Drawing with Mona Brookes

I was first introduced to Mona Brookes' Drawing With Children a few years before becoming the art teacher. Upon reviewing the book, I was impressed with the results Mona Brookes' methods achieved and looked for ways to teach her ideas in my classroom (I was teaching a multi-age 2/3 classroom at this time). But it wasn't until I began teaching as the art specialist that I was able to fully implement her ideas.

I have used the "Monart" approach with my 2nd and 3rd graders for the past ten years. The ideas in the book are very easy to impliment. The lessons are step by step and well organized. In the beginning of using Brookes' approach, I followed the book exactly. These days I have to cut corners as I have only 39 meetings a year with each classroom and there are 6 days in between teaching sessions. I don't view it as advanced drawing instruction but it certainly served me well as an introduction to the art of drawing.

The Monart method identifies five basic elements of shape (see chart on the left). All drawings can be reduced to one or all of these five shape families. It should be noted that the method in the book concentrates on basic lines and shapes but that some drawings the children will produce contain more advanced line and shape. Check out the following links for some examples of student work.

More information can be found at http://www.monart.com/. Also of interest is http://www.indydrawingschool.com/.



Here are a few samples of my student's art work from lessons contained in Drawing With Children.