drawing from real life and beyond

This was the last preteen class before we break for a month and so I needed a project that they could start and finish by the end of the hour and a half class.

We had not done any straight drawing for awhile and so I decided to bring out the charcoals for this and the elementary class to explore. The students were begging me to bring down my parakeet for a visit but his new cage is huge and a bit of a hassle to carry. When they realized that Parapete the parakeet would not be making a visit, the girls quickly changed their tune and began asking if I would bring my 13 year old dog down, Buddy, for them to draw.

Much easier for me to manage as never has there been a more easy going dog who is happy to honor any request I make of him. And so down he came to the studio and after receiving copious amounts of pets from each student, settled down on a blanket and was happy to model for a drawing prompt with charcoal.

buddy

The students started by just rubbing the charcoal over their entire paper and rubbing it in to create a toned base.

12 year old

Then each student quickly laid down some shapes to form the composition of their model and afterwards used a gummy eraser to take out the highlights.

10 year old

Once they had finished erasing, the students used the white chalk I provided and went over the erased areas, then using a blender stick rubbed it into the paper to create a value of grey. 

11 year old

12 year old

From that point on, they just alternated between the white chalk, the charcoal and the eraser until they were happy with their artwork as a finished piece.

11 year old

When the students stated they were done, I suggested they spend a little time on the background. Either lightening it up or darkening it to enhance their portraits of Buddy.

Believe it or not, they finished these drawing with 45 minutes to spare! But no worries, it was a great opportunity for them to take the skills they had just practiced and put it into a drawing of their own choice. At this point, there was very little direction needed from me at all. I was truly able to just enjoy sitting at the table chatting with the students while they enjoyed the evening lost in drawing.

Look at these final creations! They are quite amazing.

"george" age 12

I did bring out some actual colored pastel paper I had in the studio for the students to try with their second drawing. There was grey, beige, orange, blue and white in the pad for them to choose from and a couple of the students did decide just to stick with white. The above drawing is the student's own dog whose picture I have in the reference file for dogs from previous projects she has created using him as a subject.

12 year old

This student was not sure what she wanted to draw at the beginning and so I showed her some of Emily Carr's charcoal drawings and one in particular caught her attention and inspired this lovely wooded composition.

10 year old

The above student is quite enthralled with wolves and uses them as her subject matter at every opportunity. Her passion for wolves seemed to have been contagious as the below student, who usually focuses on horses, also created a beautiful wolf drawing too.

12 year old

And I smile every time I look at the way this artist set up her portrait of a cat. 

10 year old

So clever how the artist decided to have the cat laying on it's side for a portrait.

11 year old

And I am absolutely drawn to the moodiness the blue paper added to this deer drawing. I think it is quite arresting.

Although the students all looked like chimney sweeps by the end of class, they had all enjoyed each other's company in a relaxed atmosphere of drawing. Personally I was a little sad to see the night end as I will miss seeing the students while closed until May, but am looking forward to opening up once more and seeing what other beautiful creations they will make then!

exploring india ink

I try to introduce different materials in the drawing class for the students to explore ideas. This past week I was trying to help the students understand how breaking subjects down to basic shapes can help make drawing easier.

So we used india ink to find the basic shapes of a bear to create our 'drawings'.

We started on rice paper for our warm ups. I find this helps the students relax and explore without worrying that this is a final piece.

7 year old

I love how this student, eager to start drawing, had first created a bear drawing with just pen and then flipped the paper over to try it finding the bear shapes with the india ink and brush. Just look at the difference! And what a great idea for a final artwork with the two different styles, although not intentional I think the shadow as a line drawing is brilliant.

7 year old

Once they had their shapes on the rice paper with the india ink, I gave them the opportunity to explore how they could add more interest with line work for details. Isn't it cute how the bear looks like it is jumping based on where the artist placed the shadow?

They created several paintings on the rice paper and when they were feeling more confident I handed them some bristol paper to explore. The first thing they discovered was how different the ink could be manipulated on the paper.

7 year old

You can see how their confidence is now growing at this point as they began to create their own unique compositions. How sweet is this silhouette of a mama and baby bear?

7 year old

Or this one of a mama and baby trotting off to who knows where?  This artist started to discover how to create values with the india ink using water and it's obvious these two students are good friends as they both began adding babies to the artwork.

Then I had them move on to trying to create a bear on watercolor paper. Again they quickly discovered how differently the ink was to work with on a different paper. The watercolor paper definitely allowed them to explore how to create values with the ink more easily.

And then finally they had the opportunity to create whatever they wanted. I had them start by just putting a shape on the paper with the ink and then finding the animal within the blob and adding shapes according.

10 year old

And then I gave them white gel pens to create line and patterns into their shapes to create these amazing final drawings.

7 year old

7 year old

7 year old

Needless to say, it was very impressive to see all the charming drawings the class was able to create simply with india ink and shape.

articulated imaginary animals

This past Friday the kids in our school district had a ProD day, which means they were not in school while the teachers had a full day of planning, so I offered a morning two hour art workshop.

I have been admiring the work of Emma Kidd on Instagram for quite some time. I knew her art would be full heartedly embraced by students and have had the idea of creating a project inspired by her work for awhile. She has a lovely Etsy site where you can see lots of her work and here's a video of her talking about her artwork.

I was not wrong, the kids had a ball and created some wonderful articulated imaginary animals.

We started by playing the game Exquisite Corpse in order to get the ideas flowing.

The students changed seats to draw on each portion of the paper without being able to see what the student before had drawn. I gave open ended directions at each turn. 

Draw the head of your favorite animal.

Draw the body of something that likes the water.

Draw the legs of an animal that lives in Africa.

Lots of giggles as they returned to their seats and revealed the full drawings. The kids all shared the imaginary beings created in the game and then began to put together their own ideas for their articulated animals.

dragon, 5 year old

I gave each student a piece of watercolor paper and some copy paper to sketch out ideas along with 6 brass fasteners. The only instruction was their animal could not have more than six moving parts and to keep the joints large enough that it would hide the back of the fastener and not break when moving the part.

owl, 7 year old

Very quickly they figured out they could sketch the parts on the watercolor paper like a puzzle and not in order. This allowed them to make an animal much larger than the size of their paper. 

flying horse, 9 year old

Once they had their drawing on the final paper, they used watercolors to paint the parts and then cut them out.

solar panel flying lizard, 10 year old

By the time they finished cutting the parts, the paper was pretty dry and together we punched the holes where they wanted to put the brass fasteners. 

9 year old

Then they had the chance to use quill pens or sharpie pens to add lots of details using line and pattern.

10 year old

10 year old

By the time they were finished, parents were arriving and it was time to go home. There was something very magical about creating an artwork with moving parts for the students. I think there were all quite happy with themselves at the end.

unicorn mermaid, 9 year old

I think they would look absolutely wonderful mounted on paper and framed for display. I know if my grown children had brought one of these home when they were young it would definitely been on the wall in a hot minute.

10 year old

The icing on the cake was Emma Kidd seeing the students creations on the studio's Instagram page and being as thrilled as the students with the work. I hope the kids have as much fun playing with these at home as they did making them.