Observational Drawing and Character Ideation
|
Documentation:Students came into the classroom, and were excited: "It's Art Day!"
The energy and excitement level was alright high for the day, and it was only 8 AM. The students seemed a little lost at first, too excited for the day ahead and sat at their tables first, sketchbook in hand, ready to go. It took them a minute to realize what time it was and to circle up in the front of the room. They all looked around the classroom, observing the different materials we had laid out on their tables and the white board propped up on the easel. We started off introductions by starting enthusiasm and energy levels and whether they liked abstract or realistic art. Surprisingly, quite a few of the students said they liked both styles of art. A few of them preferred realistic art, some of them expressed their interest in abstract, and one specific student mentioned that he didn't know what "abstract" was. Once every student had a chance to speak in the circle, we got started with our lesson. The kids went straight to their tables, ready to learn and draw. Contour and gesture quick draw! Emily came over to the front of the classroom and began posing for the class. Kiley started off the activity by demonstrating how much of a contour drawing you can get done by working quickly on recognizing the main outline of the model. Then we challenged the students. They had twenty seconds to draw the counter, or outline, of Emily. The first time around a few of the students succeeded in getting the full outline done. By round two, almost all of them had it down. The fast time challenged the students to work quickly, not erase, and keep going to get the form. "The rush!" one student exclaimed. They exhaled and dropped their pencils down each time their twenty seconds were up, relieved and surprised by their efforts done in each drawing.
Some of the students shared their discoveries with their peers. One student mentioned "don't draw the outline. Draw a stick figure and fill in in with scribbles". After he mentioned that, the students were eager to give it a try. It worked! The class cheered out with their success. Another student then mentioned how "if you draw the stick figure and scribble, it makes it look more realistic". The students observed their drawing and were astonished by this discovery. After we did contour a few times, we moved on to gesture drawing. When we challenged the students to do shorter times on drawing, they panicked a little bit. They actually got what they wanted to get done in a shorter amount of time. This is when poses to make, changing their pose every 15 seconds. The students enjoyed this challenge, moving from one drawing to the next, as quickly as possible. This was their exploration of gesture and composition.
grid pattern, to limit himself on size and make sure he had enough space on the page for more drawings.
The different discoveries the students were making were phenomenal. They learned a lot about how to quick draw, how to move on from a "mistake" and so much more. The students all seemed to enjoy the challenge, which made the learning so much better.
their character. Those who finished their worksheet quickly, we asked to write down more details and start drawing the environment and character.
Afterwards, we had the students collect all their supplies and bring them to the crate, then sit down with their sketchbook and pencil. Beth then passed out blue note cards for students to write down their discoveries. This is when Emily introduced the discovery board, as a way to reflect on what we did and finalize our learning in our writing. We had the students write down one thing they learned today and one thing they want to work on with their character. Most of the students seemed to learn more from the gesture and contour activity, and had some great reflections on what worked and didn't work.
During the last 10 minutes of class, we had the kids gather in a circle in the front of the classroom and share one drawing they were proud of and to verbalize what they learned today. Most of the students were proud of their gesture drawings, showing everyone their rendition of the "dab" or other drawing in their book. A few of them shared their character design, talking about what they plan to do with color and environment as well.
In the end, it seemed that we may need to give them some more time to work on their character design, to allow them to revisit their work from this class, and to build further on their ideation project. |