Value Drawings

Students have been learning how to see value and accurately represent it with graphite. They learned quickly and did a beautiful job on these. We talked a lot about some artist's tendency to go too dark or stay too light in value. I wanted them to notice this so they can work to develop their drawings completely.

Students worked from photos.

Big Cats Painting

Students have been learning how to draw animals by using contour line and seeing hidden shapes.

They worked on large paper and drew a big cat from a photograph. Then we painted a watercolor background using various techniques...wet in wet, salt, scratching.

Next,students mixed tempera paint to create different values and painted them according to their photo.

Charcoal Owls

I...Love...These...Owls!  My semi-private lesson students learned to work with and layer 3 kinds of charcoal- vine, pencil, and white charcoal.  They also were using a knead eraser as a drawing tool pulling out highlights.  These were done from observation of a black and white photograph.  I did this as a follow up to a lesson in value drawing. I wish I could post more photos, but I am out of photo space on blogger and will have to work on this issue.

Animal Paintings Completed

Students completed their paintings of animals and these are two samples I did in acrylic using my own pet's photographs.  My lovely teenage daughter is quite the photographer, so I had some great photos to work with for our cat, Buddy, and chihuahua, Baby.

Here are the student's work...pretty amazing and look like a photo!

Desserts in Oil Pastel

Elementary students were learning how to draw ellipses, the proper perspective of circles, and what better subject matter than desserts.  Students worked on drawing their ellipses and making sure the four quarters were matching to the best of their ability before drawing the rest of their dessert.  They were working from photographs and used pencil on black paper.

I wanted to use this as a lesson on how to mix oil pastels like paint and how to layer them to make them darker using complementary colors.  I have to admit, this lesson really makes me hungry...YUM!  

Soda Cans Completed

Students completed their soda can project learning about ellipses this week.  This class consists of homeschool students ranging from 5th thru 12th grade, and I have a wide variety of skill and ability in the group.  I try to develop projects so that all levels can learn new concepts and build on concepts they may already know. Every student grows at their own level, and it is a beautiful thing to watch them progress and incorporate what they are learning into their work. This project was an excellent example of this.

Students learned about the proper perspective of circles, ellipses, and drew a soda can from life.  They also were learning about line quality, using thick and thin lines in drawing to make it more interesting and when/ where to add these.  I also wanted to use this lesson to teach layered colored pencil with complementary colors using a professional quality pencil, Prismacolor.  I love the framing done in recycled soda boxes. A big thank you to the parents who saved these for me for months in order to donate to the art room! Great work done by all students!

Soda Can Ellipses

Older students grade 5-12 have been learning how to draw circles in proper perspective, ellipses.  They learned how to draw an axis to begin and make all parts on the top of the can even before completing the entire shape (look closely and you might see the erased guideline).  They are really working hard on these as this is not an easy project and required precision.  They will finish next week with colored pencil layering and burnishing techniques and will post the final results next week. I love the recycled boxed for the frame on these as well. This project takes 3- 1 hour sessions to complete.

Fall Landscape Paintings

I wanted to show Elementary students how to draw and paint a landscape scene in watercolor. With the beautiful cooler weather we are having here in Florida, I thought a fall landscape would be lovely.  I used this lesson as my starting point (thank you, Kathy Barbro) and discussed foreground, middleground, and background when drawing landscapes of any kind.  Students learned about how the clouds look smaller as they get lower in the sky and closer to the land.  This is the opposite of how things appear on land. They also learned wet in wet watercolor technique and wax resist.  They are so bright and colorful. I love using the Crayola Educational watercolors because they teach students to learn how to prepare watercolor and mix them instead of using directly from the palette.

This young lady decided to the landscape to a desert scene and spatter painted part of it for texture, turning a drippy mistake into an advantage!

Painting Animals

Semi-private students are working on painting animals, pets in some cases.  They are using acrylic paints and working from photos.  Some took 2- 2hour classes to complete and others will take 3- 2 hour classes.  They are really learning to see the values and add texture with paint.

One of my examples...my dog, Mandy

Beautiful wolf in the moonlight!

Detail of the ear

Detail of the muzzle

Halfway done and coming along beautifully

Love this little guy!

A favorite pet, Buddy, as a kitten

Birds with Printmaking

I taught the elementary students how to be a shape detective when learning to draw birds this week. Looking at photographs, students drew the basic shapes on a dry erase board for practice.  They then connected with lines that made the outside shape of the bird.  They will use this method later as well when they learn to draw animals from magazine images.  After practicing a few different varieties of birds, they drew one on paper.  They used this to trace onto a foam printing plate.  They did need to go back and press in their lines again with the dull pencil to get a good impression before adding the ink. 

We then used white printmaking ink on black paper...the results are awesome!