 
 With her beautiful golden key 
 And smiles a welcome to all who come, 
 Even strangers like you and me. 
 
 And to every door of the castle 
 She fits her golden key; 
 
 Wide open it flies at her magic touch, 
 That all may its treasures see. 
 
 The heart is the golden castle; 
 
 And kindness, the golden key, 
 
 That opens the door of the castle, 
 Called the “Castle of Courtesy.” 
 
 A bunch of golden keys is mine 
 To make each day with gladness shine. 
 “Good Morning!” That’s the golden key 
 That unlocks every day for me. 
 
 When friends give anything to me, 
 
 I use the little “Thankyou” Key. 
 
 When at the table, “If you please,” 
 
 I take from off my bunch of keys. 
 
 And when the evening comes to me, 
 
 I use the little “Good Night” Key.” 
 
 CUTTING 
 
 FROM 
 
 OBJECTS 
 
 OR 
 
 PICTURES 
 
 After learning from the dictation exercises and the 
 circle-cutting practice to handle their materials and 
 that their scissors may be made to show the shape of 
 things, the children may begin cutting from objects. 
 In this work the teacher should try to get the children 
 to tell the truth about proportions. The first objects 
 should be simple in form. Vase forms are good. Use 
 two when possible, differing in proportions and shape 
 (Figs. 19 and 20). A couple of contrasting pitchers 
 might be quite different in size as well as in shape. 
 
 20 
 
ilO 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 This would make another interesting exercise in cut- 
 ting. Other suggestions are given in the marginal 
 drawings (Figs. 21 to 29). The same care should be 
 used in placing objects for cutting as for a drawing 
 or painting lesson. 
 
 If potted plants are used as objects for cutting 
 lessons (Fig. 28), those showing only a few leaves 
 should be chosen. Of course the subject chosen for 
 a paper-cutting lesson should be “seasonable.” The 
 garden implements are fine for spring, the umbrella 
 for April days, and such things as sleds or snow shoes 
 are good for winter. Fig. 30 shows the cutting of a 
 sled while Fig. 31 shows how it appears when creased 
 and bent. 
 
 Cutting from a pose is often practiced, in which 
 case the subjects chosen should be such as are suit- 
 able for brush and ink silhouettes. Some toys are 
 fine for cutting-lessons. Among the best are toy 
 steamboats, sailboats, street cars, fire engines, trains, etc. 
 The accompanying reproduction (Fig. 31) shows how the 
 cutting of engines and cars from toys or pictures may 
 be made the nucleus for a decidedly interesting series 
 of lessons which may be mounted in poster form, 
 much to the delight of the children. The ones shown 
 here were done by Normal students, but the author 
 has frequently tried such lessons with primary chil- 
 dren and found them very stimulating to the interest, 
 observation, and memory as well as to the imagination. 
 Much originality is developed in the course of such 
 lessons. Each large poster should be a piece of com- 
 
CUTTING FROM PAPER 
 
 111 
 
 munity work and it is well to let as many children 
 as possible participate rather than the few talented 
 children who are always in evidence. Animals may 
 be cut from toys or from pictures, and wonderful 
 menageries, circus parades, and Noah’s arks come 
 from the hands of the children. The illustrations on 
 Page 103 show some of the best efforts of the chil- 
 dren in one room as mounted in poster form by their 
 teacher. Long strips of ingrain wall paper were used 
 for the mounting, and gave an impression of great 
 length to the parade as it hung on the schoolroom 
 wall. A real circus or parade in town has inspired 
 many a fine lesson of this kind. 
 
 THE MENAGERIE 
 Rum, dum, dum, 
 
 See, the show has come! 
 
 With a lion and a camel, 
 
 Rears as tame as any spaniel. 
 
 Ru m-a-d um-a-dum, 
 
 See, the show has come! 
 
 Rub, dub, dub, 
 
 There’s the tiger’s cub. 
 
 How the monkeys climb and chatter! 
 
 Hear the big drum clatter, clatter! 
 Rub-a-dub-a-dub, 
 
 There’s the tiger’s cub. 
 
 Run, run, run, 
 
 Quick and see the fun! 
 
 Little ponies gaily prancing, 
 
 Rig old elephant a-dancing. 
 
 Run and run and run 
 Quick and see the fun. 
 
 - — Nina Clarke Parsons. 
 
 
 
 A # 8 
 
 40 
 
 
 29 
 
 31 
 
112 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 One teacher we know constructed a Noah’s ark 
 from cardboard in something the same manner as the 
 little houses are made by the children (SeePage 117), 
 and in this ark were kept all of the best animal cut- 
 tings made by the children until taken out for mount- 
 ing- 
 
 The Noah's Ark’s a pleasant place. 
 
 With windows on each side, 
 
 And half the painted shingle roof 
 Is hinged and opens wide. 
 
 And often Noah and his wife 
 In dresses green and blue, 
 
 Take out the animals to walk. 
 
 In rows of two and two. 
 
 — K. Pyle. 
 
 Another teacher with an original turn of mind 
 utilized the passing of a hand-organ man and his 
 monkey as material for a freehand cutting lesson 
 (Fig. 32) , using the lines of Robert Louis Stevenson 
 to accompany it. 
 
 “Have you seen the organ grinder with a monkey on 
 a string ? 
 
 He stands upon the sidewalk and makes the music 
 ring. 
 
 And all the little children around him dance and play, 
 And have a very merry time before he goes away.” 
 
