Our first encounter with Torkwase Dyson's artwork was almost a year ago. We were living in the desert and spending a few days a week out among the rocks, big horn sheep, and palo verde trees. One of our frequent desert haunts became the site of a Desert X installation.
The kids immediately loved Dyson's enormous sculpture. They spent hours playing in its shadow and climbing over the stairs. The piece titled, Liquid A Place, was an invitation to move through and live with art.
Months later, I did a little more digging into Torkwase Dyson. I found so many powerful sculptures exploring ecology, race, and how we move through our environment. I also found stunning paintings perfect for an art project.
Her paintings offer younger kids the opportunity to delve into ideas of line, balance, movement, and space. And older kids can also dive into the racial, political, historical, and ecological meaning at the foundation of her work.
For this preschool art project, we kept it simple, focusing on the quality of lines. Thick vs thin, weighty vs light. And the process was all about mindfulness. The kids engaged in a deep breathing practice while painting, and we spoke about intentions and quiet movements.
I loved the fact that they could practice mindfulness while creating art. They are the skills that have a big impact on emotional development and well being.
The set up was also very simple - lovely paper, black ink, a large paint brush, and a fine point micron pen. What elevated the artwork, and turned their creations into something special was the quality of the materials. The project could easily be done with regular paper, tempura paint, and a black crayon, but I really wanted to hang a large installation of their work, so I went with higher quality materials.
On a side note, I don't always present the best quality materials. The kids do a lot of creation with cheap paper, paint, and crayons. This is as it should be. But I do find that every once in a while it's wonderful to give the kids the opportunity to interact with materials professional artists would use. It can really change how they approach the project!
With the materials set up, we took a long look at several paintings by Torkwase Dyson. We discussed the quality of the lines, and the minimal number of elements within the images. Then I modeled the process we would follow.
First we would ink up the brush and wipe off any excess ink. Then we would take a deep breath. This would be followed with creating a thick line by using one continuous stroke.
The kids made several different paintings and then let the ink dry. They then followed up by adding thin delicate lines with the Micron pen.
At two, Sierra is still really into spirals, so her paintings have a swirling movement to them. Rémy was into big curves and angles. The great thing about this project - it meets kids at whatever level they are at. A fifteen year old could bring their own understanding of balance and movement to the work, and a toddler can discover the basics of self control and mark making.
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