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.

Acrylic Painting Mug

Exemplar

Middle and High school students in my small group lessons are learning how to paint with acrylics.  I thought it would be great to begin with how to paint a form, and we are using a mug as our subject for this study.  They were only allowed to use two complementary colors and white paint.  They learned how to darken colors with the opposite color on the color wheel, how to make faux black, and how to make a neutral gray.

Student learned layering techniques with the paint that they will use to paint a still life in the next few weeks.  They worked on watercolor paper that I had previously added gesso on to seal. 







Here are the student's work, and didn't they do a great job!

Pastel Pears

Pears with underpainting

Completed pastel with layering

Students were able to select different fruit and use the same techniques

Pears in progress, this shows the underpainting and glazing 

As we were studying the life of Mary Cassatt, this was a great time to work with pastels, one of my favorite mediums.  Students learned underpainting and layering the pastel over it without smudging so you could see thru to the underpainting.  They were quite stunning to look at and each student's work varied by subject matter or the colors and layering technique they used. 

Pastel Cactus

I absolutely love pastels and the bold effects you can create with this luminous medium, especially on black paper.  Students grades 2-5 worked on these beautiful cactus learning value with light and shadow.  Thank you to Art Projects for Kids for the project idea.  They worked with pastel, but used a black oil pastel to emphasize some of the lines.  I hope you enjoy viewing these as much as I did.  Kids are such fabulous artists!

Colored Pencil Yarn Bundles

This is a great project for students to learn how to create value with colored pencil.  I see yarn bundles, but other students have seen elephant trunks, abstract trees, Dr. Seuss theme, knees and legs with colorful stockings, layers of rock.  I find it interesting that many of the students were wearing the exact colors they chose for their project.  Working with analogous colors. Thank you to Art with Mr. E and they are beautiful!

Also, colored pencils were Lyra  for younger (harder lead but still blend-able) and Prismacolor for older students (leads break easier, but blend beautifully).