 In mounting these cuttings, each child was allowed 
 to use a bit of cord to fasten the monkey to the organ, 
 and this touch of realism was highly delightful to the 
 pupils. The idea was fine, but the cuttings of the 
 children could probably have been made more “alive” 
 
 32 
 
 33 
 
CUTTING FROM PAPER 
 
 113 
 
 by means of action poses in connection with the lesson 
 (Fig. 33). 
 
 cutting Many teachers require children to cut from imagina- 
 imagu tion without any previous training. It is much better 
 nation } eaf [ U p t 0 this by means of some dictation and 
 object cutting. When the children have done some 
 such exercises as those described in the foregoing- 
 paragraphs, they may begin telling their stories from 
 imagination with scissors and paper in very much 
 the same manner as with brush or pencil. The sug- 
 gestions given in the Chapter on Drawing from 
 Imagination are almost as applicable to cutting from 
 imagination. 
 
 cutting Paper cutting cannot be profitably practiced for 
 
 FOR ' 
 
 busy desk work until the children have had quite a number 
 work 0 f carefully planned and carefully directed lessons. 
 To start the children the first day of school by giving 
 them scissors and paper and the simple direction “Cut 
 anything you like” results too often only in littering 
 of floor and desks, and waste of material. Worse 
 than this, it gives children the impression' that so long 
 as they are cutting, although they do this with no 
 definite purpose, it is satisfactory to the teacher. 
 When children have once grasped the fact that they 
 can tell the truth about things with their scissors, 
 the cutting becomes a profitable kind of busy work. 
 We once observed such work in a school located near 
 a vacant lot which was fairly twinkling with daisies. 
 Each child had a daisy on his desk, and with scissors 
 and crayon was making pictures of “Grandma Daisy” 
 
 34 
 
114 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 (Fig. 35). lie cut the petals from white paper and 
 drew the stem and yellow centers on the gray paper 
 with colored crayon, lie added a few lines to show 
 Grandma’s face — not forgetting her eyeglasses. 
 Although it was a warm, lazy day in May when more 
 serious “busy work” would have been almost impos- 
 sible, every child was occupied and happy. The 
 verses used by this teacher are given below: 
 
 “Here comes Grandma Daisy 
 In her cap of white 
 With her bow so dainty 
 And her face so bright. 
 
 Sleepy Grandma Daisy 
 Wished to take a nap, 
 Laid her head down softly 
 Lest she spoil her cap. 
 
 Then a breeze so naughty 
 Snatched her cap away, 
 Poor old Grandma Daisy 
 Who will tell her, pray ?” 
 
 Here is another verse which would be equally 
 suitable. 
 
 “The daisies white are nursery maids, 
 
 With frills upon their caps; 
 
 And daisy buds are little babes 
 They tend upon their laps. 
 
 Sing “Heigh-ho!” while the wind sweeps low, 
 Both nurses and babies are nodding — just so.” 
 
 — Selected. 
 
X. SPECIAL DAYS 
 
 THANKS- 
 
 GIVING 
 
 Most teachers are on the alert for suggestions 
 relating to drawing and making for special days and 
 seasons, and the following may add something to the 
 teacher’s resources for these occasions. It is scarcely 
 necessary to say that each teacher will probably wish 
 to choose those exercises which seem best adapted to 
 her particular schoolroom conditions, and which are 
 most in keeping with her general plan of work. 
 
 The first special day in the school year is Thanks- 
 giving, and much of the children’s work at this time, 
 including the drawing and making, may well be made 
 to center around the Thanksgiving thought which is 
 suggestive, among other things, of Colonial life, Indians, 
 etc. The little rhyme given below is a great favorite 
 with the children: 
 
 SIX LITTLE TURKEYS 
 
 I. 
 
 Six little turkeys, all in a row! 
 
 Now what they were hatched for, they didn’t know. 
 Our grandma did, but she wouldn’t tell. 
 
 She watered and fed them every day well, 
 
 But not one of the six ever heard her say 
 She was fattening them for Thanksgiving day. 
 
 II. 
 
 Six little turkeys! From morning till night 
 They would run away and hide out of sight. 
 
 115 
 
116 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Grandma’s sunbonnet scarcely at all, 
 
 Found time to hang on its peg on the wall, 
 
 For they kept her all summer, watching about 
 The byways and hedges, calling them out. 
 
 III. 
 
 Six large, fat turkeys and all in a row 
 On Thanksgiving morn! One was to go 
 To Sam, one to Tim, another to Lu, 
 
 And one dear grandma, of course was for you ; 
 
 One was to be sent to poor widow Gray 
 With six helpless children to feed that day. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Our Betty cooked one for lame little Joe, 
 
 IS is mother is sick and feeble, you know. 
 
 Grandma was so happy, she didn't mind 
 Running all day the turkeys to find. 
 
 She knew that when Thanksgiving day came around 
 The very best place for each would be found. 
 
 There are Thanksgiving poses, too, in which a 
 few simple devices serve to make a Puritan lad (Fig. 
 1) or lass (Fig. 2) out of a Twentieth Century boy 
 or girl. By cutting from heavy manila paper a large 
 circle like Fig. 3 for a crown and pasting the crown (Fig. 
 4) to the brim by means of the laps, a Puritan hat may 
 easily be devised. A paper collar and large paper 
 buckles greatly enhance the effect in the eyes of the 
 children, while a toy gun and a mackintosh cape add 
 the finishing touches. The girl may be given a hood, 
 an apron, a square cloth folded for a kerchief and 
 her older sister’s skirt, which makes a regular little 
 woman of her, while the knitting in her hand com- 
 pletes the domestic effect. 
 
 3 
 
SPECIAL DAYS 
 
 117 
 
 For the painting work there is the much used 
 pumpkin and other vegetables equally good, such as 
 carrots and turnips. The children usually paint mere 
 round daubs of orange to represent the pumpkin, and 
 it is almost impossible to get them to put any indi- 
 viduality into it, making it tall, thin, or “roly poly” 
 according to its character. It is quite evident that 
 all pumpkins look alike to the boys and girls of the 
 lower grades. 
 
 In the constructive work there is the Puritan cradle 
 (See Page 88) or the pilgrim house made of bogus 
 paper (Fig. 5). To make the house, fold a square of 
 paper in the way usually designated as the “sixteen 
 square fold,” and described in the Chapter on Making 
 and Decorating. Then cut on the creases indicated 
 by the heavy lines in Fig. 6. The dotted line indi- 
 cates the ridge of the roof, and when the children 
 fold on this line they soon discover how to paste the 
 laps under so as to form a house. The cutting 
 of tiny doors and windows makes the effect quite 
 realistic. 
 
