Monday, February 28, 2011

year of the rabbit. the cute, super cuddly bunny.

I found the work of Tracy Walker recently on the Pikaland illustration blog. Very cool stuff. Her use of color and shape creates an interesting play between decorative and plastic space in her work.
She has recently done a couple illustrations of rabbits. I especially enjoyed one that that used size and repetition to create depth in an image full of flat looking shapes.
The kinders have been focusing on natural shapes in the past couple projects, so this was a nice way to wrap up our second 4 weeks together. We discussed the sizes of the bunnies in Tracy's illustration, and how things look bigger when they are close and smaller when they are further away from us. We also talked about how the plants, flowers, and holes in the image are part of a rabbit's habitat.

We drew the image out together, starting at the bottom and working our way up the composition. I modeled a few natural shapes they could add to the background and then they drew some to break up that space. They used construction paper crayons to color in their drawings.

The drawing was one of the most challenging the kinders have done, but they rolled with it pretty well. I always emphasize that the important thing is that they try their best. What I liked was that many students took the time to redraw parts they were not satisfied with. It was good to see them thinking about the quality of their drawn images and attempting to improve them.









1 comment:

  1. Tracy wanted me to pass along these words to the kids.

    Hi Don...

    Please pass along my best wishes to your students. They all did such beautiful work on their pieces and really captured a feeling of space and distance.... no easy feat for such young artists, I was really impressed! Each artist was so creative, using colour and pattern beautifully, and finding their own voice in their art. I encourage all of them to be creative and keep making art !

    cheers,
    Tracy

    ReplyDelete