"The Little Red Hen in the Garden"
by Kolter, age 5
Kindergarten Class ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder Elementary.
De Smet, South Dakota ~ Mrs. Aughenbaugh
Encourage children to use their own ideas in their background drawing. Mrs. Aughenbaugh's class made a book about the Little Red Hen. Each child illustrated a part of the story. Kolter's unique contribution was the Little Red Hen in the garden. The diagonal rows of seedlings, garden sign, blue sky and sun work beautifuly together!
"Batter Up!"
by Tyler, age 5
Tyler made the drawing of the boy with his mother, Kim. She left to do the breakfast dishes, while he completed his background drawing.
A week or two prior to this, they had read a picture book together. One of the illustrations included a cow, but only the head was shown on the page. Tyler had seen cows before, but he asked, "What is this animal?" When given the answer, he said, "But it doesn't have legs." Kim had him look through the window to the tree growing in the yard. Their conversation went something like this:
"Can you see the top of the tree?"
"No."
"Is the top of the tree there?"
"Yes."
She explained that the page in the book was like a window. The artist knew that cows have legs, but the artist chose to show only the head.
Kim didn't think much more about the conversation until the morning she returned to the dining table and saw Tyler's background drawing. Tyler had drawn an arm -- an arm without a body -- throwing a ball to the batter. He had made the connection.
"Asian Elephant"
by Dustin, age 7
A student of Marie Hablitzel.
Dustin created this elephant drawing toward the end of the school year. Mrs. Hablitzel had come to look forward to seeing Dustin's artwork. On the first day of class, Dustin's drawing stood out due to his strange color combinations -- a red tree trunk, blue grass. What was going on? As the school year progressed, he developed a distinct style of simple backgrounds with chunks of color. His unusual color choices started to come together. His elephant's red sun and yellow sky made his drawing the hottest drawing in the class!