 We know a clever teacher who utilized her sand- 
 table for a Thanksgiving scene which was a source 
 of much pleasure to the children. The thought was 
 the bounty of autumn. From a square of heavy dark 
 red paper she folded and cut a large barn in the 
 same way the children’s houses are made. The 
 children made diminutive corn shocks of raffia, and 
 modeled little pumpkins. From dry twigs or small 
 branches, trees were made, and from their limbs 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
118 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 cranberries were hung to represent apples. The 
 crowning feature of the exercise was the farmer 
 and his family modeled in clay and wheeling loads of 
 apples or pumpkins in wheelbarrows made of bogus 
 paper. Every child made a clay figure and a wheel- 
 barrow and the best ones were used in the scene. 
 The whole arrangement was a fine bit of community 
 work. 
 
 We have also seen doll furniture made by 
 pupils from wood and raffia in representation of the 
 high-backed settles and rush cradles of the olden 
 time (Figs. 8 and 9). Long slender nails were 
 driven into the wood and over these nails the raffia 
 was woven. While this was interesting and the mak- 
 ing must have given joy to the children, such work 
 does not seem practicable for use as a class exercise 
 to be carried out under ordinary schoolroom conditions. 
 Possibly in some school where access could be had 
 to the Manual Training room this lesson might be 
 worked out very profitably. The braiding of raffia 
 for the brim of the old-fashioned sunbonnet for the 
 dolls, and the making of the sunbonnet were part of 
 the work of the children in another school (Fig. 7). 
 
 As has been said before, there is no material better 
 suited for making work in the lower grades under 
 present conditions than bogus or construction paper. 
 Along the line of design are the booklets which are 
 made by folding a sheet of construction paper for the 
 cover, and a sheet of writing paper for the quotation 
 inside — a quotation appropriate for Thanksgiving Day. 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
SPECIAL DAYS 
 
 119 
 
 The children may decorate their booklets with borders 
 made of brush strokes. If printing is used on the 
 cover, the teacher should print the title very carefully 
 on the chalkboard for the children to copy. In some 
 places printed alphabets are supplied for this pur- 
 pose. Every letter should be a capital. 
 
 Very pretty units for brush stroke designs are made 
 by using the cranberry as a motive. Cut the berries open 
 crosswise, placing a section on each child’s desk. The 
 design which nature has made in the heart of the berry 
 furnishes delightful suggestions for the borders or sur- 
 face coverings used on the booklets. Fig. 10 shows 
 two units from the cranberry motive, and Figs. 11, 
 12 and 13 suggest ways in which such units may 
 be used. Figs. 14, 15, 16,' and 17 show conventional 
 designs as worked out by Second Grade children for 
 use as booklet covers. These were done on brown 
 construction paper, the designs being painted in 
 deeper brown, dark green, or dark brownish red. 
 They were done by marking the paper off in quarter- 
 inch squares as shown and described on Page 92, the 
 designs being worked in over the guide lines thus 
 formed. In one of these covers (Fig. 16) the writer 
 has darkened the child’s guide lines so as to make 
 clear the way in which he worked. The children 
 should be taught to draw the guide lines very faintly, 
 so that after the book cover is completed, a few strokes 
 of a large kneaded rubber or art gum will remove all 
 trace of pencil marks. The marginal lines are the 
 same throughout the entire set and were doubtless 
 
 11 
 
 13 
 
120 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 dictated by the teacher so as to leave a uniform margin 
 on the cover for the child's original work. 
 
 Idle Thanksgiving days are hardly over when 
 Christmas comes on apace and suggests another line 
 of form work based upon the Santa Claus and Christ- 
 mas tree stories. Here is one charming poem which 
 may be used in connection with these lessons: 
 
 A HAPPY TREE 
 
 BY CARA W. BRONSON. 
 
 “Oh, look at me!” 
 
 Sang the Christmas tree, — 
 
 A jolly young evergreen, — 
 
 “I'm dressed up here 
 For a show, that’s clear, 
 
 And I’m anxious to be seen. 
 
 To grow in a wood 
 Is very good, — 
 
 Of air you’ve a trifle more,— 
 
 But I declare 
 It cannot compare 
 To a block on the parlor floor! 
 You may stand in the cold 
 Till a century old. 
 
 Not a blossom to speak of comes; 
 But here in an hour 
 I’m all in flower 
 
 With mittens and dolls and drums. 
 I know so well — 
 
 And daren't to tell — 
 
 So much that I’m like to burst; 
 There’s a mystery hung 
 Or a secret swung 
 On each branch from last to first. 
 How I'd love to shout 
 All my feelings out! 
 
 But I daren’t to even cough; 
 
 CHRIST- 
 
 MAS 
 
 16 
 
SPECIAL DAYS 
 
 121 
 
 And just the half 
 Of a great big laugh 
 Would shake all my candles off. 
 
 So I have to hide 
 All the fun inside, 
 
 Till I’m full as I can be, 
 
 Wh atever folks say, 
 
 I'm King of the Day!” 
 
 Sang the jolly Christmas tree. 
 
 — Youth's Companion. 
 
 If holly is used for any of the painting lessons, 
 have only a few leaves on each twig and plenty of 
 berries. In this connection the following verse will 
 do for a Christmas card with cheery holly decoration. 
 
 “I'm the holly, always jolly 
 For the Christmas time. 
 
 IVjly bright berries, red as cherries 
 Fear no frosty rime.” 
 
 If holly forms are used for the decoration of book- 
 lets, calendars, or picture frames, they should be 
 worked into conventional borders, surface coverings, 
 etc. If conditions permit children to make their 
 arrangements with real holly leaves and berries before 
 painting their designs, it will be found that this helps 
 them often to work out quite original ideas in pleasing 
 form. It is also suggested that the teacher cut from 
 stiff paper a number of large leaves and berries and 
 long border strips, having pupils come to the front 
 of the room and arrange the units and strips, accord- 
 ing to their judgment of pleasing effects, on a large sheet 
 of paper fastened to the chalkboard. This can be 
 done by using thumb tacks, paste, or pins (See Figs. 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 21 
 
122 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 19, 20, and 21). The suggestions in the Chapter on 
 Painting and Color for stained glass effects in 
 booklet decoration may be helpful in this connection. 
 
