Drawing from observation

Third graders began to look a little more closely at things today in Art.  They learned about drawing from observation, and tried out two techniques:  Blind Contour and Modified Contour drawing.  Blind Contour is when the artist only looks at his/her subject, and never at the paper.  Modified Contour is when the artist looks at the subject 80% of the time, and his/her paper 20% of the time.

Fourth Grade Shoe Portraits

Fourth graders took on a big task.  They created portraits of people- but without drawing a person!  They brought in shoes from home, and then spent time making observational modified contour drawings of the shoes to warm up.  They drew a VERY large final pencil drawing of the shoe, and then painted with watercolors to give it a finished feel.  Finally, they wrote a personal narrative from the perspective of the shoe owner- BUT they had to come up with a character who was not themselves!  This was a time consuming and difficult assignment that required not only visual art, but creative thinking as well.  Here are the kids at work, and their final artwork.

Kinder Pumpkins!

The Kinder classes took a field trip to a pumpkin patch in October, so I figured we should look at drawing and painting pumpkins!  I found a neat lesson online and tried it out with the kids*.  First, we looked at photos of pumpkins, and discussed how they were neither circles or ovals- instead they had segments and were rather bumpy!  We talked about how "real" artists look for what's really there- that they don't pretend everything is a set shape.  We drew two small ovals, one at the top of the page, and one at the bottom.  Then, we drew an imaginary straight line down the middle of the page, connecting the two ovals.  From then on, every line we drew had to be curved!  We created the segments of the pumpkin.  Finally, we reviewed mixing primary colors to get secondary colors, and began to experiment with tempera paint to find colors that reminded us of pumpkins.  The kids cut the pumpkins out, and then cut and glued faces out of black and white paper, to create jack o lanterns!

*http://www.deepspacesparkle.com/2013/10/16/funny-face-pumpkin-project-for-kinders/

Kinder Observational Leaf Drawing

As Fall fell across campus, our trees turned beautiful shades of oranges, purples, yellows, and reds.  The Kinders and I went on a leaf hunt and found all sorts of leaves with different shapes, sizes, and colors.

We brought them back to the studio, and observed the characteristics of the leaves... were they bumpy?  Sharp?  Did they have veins?  The Kinders then watched me draw one of the leaves from observation (from looking- not tracing!), and then they went to town.

Leaf People!

Pre-Firsters took a brisk jaunt outside to hunt and gather leaves.  They grabbed leaves of different shapes, sizes, and colors.  Once back in the warm studio, the used those leaves to create Leaf People, and then used oil pastels to fill the background.