Week 2/15

After learning about VTS (Visual Thinking Strategies), I was able to recognize many positive contributions this strategies contributes to a child's learning. In my opinion, VTS has the power to open up students minds to different perspectives for students usually have different takes on what an artist is trying to portray in a image, painting, or piece of artwork. Child learn to think differently and analyze others thoughts. Adding to this, VTS also helps a child to be creative, think outside the box, and expand their visual perception. VTS helps children form connections, relationships, critically think, and draw from their own knowledge bank. Showing students different works of art and discussing it can also help students to learn different forms of art and later distiguish between different types of art work and different artists. It introduces them to different styles and techniques as well. Lastly VTS encourages active class participation, group problem solving, and confidence in one's ability to construct meaning. I decided to practice VTS in my own home with two of my room mates Brooke and Anna. For this particular demonstration of VTS I choose a familiar painting to me called "Las Meninas" by Diego Velazquez. I simply asked Brooke and Anna to describe what they saw in the painting and what they thought the painting was portraying. While they did this I just ficilitated their comments. They observed that the girl in the middle of the painting was the focus of the painting because she has a bright dress and everyone is surrounding her. They think she is a girl of royalty or of the upper class based on the way she is dressed. They also felt like the women around appear as if they are attending her and might be her maids. Anna thinks she is 6 years old and Brooke thinks she is 4 years old. They believe the dog in the front is protecting the little girl. They also thought that the elderly man to the left of the little girl was painting her because he is holding a paint palette. Brooke feels that the picture takes place in an art gallery room in the castle of the little girl. She also feels the woman to the left of the little girl is trying to calm her down. They both noticed a mysterious man in the back and struggled to identify his role in the painting. Brooke was the first to observe a nun in the background then Anna saw it.  They believe the painting is from the 17th Century because it looks victorian. Lastly, Brooke made the observation that the painting is gloomy on the top and clearer towards the bottom which she feels the artist did on purpose to shift the focus to the bottom where the people are located.