Technique Tuesdays!

We recently wrapped up a session of our Technique Tuesday class!  These budding artists learned some great foundational art skills through some pretty exciting lessons.

The Approach

Our main focus during these classes was to build a classic drawing skill-set while having the students completely engaged and excited about their work.  The students (ages 6-10) primarily learned how to approach each drawing- by observing and mapping! With this approach, the artists learned the proper proportions for drawing a face and a figure, how to sketch and draw a living animal (we used a well-behaved bunny!), and how to interpret details, form, and color through pencil and watercolor.  And the students really created some amazing artworks!

The Artwork

The American Girl Figure Drawing project:

Observing the body proportions

Sienna painting in her doll's clothes

What better way to learn about body proportions than by using a well-loved doll!  The girls were reminded that this doll is a little different than a human figure in that she is only 4 heads tall.  We made sure to measure an actual girl- she was 6 and a half heads tall!  (An adult is 8 1/2 'heads' tall- as we learned.)  

The girls drew their figures by drawing mapping lines to make sure we had the body parts in the right place.  The waist was in the middle, the hands hit in the middle of the thigh, the knees were halfway from the waist to the feet. Once their girls were drawn and painted, we used an acetate overlay over the figures so the girls could design and paint their own clothes!  The young artists loved this part and were very creative in coming up with their clothing designs! 

Sienna Van Buren's finished girl

Underneath the clothes!

Zoe's Cherry Dress

Great Proportions!

Ellie's finished girl

There's a heart under there!

 Big Blooms

Beckoning Spring to come to our art studio, we painted these oversized and vibrant blooms! 

Zoe's Tulips - 18 x 24 watercolor on paper

Sienna's Bright Zinnias - 18 x 24 watercolor on paper

 Life-sized Chickens  18 x 24" pencil and watercolor on paper

I love the way these chickens turned out!  I had originally planned on an enlarged self-portrait, but as soon as the girls saw another girl drawing a chicken, all were drawing chickens!  We worked on creating interesting detail with both pencil and paint to make our life-sized chickens truly life-like!

Zoe Coelho, Age 8

Ellie Driscoll, Age 8

Sophie Driscoll, Age 10

Abigail Newman, Age 6

Sienna Van Buren, Age 7

Matroyskas and R2D2

The students worked on some great direct observation drawings, making sure to add details and shadows.

Ellie's fantastic R2D2

Sienna's R2D2 with shadows

Matroyshka Family

 Beginning Perspective with Trees, Shadows, and Snow

We also covered beginning perspective this session, by observing how objects change in size as they get farther away.  Using a simple tree and snow-scape, the girls were careful to create dimension in their work.

Ellie's bunny in the forest

Zoe's night forest

We hope you will join us next session for Technique Tuesdays- starting April 23rd.  Register through our website!