people and faces

I don't want to jinx myself, but I recently took down this winter display of our art. it is time for some positive thinking!

It has been replaced with a new display, showing off what 4th and 5th grade have learned about drawing people and faces.
year after year, its a huge request to learn how to draw people. i insist its all about practice, practice, practice, but teach students anyway how to use circles and ovals. kinda like this guy:


we then spent just a couple of classes talking about the proportions of the face. i feel like it was lost of some of the 4th graders, and even a few 5th, but you can't win them all, all the time. and drawing is something we will keep using, and practicing every year. those who did take the information and use it came out with some great drawings.

these are 4th grade's before and afters. I did NOT do this to show them what they do "wrong." the last thing I want to do is put students down. first we drew the one on the left. then folded it under while we followed some directions of the board. we even used our fingers to find the tops of our ears in relation to our eyes and things like that. when were done, we opened the page and observed the difference. I really wanted students to realize that your eyes are not on your forehead and your hair does not start growing at the top of your head. 

the next class, we took out mirrors and drew ourselves:

gotta love the Justin Beiber face paint! and not bad for a 45 minute class!
here's what 5th grade impressively managed after two classes:

these lessons are all in preparation for our "For Baby" painting, drawing, collage, illustrations. we started planning this week and God willing, I will have them done, scanned, and digitized by the April 28th Spring concert.

ready, set, draw!

*sigh* our first full week. I'm pooped!
I've gotten myself together however, but the kids seem... unsettled.

Every group goes through phases. And I feel collectively we are at the "storming" phase, to borrow a term from someone, I can't remember who, in college. In the beginning of the school year everyone was happy-go-lucky, getting to know one another and "forming," friendships and different relationships. We made our way to Christmas vacation all happy and cheery. Now, we haven't had a chance to settle back in after the break, and those friendships and "formings" are starting to "storm!" The nudges know exactly how to get under your skin and even the littlest of kids talk with ear shattering attitudes and disrespect.
I can't wait for the snow to melt so they can go run in circles outside and blow some of the steam off!

Today went surprisingly well though... I think middle schoolers would prefer to hibernate in times like these rather than annoy to no end. 
As I believe I mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to start a drawing unit with grades 4 and 5. I was planning on starting by reading Art & Max by David Weisner and then teaching a step by step drawing of different lizards in order to complete an assignment similar to "Leapin' Lizards from Deep Space Sparkle. Of course, we just painted and I relied heavily on oil pastels in the beginning of the year, and really need to switch it up... so I searched high and low for some cheap chalk pastels in local stores. nothin'. I caved and ordered a classroom set of Crayola drawing chalk and have had to buy my time waiting for them to come in... cue today:
I was going to follow up lizards with people. (the music teacher had asked if we could do illustrations to go along with John Denver's/ Mary from Peter, Paul and Mary's song, "For Baby" and I wanted to make sure the kids have confidence in drawing people beforehand.... the thought is to have a powerpoint of their illustrations rolling as they sing.) So we started people today. I had mixed expectations.... actually, I honestly thought this was a very bad idea, but was going to try anyway.

I introduced fifth grade to gesture drawing. I didn't show them these, but did explain that gesture drawings very quickly, under two minutes, get down the pose of a figure.
Their models were action figures. I had tried gesture drawings earlier in the year with sixth grade and it was nothing but giggles. So this time I borrowed some Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles from the preschool and challenged the kids to use the side of their crayon, without picking it up off the paper, and to constantly move around their page and until the figure appeared to be standing. We did this for almost a half hour! Some talking in between poses, but they built up to a nicely done five minute drawing with enough time left in class to briefly go over how to use ovals and circles as an "under drawing" or plan for a drawing of a person.