New Badge Review: Art and Design for Brownies

 

One topic making the rounds on Girl Scout leader Facebook groups is that the Brownie Painting Badge and the Junior Jeweler badges are being retired.  Since these badges are generally popular with the girls, people are looking for them and not generally please to hear this.  On the other hand, the badges are being replaced with a new series of Art and Design badges available on the Daisy, Brownie and Junior levels.  This post will look at the Brownie badge.  You can read about the Daisy badge here. 

Requirements:

Discover different styles and elements of art and design.

1. Explore art and design
2. Experiment with the elements
3. Learn about composition
4. Make art about a subject
5. Share your artwork

When you've earned this badge, you'll know how makers turn ideas into art and design projects.

Meeting 1:

The first Brownie meeting starts in the same way the Daisy meeting does, with the girls drawing a picture.  They also have the same activities for Explore Art and Design but with some different vocabulary words--the Daisy plan presents the choice between a field trip or guest speaker as one option and a discussion followed by picking out design elements in the room as another, while Brownies are offered (1) a field trip to an art gallery or place where art is made (2) a guest speaker who makes art or (3) talk about the vocabulary words and find examples in the room. 

For Experiment with the elements, Brownies begin with a game of Simon Says that explores colors, lines and textures.  Then using the medium provided by the leader,  girls do an art project focusing on either color, lines or texture, but they try to show texture in their artwork.  

The final part of the first meeting is Learn about Composition.  There is a discussion about symmetry and about negative space and positive space.  3-D figures and patterns are also discussed.  Then, using provided materials girls do a project that uses 3 or more shapes or forms, or they do one that highlights the use of space or one that uses patterns, symmetry or both.  

Meeting 2

As an opening activity for meeting two, VTK suggests setting a timer to go off every two minutes and having the girls draw objects and the space around them, switching to a different one every two minutes.  In other words these are to be quick sketches.

After discussing various types of art such as still lifes, portraits, and abstract art, for Make Art About a Subject, Brownies then create either a still life, a portrait or an abstract work of art.  Instructions are given for one suggested project, a paper quilt.  

For Share Your Artwork Brownies either host a show of their artwork, wrap a piece up as a gift or create some way to display it like a frame or pedestal.  

VTK Supplied Extras 

As it did for Daisies, VTK provides printable overviews of the badge and meeting, printable meeting plans from VTK and some meeting aids.  The meeting aids include a template for making tangrams and a sheet called "Style Your Medium"  which shows the styles of Impressionism, Cubism, and Pop Art.  There is a list of words to know (19+ words) with definitions and directions on how to make a paper quilt. There is a family handout and a seven page handout for leaders about the Art and Design, Craft and Tinker and Create and Innovate series of badges.  

My Comments

I'm glad GSUSA has listened to leaders who have been asking for materials that can be used across age levels.  If you have a troop of Daisies and Brownies, the same meeting plan could be used with the whole group.  Unlike the old Painting badge, which is only about using paint, several different media can be explored with this badge.  On the other hand, I do not see why the Painting badge was retired. It was a favorite of most troops and if GSUSA is worried about being repetitive, they've never looked at all the coding and robotics stuff that is at its core, all about algorithmic thinking.