Children’s Sensory Drawing Lesson

– Leaf & Nature

By Spramani Elaun

In this blog I’m going to share my drawing lesson using the child’s sensory system combined with nature observing.

I use leaves picked from local plants, trees and other nature goodies.

This projects very exciting because I’ve been observing children’s sensory drawing abilities for many years!

I’ve written several art education books based on this method, Nurturing Children in The Visual Arts Naturally©.

I recently introduced this art project to over 700 school children kindergarten – 6th grade with huge success.

It was remarkable how the kids were engaged drawing and painting using their natural sensory system.

Sensory Drawing Lesson

Based on my art method, I gave the children tools to look at these beautiful

specimen samples with their own sensory system:

Sight

Sound

Tactile touching (hands)

Smell

I asked my students to look very closely, but not only with their eyes.

We looked at a variety of different specimens.

Nature Specimens:

A variety of leaves

Bird feathers

Star Fish

Lemon slices

Wood Cut Chips

Sea Shells

Nature Observation:

I asked my students to look closely and observe the natural patterns. We looked closely with a magnifying glass, and felt the specimens with our finger tips. I asked my students to describe in words what they noticed and could feel. I asked the kids what they knew about these specimens in relation to nature and where they came from. And finally asked them to record these findings by drawing each one with pencil, then gave them a choice to finish with coloring color pencils or watercolor paint.

Integrating Science with Drawing

I talked about how scientist and naturalist record findings with drawings and paintings. I gave permission for kids to trace if they didn’t want to free-hand draw. But, I gave them a challenge to record details on each object if they decided to trace.

Materials:

Follow links to purchase these items.

Graphite Drawing Pencil

Eraser

Color Pencils – nature colors

Green Square Block Crayon – Colour Blocks

Dry Cake Watercolor

Watercolor paper

Paintbrushes

Magnify Glass

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