 W e have mentioned booklets, Christmas cards, 
 picture frames, and calendars because they not only 
 have value as a schoolroom exercise, but after beinor 
 made and decorated may be used as gifts by the chil- 
 dren. Figs. 22, 23, and 24 are reproduced from chil- 
 dren's work. Fig. 22 was done by a First Grade 
 pupil. It is a very simple little landscape in brown 
 crayon which, together with the calendar has been 
 mounted on a sheet of brown paper and this in turn 
 , on another sheet of darker brown. The effect is very 
 pleasing and not beyond the possibilities of any First 
 Grade room. 
 
 The other calendars are from Second Grade 
 rooms. The colored paper was folded over light 
 weight strawboard to make a firm background for 
 the calendar. In No. 23 a simple surface design is 
 used for the decoration, while the design for No. 24 
 was doubtless obtained by cutting such a stencil as 
 is described on Page 91 of this book. Pen wipers, 
 match scratchers, needle books, spectacle wipers, and 
 blotter pads are not too difficult for the children to 
 make. The sketches given herewith may suggest 
 some other article which the children may make 
 (Figs. 25, 26, and 27). The triangular book marker 
 (Fig. 27) is simply the corner of an envelope cut 
 off and decorated with a brush stroke border. It 
 
 24 
 
SPECIAL DAYS 
 
 123 
 
 Useful hat brushes made of raffia are among the 
 things not too difficult for primary children to make 
 (Fig. 28). The little basket-like box (Fig. 29) was 
 selected from a class exercise in a Second Grade. It 
 is made of bogus paper and tied with ordinary linen 
 twine so that the cost is virtually nothing. The mak- 
 ing of these boxes will probably consume three or 
 four lessons in construction and design. The draw- 
 ing of the pattern on bogus paper from the teacher’s 
 dictation should cover two lessons. The children 
 should use rulers for this. Decorating the sides of 
 the box will take one lesson. This should be done 
 before the box is cut and pasted. The fourth lesson 
 should be given to cutting, pasting, and tying. Fig. 
 30 shows how the pattern looks before it is pasted. 
 The fine lines show where folds are to be made. 
 The boxes make good candy holders for the Christ- 
 mas tree or they may be used for “catch-alls” on a 
 dresser or desk. 
 
 If the Thanksgiving and Christmas special work 
 has not included the making of a card or booklet, 
 the first lesson of the New Year may include the 
 making of a New Year’s card. Here is a pretty senti- 
 ment and not too long for the children to write: 
 
 “If 1 may wish a wish for you 
 I'll wish that your every wish comes true.” 
 
 valen- Between New Year and Valentine Day comes 
 day M u ^ e a period of time without a red-letter day to 
 mark it, but on the approach of the latter the “Special 
 
 NEW 
 
 YEAR 
 
 31 
 
 32 
 
124 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Day” interest of the children revives. As a prepara- 
 tion and to create interest for the occasion, they should 
 be told about the good Bishop Valentine w^io lived 
 long ago in the city of Rome, and who, because he was 
 so gentle and loving was called St. Valentine. They 
 should be told how he went about the country, loved 
 by all the people until he became too old to visit 
 and minister to them, when to show he still remem- 
 bered them he sent them loving messages on his 
 birthday. 
 
 Explain that loving messages sent out by St. Val- 
 entine on his birthday were the beginning of our 
 Valentine Day which we celebrate on the Fourteenth 
 of February by sending out other loving messages. 
 
 If you chance to have a newsboy in your room, 
 let him play postman and pose for the children with 
 a bag supposed to be full of valentines. 
 
 “I hear the sound of the Postman’s feet 
 
 As he quickly walks along the street. 
 
 His hand is full — his letter bag, too; 
 
 There may be a letter for me or for you. 
 
 Ting-a-ling ting-a-ling. 
 
 There is nothing so jolly as the Postman’s ring.” 
 
 A b 
 
 X/ 
 
 
 X 
 
 The making of valentines may be carried on as 
 another exercise in design, the booklets being made 
 and decorated with the same regard for the special 
 occasion as in the case of the Christmas and Thanks- 
 giving: work. If hearts are used in the decoration of 
 
 o o 
 
 these booklets, let them be in the form of units for 
 conventional borders or surface coverings (Figs. 31 
 
 B 
 
 3 
 
 LET Be a little , 
 LINK IN FR' £ NT)SHIP& 
 CHAIN. 
 
 37 
 
SPECIAL DAYS 
 
 125 
 
 and 32), rather than the pierced and gory hearts 
 which one sometimes sees. Figs. 33 and 34 show 
 valentines made along purely conventional lines by 
 the children. 
 
 If one feels that the occasion demands something 
 more frivolous, there are many ideas which may be 
 worked out without resorting to the use of tinsel or 
 lace paper. For instance, let the children cut a heart 
 for a pattern. Let them trace several hearts on 
 colored paper which has been folded as in Fig. 35, 
 taking care to leave hinges at A and IF Let them 
 cut out the inside of the heart so as to leave merely 
 a margin. They will now have a double heart (Fig. 
 36) which opens like a little book. These hearts may 
 be interwoven so as to form a chain of hearts and 
 tied to a card on which the child may write 
 
 Let me add another link 
 
 To your chain of hearts. (Fig. 37). 
 
 There are a couple of weaving exercises (Figs. 41 
 and 42) which have come down to us from the days 
 of our grandmothers, but which will delight the chil- 
 dren of today as they delighted those of another genera- 
 tion. Figs. 38, 39, and 40 show the way in which the 
 contrasting strips are cut and crossed in order to weave 
 the heart-shaped valentine shown in Fig. 41. Fig. 43 
 shows how the hearts are doubled and slashed before 
 weaving the valentine shown in Fig. 42. 
 
 For Washington’s Birthday any of the patriotic 
 birthday exercises suggested for Decoration Day are suitable. 
 
