Book Review: It's Not a Bird Yet by Ursula Kolbe
Sharing the Drama of Drawing with Young Children
Ursula Kolbe is passionate about offering children opportunities to explore their world. It’s Not a Bird Yet [Peppinot Press, 2005] equips parents and teachers to facilitate this exploration. As a companion to Rapunzel’s Supermarket (2nd ed) (Peppinot Press, 2007)), It’s Not a Bird Yet explores the development of drawing skills in young children, particularly in a social context.
As an artist with 30 years experience in early childhood education as a teacher, university lecturer, writer and filmmaker, Kolbe brings her obvious enthusiasm for children and their creative processes and abilities into a text that encourages parents and teachers to work with children to get the most from every creative experience.
It’s Not a Bird Yet
It’s Not a Bird Yet explores and celebrates the process of creative expression specifically through drawings. It offers insight, guidance and practical suggestions for extending the drawing experiences of children without adults taking over or interfering with the creative process.
Kolbe equips parents and educators to plan learning experiences for children that inspire them to extend their drawing and thinking. It also offers advice for helping children to explore their everyday observations and experiences creatively, both one-on-one with an adult and within a group of their peers.
The book is designed to enhance an adult’s appreciation of the complexity and depth of children’s drawings and artistic expression. In each section, Kolbe emphasises the value of listening to the conversations of children as they observe and draw. Many real-life comments and conversations are reproduced in the text and the book is illustrated with examples of young children’s artwork.
Part One: Tuning Into Children’s Drawing
Children often interact with each other as they draw, offering advice, criticism, encouragement and simply asking questions. The development of drawing skills and the process children use to represent what they see and experience in their drawings is discussed.
Part Two: Investigating with Children
With tips for working with small groups of children to explore a particular topic, the focus is not only the artwork but also the bigger questions that spring from group discussions and experiences. For example, drawing items from nature can easily lead to discussions about environmental issues that the children themselves will instigate and readily contribute to.
The concept of drawings inspiring work in other mediums such as clay, paint and construction materials is also covered with advice for extending and expanding on themes and ideas shared by children in the group.
Part Three: Enchanting the Eye, Expanding Horizons
Offering children opportunities to view the familiar in new ways – from new angles and with fresh insight – can open new avenues of creative expression and enjoyment of everyday experiences and familiar items. Combining actual items with photos, using cut-outs, changing the view point and several other techniques are discussed to assist children to expand their creative response to their environment.
Techniques can be as simple as photographing children pulling a funny face then allowing them to use that photo to inspire a self-portrait drawing.
Equipping Adults to Join Children on their Creative Journey
It’s Not a Bird Yet contains practical advice on materials and tools as well as reference notes and suggestions for further reading. It also offers advice on how to respond to a child’s requests for assistance and dealing with the frustrations of young artists struggling with their own limitations, perceived or otherwise.
It’s Not a Bird Yet empowers adults to become part of a child’s creative journey, to walk alongside them and share the experience rather than direct and control. In doing so, it also empowers children to develop their own voice with their drawings; to truly express themselves and their response to everything they observe and find significant in their environment.
Stockists and ordering information for It’s Not a Bird Yet and Rapunzel’s Supermarket are available from Peppinot Press or through Australian distributor Pademelon Press.
