What a class at Nix Fine Arts actually looks like
One hour, ten children, one sheet of paper each. Here is the shape of it, hour by hour.
People ask what happens in an hour, so here it is.
The first ten minutes are looking games. Not drawing — looking. Half the class closes one eye and describes what they see. Somebody is told to draw a chair without looking at it, and the results are funny and instructive.
The next forty minutes are making. One thing, one sheet of paper, one instruction at a time. I walk the room rather than teach from the front, because at this age the difference between a child who tries and a child who stops is usually a single sentence.
The last ten minutes are for looking at what everyone made and saying one true thing about it. Not praise — observation. "Your shadow is darker than mine." "You used three greens." That is the part children remember.
What I do not do: I do not draw it for them, and I do not correct the drawing. A corrected drawing is not theirs any more.