 WASH- 
 
 INGTON'S 
 
 42 
 
 43 
 
126 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 sm 
 
 A ■ i 
 
 swJ. 
 
 »f,, 
 
 mm- 
 W 
 ■mrnmk 
 
 46 
 
 but if something identified especially with the life 
 of Washington is desired, there is much material 
 available. 
 
 The children may fold Colonial hats (Fig. 46), 
 decorating with a tissue paper cockade. A large one 
 may be made from a newspaper for the boy, who, 
 with toy sword, impersonates George Washington in 
 a pose lesson. Instead of drawing hatchets and 
 cherries let each child write one of Washington’s rules 
 
 o 
 
 .of behavior, decorating his card with some such device, 
 painted or cut from red, white, and blue paper, as 
 shown in Fig. 47. Such emblems as this may be made 
 of colored paper and worn as “buttons” on patriotic 
 days much to the joy of the wearers. 
 
 With the approach of Easter such a wealth of easter 
 material is suggested that one scarcely knows what to 
 choose. As on other special occasions a variety of 
 booklets may be made. Such work is always to be 
 commended, related as it is to the regular work in 
 making. Figs. 44 and 45 are reproduced from two 
 such booklets made by Second Grade children. Easter 
 book-marks are decidedly appropriate for this season. 
 
 The paper cutting is effective for such little poster 
 effects as the one shown in Fig. 48. Fig. 49 shows 
 pussy willows drawn in pencil and mounted on gray 
 paper. Rabbits and chickens may be drawn or 
 painted in the regular animal lessons, and for the clay 
 modeling’, the artificial ones so common in the stores 
 at this season serve the purpose of very good models. 
 
 It is not possible to model little chickens with clay 
 
 47 
 
SPECIAL DAYS 
 
 127 
 
 legs; hence, the children should use bits of toothpicks 
 to represent legs. The chickens may be made to 
 stand by sticking the wooden legs into clay tablets 
 which are modeled to represent the ground. The 
 construction work may include the making of chicken 
 coops of bogus or other stiff paper (Fig. 50), and the 
 children may perhaps model the mother hen sitting- 
 on her eggs in the coop. There is also the butterfly 
 cornucopia which the children delight in making and 
 which is pictured in color on Page 70. The directions 
 for making are as follows: Every child cuts a square 
 of paper diagonally (Fig. 51). Taking one of the 
 triangular pieces he creases it as shown by the dotted 
 line in Fig. 52. He next folds the edges over to meet 
 this crease (Fig. 53), after which he lets the back edges 
 overlap and pastes as shown in Fig. 54. He then 
 paints and pastes his butterfly (Fig. 55), following- 
 some such plan as suggested on Page 79. 
 
 April Among the good exercises for rainy days is the 
 
 Lion's ma king of the umbrella here pictured (Fig. 56). A 
 pea stick, meat skewer or any other smooth round 
 stick may be used for the handle. Toothpicks may 
 be used for the ribs, radiating from a cork through 
 which the handle passes and over which the raffia may 
 be woven. Large beads fastened to the ends of the 
 ribs will hold the raffia in place. 
 may May Day furnishes another opportunity for con- 
 DAY structive work and the little baskets shown herewith 
 (Figs. 57-63) were a May Day suggestion. It is 
 interesting to note how one child’s idea of a May 
 
 50 
 
 51 
 
 55 
 
 56 
 
128 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 58 
 
 basket was based on a laundry basket — possibly a 
 well known article in his home life. 
 
 The children’s tree sketches may be properly 
 mounted and used to decorate programs or souvenir 
 cards, to be presented to visiting friends or parents 
 of the children. 
 
 For Decoration Day there is much material in the 
 way of stories for illustrative work, and patriotic poses 
 for the regular drawing. Ordinarily, these should be 
 preferred to the painting of the flag, which, beautiful 
 as it is, is almost too difficult for small children. 
 
 The following; is a good exercise: Dictate a five- 
 
 pointed star, or for the First Grade pupils furnish a 
 pattern and let the children trace and cut a star from 
 white paper. Let each child pin his star in place on 
 the field of blue which is temporarily hung over the 
 stars on the large flag at tile front of the room. 
 
 Once more, let us say that no teacher “could, 
 would, or should” attempt to have her children do all 
 of the things here suggested. For the most part the 
 work involved in the Special Day exercises should be 
 carried on in the regular drawing period by means 
 of the lessons covering the various kinds of drawing, 
 painting, and making. An occasional variation, how- 
 ever, by giving a special exercise as here suggested, 
 not only delights the children but stimulates the 
 interest of the parents in the drawing work. 
 
 ARBOR 
 
 DAY 
 
 DECORA- 
 
 TION 
 
 DAY 
 
 61 
 
 62 
 
XI. CARE AND DISTRIBUTION OF MATERIALS 
 
 WATER 
 
 COLORS 
 
 SCHOOL 
 
 PROPERTY 
 
 Although this chapter has been placed at the end of 
 the book, it is not least in importance, for upon the 
 proper care and distribution of materials depends largely 
 the success of the drawing work. A teacher who con- 
 cerns herself only with the presentation of the lesson, 
 ignoring other matters, will find it difficult to get good 
 results when handling large classes of children. That 
 teacher who is resourceful and systematic devises a 
 score of ways to interest her children in keeping 
 their paint boxes clean and in good condition, 
 realizing that the habit of neatness which she is trying 
 to develop will prove a valuable asset to all even 
 though some do not show much skill in the actual 
 drawing and painting lessons. The distribution of 
 the material, too, which is attended in some rooms 
 with wild confusion, may be systematized until “things 
 move like clockwork,” and the effect upon the attitude 
 of the children during the lesson and upon the paint- 
 ing itself becomes plainly evident. 
 
 Consider a few of the devices which have been 
 successfully used by various teachers, remembering 
 that each teacher must follow the method best adapted 
 to the local conditions under which she labors. 
 
