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:
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| Observing the body proportions |
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| 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!
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| Sienna Van Buren's finished girl |
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| Underneath the clothes! |
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| Zoe's Cherry Dress |
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| Great Proportions! |
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| Ellie's finished girl |
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| There's a heart under there! |
Big Blooms
Beckoning Spring to come to our art studio, we painted these oversized and vibrant blooms!
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| Zoe's Tulips - 18 x 24 watercolor on paper |
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| 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!
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| Zoe Coelho, Age 8 |
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| Ellie Driscoll, Age 8 |
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| Sophie Driscoll, Age 10 |
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| Abigail Newman, Age 6 |
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| Sienna Van Buren, Age 7 |
Matroyskas and R2D2
The students worked on some great direct observation drawings, making sure to add details and shadows.
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| Ellie's fantastic R2D2 |
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| Sienna's R2D2 with shadows |
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| 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.
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| Ellie's bunny in the forest |
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| Zoe's night forest |
We hope you will join us next session for Technique Tuesdays- starting April 23rd. Register through our website!
