Digitising Children's Art

Art

~Herman Melville 

In placid hours well-pleased we dream

Of many a brave unbodied scheme.

But form to lend, pulsed life create,

What unlike things must meet and mate:

A flame to melt--a wind to freeze;

Sad patience--joyous energies;

Humility--yet pride and scorn;

Instinct and study; love and hate;

Audacity--reverence. These must mate,
And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart,
To wrestle with the angel--Art.

I'm cleaning out the children's art portfolios from school.  Rather than keep everything, I've been taking photos so we can take remember them without having to store them in boxes. 

This way they are more accessible than they would be buried in a plastic tub in the storeroom curling and yellowing under the house.   They actually come up quite well as digitised images, I think.  I plan to scan some smaller pieces of art, home-made cards and stories written on A4 size papers so we also have them retained and well-preserved. It's possible to use these digitised images online and in print for cards and messages.  A lovely way to repurpose children's handiwork.

Some of their pieces are so exquisite, with their bold use of colour and form, that they rival professional works.  This applies to all children's art not just my own brood's!  But it is my duty of course to cherish pieces of my children's artwork - so I can be forgiven for a bit of boasting. 

Hats off to primary school teachers.  We've had fun sorting through the mountain of paper representing a year's worth of classroom labour.