 In the majority of places each child owns his paint 
 box, but in others the paints are the property of the 
 
 school board, and are passed around from room to 
 
 129 
 
130 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 room, one set of boxes being used in turn by several 
 rooms. To keep the boxes in good condition under 
 these circumstances is much more difficult than when 
 each child owns his materials, just as rented houses 
 become shabby much more rapidly than those occupied 
 by their owners. In one schoolroom where the color 
 boxes were school property, the following was observed: 
 The teacher chose from each row one boy whose neat- 
 ness in caring for the paints commended him to her. 
 Sometimes she chose girls and called them house- 
 keepers. It was the duty of each housekeeper to 
 inspect the boxes in her row when they were ready 
 for collection to see that everything was in fine order. 
 Whenever a box was discovered in which a cake of 
 red, yellow, or blue was needed, it was taken to the 
 teacher for replenishing. When boys were chosen, 
 they were called storekeepers and they took great 
 pride in seeing that their “clerks” were taking care 
 of the stock. The “term of office” expired every 
 month and then others were chosen by the teacher. 
 In other towns each box of school paints is numbered 
 and when the child writes his name on his painting, 
 he also puts down the number of the box which he 
 used. In this way any untidy box may be traced 
 back to the one who last used it. 
 
 It is more satisfactory for each child to own his 
 box of water colors. A paint box, properly cared for, 
 should last several years, and fresh cakes for replenish- 
 ing may be bought when necessary. The children 
 from homes where money is plentiful buy a new box 
 
 OWNER- 
 SHIP OF 
 BOXES 
 
CARE OF MATERIALS 
 
 131 
 
 PLACE 
 
 FOR 
 
 BOXES 
 
 each year, and they may be encouraged to leave their 
 old boxes for the less fortunate children. The name 
 of each child should be written on a slip of paper 
 and pasted on the top of his box. The long boxes 
 containing a brush with wooden handle are the best 
 to have, but if the short ones are used the brushes 
 may be kept in a tumbler, points upward, and 
 distributed for each painting lesson. 
 
 Were the child’s desk large enough, all of his 
 painting materials might be placed in a little paste- 
 board box and kept in his desk. In some of the 
 places where text-books are school property and 
 are collected after each lesson, the desk is left 
 comparatively empty, and the drawing and painting 
 materials are kept in them. These materials consist 
 of a box of water colors, a water pan, a paint cloth, 
 and a soft sketching pencil. This simplifies distribu- 
 tion materially, inasmuch as only the paper and the 
 water remain to be passed. Sometimes, when it is 
 not possible to keep these pasteboard boxes in the 
 desks, they are placed on a table behind a screen. 
 When a painting lesson is given, the screen is removed 
 and the children march to the front of the room, row 
 by row, each child removing his box in order. If 
 his neighbor is absent from school, he removes his 
 box also, placing it on the vacant desk. When 
 this plan is followed, it is desirable that the paste- 
 board boxes be uniform in size and that the owners’ 
 names be plainly written on the ends of them. This 
 is a very rapid and satisfactory way of distributing 
 
132 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 the materials, as each child knows his part of the 
 procedure. In some places the children keep their 
 materials in bags which hang from the desks, but this 
 frequently gives rise to undue noise and confusion. 
 Another way is to have a small peach basket for 
 each row, letting the monitor of each row attend 
 to the distribution and collection of the paints, piling 
 them neatly in the basket. One popular time-saving 
 device is to give the painting lesson after the morning 
 recess. When this plan is followed, the teacher, 
 assisted by the monitors, attends to the distribution 
 of materials during recess, and all is in readiness for 
 work when the children come in. 
 
 Children may use old cups, tumblers, etc., for the 
 water but this motley array of receptacles is extremely 
 difficult to handle in a schoolroom, and the water pans 
 which are made for the purpose are better in every way. 
 They take up little room when put away, as they 
 may be stacked one within the other, and the flatness of 
 the base does away with much of the danger of over- 
 turning. When each child owns his pan, he may care 
 for it with his paints, or the monitor may collect the 
 pans with the paint boxes. The pans should be 
 thoroughly wiped after each lesson. 
 
 No painting lesson should be attempted unless 
 each child has a paint cloth, and these cloths should be 
 as large as a man’s handkerchief at least. They should 
 be placed on the desk next to the water pan, ready 
 for use at an instant’s need. If cloths are scarce, have 
 a “cloth shower” and keep those so accumulated as a 
 
 WATER 
 
 PANS 
 
 PAINT 
 
 CLOTHS 
 
CARE OF MATERIALS 
 
 133 
 
 PLACE 
 
 FOR 
 
 EVERY- 
 
 THING 
 
 CLEANING 
 
 THE 
 
 PAINTS 
 
 PENCILS 
 
 supply for the children who are not provided with 
 them. If, however, certain children accpiire the habit 
 of depending too much upon this public supply, an 
 occasional lesson in which they are not allowed to 
 participate serves as a prod to their memories. 
 
 When ready to paint, the box should be placed on 
 the middle of the back of the desk, opened wide with 
 the cover turned toward the pupil for greater con- 
 venience in mixing washes, and the water pan should 
 be placed at the right of the box and touching it. 
 This is not only the most convenient way, but the 
 resulting workman-like appearance of the desks is a 
 stimulus to neat work by the children. 
 
 Not the least important thing in color work is the 
 care of the paints. Teach the children to “wash 
 the faces” of their paints with brush and water after 
 each lesson, to make the brush take up all the extra 
 water from the top of the cakes and to dry the brush 
 on the paint rag. If the boxes and brushes are put 
 away in bad condition, nothing but muddy color can 
 result in the next lesson. 
 
 The soft pencils which are absolutely necessary 
 for primary drawing break easily and must be handled 
 carefully and used only for the drawing lessons. If 
 so kept, and properly sharpened at the outset, they 
 are not difficult to keep in condition. They are 
 usually placed in cases, being arranged in order so 
 that each child receives his own pencil. 'These cases 
 may be made of cloth with tape stitched on so as to 
 hold the pencils in place, or with narrow pockets, 
 
134 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 or they may be made by punching holes in the cover 
 of a shoe box and slipping the pencils into these holes 
 so that they stand with points upward. This latter 
 way has an advantage. The points of the pencils are 
 exposed more plainly to view, and the teacher may 
 readily see when they need attention. 
 
