Let’s talk about talking about artwork.

How do we talk to students about their artwork once they’ve finished it? How do we train them to really see their own work and the work of others; to look at the world with an interested eye? Observation and reflection are essential parts of the Scribble art-making experience and pivotal to their development as artists within a studio community. The purpose of discussing artwork is to get students to think outside of themselves: to temporarily disengage from the egocentric worlds in which they operate and devote time to examining something (even if it's their own something) in an objective way, and then once they can do that, teach them how to be subjective.

Here’s how it happens…

Teach them to see

Guide your young artists to respect each other’s artwork with their bodies and their attention. Sometimes, walking around the art is necessary to visit multiple artworks or to see them from different viewpoints. Discussion, however, should happen when they are seated. They can point, but not touch.

Teach them to discuss 

The appropriate language for discussing someone else’s work should always be modeled and prompted. When a student says, “It’s so pretty,” you have to push them beyond the basic, non-descriptive compliment to more sophisticated language. “Not pretty, give her a different word—what’s another way to describe it? Interesting, or unusual, or unique.” Nudge them toward the specific: “I don’t want to hear: ‘Oh, that’s cool.’ It should be a much more sophisticated thing, like: ‘Oh, I love the way you put lines on your background, or the colors that you created in your face.’”

The next level of discussion after what is interesting, is why. As viewers, we find something interesting to look at, and as artists, we wonder how that area of interest was created, and how we might borrow a technique or thought process for our own work. When we look at artwork, we always model and ask for evidence-based investigating. A piece of artwork is a crime scene—you have to look for evidence and clues left behind by the artist. 

Here’s a real conversation from a Scribble art show discussion:

Scribble Teacher: “Do we think that the artist ripped with hands or cut with a scissor, or both?”

Artist: “Ripped and cut.”

Scribble Teacher: “How do you know? What evidence do you think you could find that would tell you this artist definitely used a scissor, or this artist definitely ripped? What evidence do you see in front of you? I’m gonna turn the sculpture so you can see different parts. How would you know scissor or ripping?”

Artist: “It kind of looks like someone cut a piece of that or ripped that one.”

Scribble Teacher: “How? Which part looks ripped? Wow. Look at what Betty-Ann just pointed to. See that edge? See that tiny little edge? How can Betty-Ann tell that it was ripped? How does she know it’s ripped?”

Artist: “Cause it’s not a straight piece of paper. It has little (child makes a small zig zag motion with his finger)...”

Scribble Teacher: “Totally. It’s not a straight edge. It’s sort of ragged, and when it’s ragged it tells us this paper was ripped.”

The ultimate message Scribblers get is that “good” artwork is interesting—and that it was made using methods they know how to do. Good artwork engages the viewer—it’s cool, for sure, but these conversations help them see why it’s cool and how they might learn from their fellow artists.

Here are some more tips: 

Teachers should begin by using three open-ended questions:

1. What's going on in this piece of artwork?

2. What do you see that makes you say that?

3. What more can we find?

Three Facilitation Techniques:

1. Paraphrase comments neutrally

2. Point at the area being discussed

3. Link and frame student comments

Students are asked to:

• Look carefully at works of art

• Talk about what they observe

• Back up their ideas with evidence

• Listen to and consider the views of others

• Discuss multiple possible interpretations