Jackson Pollock and Scribbles

Today my girls were drawing pictures together. My oldest daughter admonished her younger sister that her picture "looked like scribbles" and so wasn't very good. She then tried giving her a lesson on how to draw.

To this our younger daughter (who was really concentrating on her picture) replied that the picture was how it was supposed to look and it reminded her of England. Her big sister wasn't convinced yet because it didn't look like anything she remembers from England.

We took the opportunity to show them a picture of a Jackson Pollock painting. As soon as I pulled up the picture, the six-year-old exclaimed, "that's splatter painting! That's one of my favorite types of painting!". We discussed how splatter paintings are "awesome" and some of our favorites, even though they aren't lifelike depictions. Then we looked at our drawing of England again and talked about how it can represent England in how it makes you feel rather than just how it looks.

Jackson Pollock is a very accessible artist for children and a great way for them to become interested in art theory.

"England", Anya Withington, 08/27/12, black marker on paper