Thursday, October 20, 2016

sketching ravens

The drawing class last Friday focused on sketching ravens.

I brought out conte sticks for them to explore, along with some very fat charcoal blocks in color.

9 year old


We started the hour again with some warm up drawings using a photo of a raven for reference.

7 year old


They drew with their non-dominant hand and also upside down. To be truthful, I think all of them were very happy with their non-dominant hand drawings and used the exercise to start their final sketches on the large black paper I had put out to use.

7 year old


Having a black piece of paper was a great way to encourage them to focus on highlights and also discover that just because something is black, like a raven, doesn't mean it is devoid of color and variations.

And I got a good chuckle out of the above drawing.  When I really looked at his drawing after class had ended, I made some pretty funny discoveries. During class, this little boy had decided to focus on drawing just the face- really focusing in on the eye of the bird. What I noticed after the kids had all left and I was setting the pictures with spray was the bird now had a name....Jeri! He named the bird after me. Ha! And on top of that I realized he has also added a body to the bird and I am IN LOVE with the proportions of his addition. Children never cease to not only surprise me but also keep me smiling.  However I sure hope he didn't name the bird after me because he thinks I'm big-headed.......

8 year old


Although the objective of this class is all about process and exploration, these ravens turned out stunning. Each child was so happy with their creations at the end of class. I'll be sorry to see them go home this week as I have throughly enjoyed having them hanging in the studio to view.

No comments:

Post a Comment