 Plenty of lead should be left exposed when sharpen- 
 ing a pencil, and a piece of sandpaper upon which to 
 file the lead to a conical point is a great convenience. 
 This sandpaper may be tacked inside of the lid of a 
 cigar box kept in the room so that the filings will fall 
 into the box when the lid is closed. 
 
 Desk boards, almost indispensable in much of the 
 drawing work, may be placed across the aisles with 
 ends resting on the desks when giving a nature or 
 object lesson. Sometimes these boards are taken from 
 old drygoods boxes; sometimes they are neatly made 
 by the Manual Training boys, and sometimes they 
 are the light boards upon which cloth in drygoods 
 stores is wound ; but desk boards there should be, 
 else it is impossible to place objects quickly and satis- 
 factorily. The accompanying diagram (see next page) 
 illustrates how these boards may be placed so that all 
 the children may see the object, and the teacher may 
 make her rounds of the room to inspect the drawings. 
 It will be noted that the children on the front seats 
 draw the object placed on the teacher’s desk. 
 
 As stated in the Chapter on Cutting from Paper, 
 the scissors used in paper cutting should be sharp- 
 pointed ones. The children should be taught how to 
 
 DESK 
 
 BOARDS 
 
 SCISSORS 
 
CARE OF MATERIALS 
 
 135 
 
 pass these to one another properly, that is, to hold 
 the scissors by the points when passing them, so as 
 to present the handle to the one who takes them. 
 This is not for politeness alone, but is a precaution 
 against accident. 
 
 n □ 
 
 □ □ □ □ 
 
 X X 
 
 If the scissors are furnished to pupils, they 
 should be kept in such cases as are described for 
 holding pencils. This protects the scissors from dam- 
 age and makes it easy to see if any are missing 
 after a lesson. 
 
136 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 Paste is usually purchased in bulk and furnished 
 to pupils. Sometimes, however, the children are 
 required to furnish their own paste. This is not only 
 unnecessarily expensive, but the childreil often buy 
 an inferior kind which is quite worthless. Besides, 
 the care of many small bottles adds another burden 
 to the teacher. If the children must furnish the paste, 
 let each child bring his penny or pennies. The teacher 
 may make a good paste according to the following 
 recipe: Eight ounces of wheat flour, one-fourth of 
 
 an ounce of powdered alum, one and one-half ounces 
 of glycerine, one dram of oil of wintergreen and one 
 and one-half pints of water. Mix water, flour, and 
 alum to a smooth paste and boil until it thickens, 
 being very careful not to burn it or cook it too much. 
 Take it from the stove and add oil and glycerine, 
 mixing thoroughly. When first made, it is a trifle too 
 thick to use but may be thinned by adding a little 
 water when needed for use. A liquid will form at 
 the top of the can after it has stood for a time. Do 
 not remove this liquid. It helps to preserve the paste. 
 The above recipe makes about a quart of paste. The 
 paste may be kept indefinitely when placed in a covered 
 glass jar. It has excellent adhesive qualities and is 
 inexpensive. 
 
 The ordinary school ink may be used for silhouette 
 work, but if blacker effects are desired, plan to give 
 your brush and ink lessons when the ink is low in the 
 wells, as it is then almost as black as the regular India 
 drawing ink. 
 
 PASTE 
 
 BRUSH 
 
 AND 
 
 INK 
 
CARE OF MATERIALS 
 
 137 
 
 SAVING 
 
 DRAW- 
 
 INGS 
 
 If the regular paint brush is used for the brush 
 and ink work, it neeessitates the distribution of paint 
 boxes and water pans (for the brushes must be care- 
 fully washed before painting again with the cakes). 
 If possible, a set of brushes should be kept for ink 
 work. These, kept points upward in a tumbler or 
 mug, may be distributed quickly when needed, and 
 after the lesson all of the brushes may be washed at 
 one time, as it is not essential that every particle of 
 ink be removed before another lesson. If the chil- 
 dren use water color boxes, containing the three 
 primary colors and a cake of black, the silhouette 
 work may be done with the black cake in preference 
 to ink. 
 
 Many supervisors give their teachers specific direc- 
 tions as to what to do with children’s work. If, how- 
 ever, there is no supervisor, the following suggestion 
 may prove helpful. After a lesson, the work should 
 be collected and laid away until the teacher is at 
 liberty to look it over carefully. Sometimes it is best 
 to preserve the entire set of drawings as a class exercise 
 to show to parents who are interested. It would not 
 be possible to save all the work for any length of time 
 as it accumulates too rapidly. However, a few of the 
 very best from each lesson should be saved for dis- 
 play in case an exhibition of school work is given. 
 
 To have a screen or wire upon which some of 
 these drawings may be hung after each lesson is a 
 great source of inspiration to the children, but never 
 leave the same drawings up for more than a few days. 
 
138 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 The drawings which are not saved should never 
 be destroyed before the children. When once they 
 realize that the things which they have labored so 
 hard to do well are merely thrown into the waste 
 basket, it wounds their pride and causes them to lose 
 interest in their work. 
 
XII. PLANNING THE WORK 
 
 PLANNING 
 BY SUPER- 
 VISOR 
 AND 
 GRADE 
 TEACHER 
 
 HOW 
 
 TO 
 
 PLAN 
 
 While the subjects treated in this book cover in 
 general the leading kinds of work which have been 
 evolved as suitable for Art Instruction in the primary 
 grades, it remains for the teacher to select the helps 
 which will contribute to the desired results and to 
 make a plan of work in accord with local school con- 
 ditions. In many cities the supervisor plans a course 
 adapted to the local situation. Sometimes this course 
 specifies in detail the work for each day; in other 
 cases it gives only the general plan, leaving the teacher 
 to work' out the details. In many places the grade 
 teacher must plan her own course, and for such the 
 following suggestions are made: 
 
 To make the year's work a success, survey not 
 only the particular subject to be taught today or 
 tomorrow, but survey the whole ground to be covered 
 during the year. Don’t try to carry the plan in the 
 mind. Find time, once it is formulated, to fix it on 
 paper. This is the only way to ensure a balance of 
 work. It means some trouble but it will pay a 
 hundred fold. 
 
