Audubon inspired birds

We are finished with all things pumpkin and skeletons in the studio. (except for the 10 year old birthday party this coming weekend on Sugar Skulls!)

But for the rest of the students we are moving on from Halloween inspired artwork.

That does not mean I am still not secretly focusing on the wonders of line.

Most of the classes are working on bird pieces of one kind or another since feathers are a great opportunity to explore different line qualities and interpretations. I started by showing the kids a small book I have of John James Audubon's entire collection of works. I shared with them how he went about recording the birds and the importance of his work then, as it gave people a chance to see birds they otherwise would of never seen, and historically, as we now have visual recordings of birds that are now extinct. (Dodo bird, I talking about you)

What I didn't expect was for the conversation to take a sharp left turn when I mentioned the after studying the birds in the wild, Audubon would then kill one, stuff it and take it back to the studio to put into different positions to do more detail artwork.....which led to a lot of questions as to why they would have to shoot the birds, which lead to a discussion on photography in this time period, which somehow led to the dead bird I have in the studio freezer to use for reference. 

And no, I would not be bringing it out since I did not have each child's parent consent to do so and some, like myself when young, might find it upsetting to see a dead bird even if it does look to just be sleeping.

Lord have mercy, one day I will learn to expect the unexpected with kids.

So after a somewhat lengthy discussion, we began to work.  Using a 12X15 piece of watercolor paper taped to the back of an even larger pad of paper, I had each child choose a bird reference and handed them a pencil stuck through a paper plate.

I then introduced blind contour drawing and asked them to not lift their pencil up from the paper. I also asked them to draw their bird very large.  I assured them that by the time we were done, this drawing would not be very visible and the pencil lines would just become interesting marks.

I did this step because it is impossible for the kids to get to caught up in doing finicky sketches and each and every one of them had a shape on the paper that allowed them to create their bird very easy.

I then gave each child a water-soluble graphite. The graphite was much softer than the pencil and so it created a much darker line.  I asked them to start putting in some of the dark areas they saw on their reference.  Then using water and a paintbrush, they got to work softening those lines.  At this point, they also put their work on a small easel so that the paint could drip and do interesting, uncontrollable things.

7 year old, in process

As you can see, if we had stopped right there they would have had a very lovely take home piece of work. However I really wanted the kids to explore lots of different materials for line making.

8 year old, in process

So I handed them some vine charcoal and told them to add more details to their birds.  And when they finished that I brought out some india ink, a paintbrush, and their all time favorite tool, old fashion fountain pens.  

Finally for those that wanted it, I brought out white chalk and black and white oil pastels.

They explored the different values they could attain with the india ink using the paintbrush and then got to work using the fountain pen to add small detail feather work.  Each time I gave them a new material, I asked them to focus a little more on adding in all the details of the birds.

8 year old, grey African parrot

Because they had to figure out a new detail to add with each material, the end results are quite amazing for their ages.  

I have made some tonal viewfinders out of cardboard and duct tape that I brought out to help them see the different values to add into their works.  This helped them immensely while working only in black and white.

7 year old, flying Macaw

The ever changing materials kept the project very interesting.  

"What was next?!"  

And then it was quite exciting to figure out how to use the new material into the artwork. I truly did not hear an "I'm done" until they were really quite done. They were totally into this project and the exploration of materials.  I left everything out so they could go back at anytime and add more of something they felt their work needed.

I loved how the artist below surprised himself with this work. He was so proud of his bird and I don't blame him. 

8 year old, African parakeet

The two oldest students in the class chose to create their birds using scratch art.  I asked them to start at the eye and work out from there, paying attention to how the feather lines changed as they moved further away from the eye. 

After working on the skeleton etchings, http://doodlebugdabblings.blogspot.ca/2015/11/spooky-etchings-without-press.html, they had a great understanding on how to create value using this medium and got some great pieces.

10 year old

The below student was so pleased with the head of her bird, she did not want to continue any further out of fear she might ruin it. I think it is a lovely piece where she chose to finish it and think the entire bird might of lost something in the composition.  

10 year old

As much as the girls enjoyed creating their work in scratch art, watching the other kids do an exploration of materials for their birds looked like lots of fun and so now they are also working on the above project.  They will finish it next week and it is interesting to see how different their works are even though they are both doing Toucans.  

I can't wait to share it with you then.