 In planning the work for the year, turn to the 
 Table of Contents where the various subjects and the 
 topics under each are specified and paged. After 
 estimating; the number of lessons that can be given 
 
 during the year, select the subjects you wish to cover, 
 
 139 
 
140 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 and apportion the lessons to each subject. In doing 
 this you will, of course, assign many more lessons to 
 Drawing from Things than to Drawing from Animals, 
 as only an occasional lesson will be demanded by the 
 last named subject. Drawing from Nature will rightly 
 claim more lessons than Cutting from Paper, Working 
 in Clay, or Special Days although each of these has 
 its peculiar value and interest. 
 
 It would be well to read the entire book before 
 going farther, jotting down the topics under each sub- 
 ject. Lastly, it becomes necessary to know whether 
 the work shall be planned to follow each subject rather 
 continuously for a number of weeks, or whether it 
 shall be planned with reference to the daily life of the 
 child, his activities, his other lessons, and the chang- 
 ing seasons, each bringing in its own plant life. The 
 teacher who follows the former plan might teach 
 Drawing from Nature in September and early October; 
 Drawing from Things in later October and November; 
 Making and Decorating in December and early Jan- 
 uary; Painting and Color for the following six weeks; 
 Drawing from People and Animals in March, going 
 back to Drawing from Nature in the spring. She 
 would under this plan devote little attention to Special 
 Days. She would follow the suggestions for Working 
 in Clay or for Cutting from Paper only when they 
 were pertinent to the other work, and would teach 
 Drawing from Imagination only in connection with 
 language work. 
 
 "Phis plan does not seem to be the better one, 
 
 CHOICE 
 
 OF 
 
 PLANS 
 
 BEST 
 
 PLAN 
 
 FOR 
 
 YOUNG 
 
 CHILDREN 
 
PLANNING THE WORK 
 
 141 
 
 TWO 
 
 WAYS 
 
 LAYING 
 
 OUT 
 
 WORK 
 
 FOR 
 
 MONTH 
 
 although it has its advocates. It works out better in 
 the upper than in the lower grades, for in the upper 
 grades more stress is placed on technique, and a series 
 of lessons in one subject surely confers greater technical 
 skill. With very young children, however, we neither 
 expect nor seek technique primarily. We should, 
 therefore, strive to plan the work in such a way that 
 the lesson of each day fits into the child’s interests and 
 activities, and thus with the teacher’s definite plan 
 and the year for a unit, there woidd be no didl routine 
 for the pupil. Each lesson would be welcomed as a 
 delight, and together would form a balanced whole 
 for the year. 
 
 Two ways of laying out the work for one month 
 under the latter plan are here shown, and although 
 neither may exactly fit any particular case, they may 
 at the same time prove suggestive. 
 
 In the first instance, the number of drawing lessons, 
 which are likely to come in September, are taken and 
 apportioned to the subjects. It is frequently possible 
 and always desirable to put the time of two regular 
 drawing lessons into one painting lesson instead of 
 two short ones, so when we say, “Drawing from 
 Imagination, four lessons,” we may actually mean 
 only two lessons. In the Northern States, the 
 Drawing from Nature must necessarily be done 
 during the fall and spring months, while in the 
 South the nature lessons may be distributed over 
 the year. 
 
142 
 
 TALKS ON DRAWING 
 
 September Lessons 
 
 Drawing; from Imagination 4 
 
 o # o 
 
 Distribution and Collection of Color boxes 1 
 
 Dra wing f Grasses and Sedges 
 from j 
 
 Nature i Flowers 
 
 Drawing from People 
 
 Drawing from Things 
 
 O o 
 
 ( Pencil Massing. 
 
 { Color 
 
 f Brush & Ink . . 
 I Color 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 2 
 
 TOPICAL 
 
 PR.OGRAM 
 
 Having blocked out the subjects and lessons in 
 this general way, it will be well to plan definitely just 
 what stories are to be illustrated, and what poses and 
 objects are to be drawn. 
 
 The second way of laying out the work for Septem- 
 ber shows the specification by days. While circum- 
 stances might cause a readjustment of the program 
 for any given day, it could in the main be followed 
 quite closely. 
 
 September 
 
 First Week 
 
 Monday Drawing from Imagination. 
 
 Tuesday “ “ “ 
 
 Wednesday “ “ “ 
 
 Thursday Straight lane Action Figures. 
 Friday ‘ “ 
 
 DAILY 
 
 AND 
 
 WEEKLY 
 
 PROGRAM 
 
 Second Week 
 
 Monday Lesson on Distribution of Color Boxes, 
 Pans, Water, etc. No painting done 
 in this lesson. 
 
 Tuesday r Grasses in Color, 
 and 
 
 Wednesday l Lesson given Wednesday. 
 
 Thursday Coarse Sedges in Pencil Mass. 
 
 Friday Regular Pose Work. 
 
PLANNING THE WORK 
 
 143 
 
 Third Week 
 
 Monday Flat Washes of Color, making Panels 
 
 and to be saved for next lesson. 
 
 Tuesday l Lesson given Tuesday. 
 
 Wednesday Using Panels of former Lesson for 
 Background paint Sedges or Simple 
 Sprays of Flowers with Brush and 
 Ink. 
 
 Thursday Drawing from Things with Pencil. 
 
 Friday 
 
 Fourth Week 
 
 Monday Flowers in Color, 
 
 and ; 
 
 Tuesday l Lesson given Tuesday. 
 
 Wednesday Regular Pose Work with Pencil. 
 
 Thursday Drawing from Imagination. 
 
 Friday Working in Clay or ( Titling from Paper. 
 
 In laying out the work for the month as above, it 
 would be well to write down the number of the page 
 in this book where help for a particular exercise may 
 be found, specifying the topical heading. 
 
 It is suggested that a general plan of the entire 
 year’s work be made, and then the detailed plan worked 
 out a month at a time.