Tuesday, October 2, 2012

the big cover up.

This week the kinders continued to focus on line, but they added a simple way to create a little space to their drawings too.

We looked at the work of Kris of We and the Bean. Kris does a lot of animal paintings that are stylistically geared towards the younger set. The characters a bright and cheery, and just a bit silly:) Perfect for the kinders. She uses contour lines to define and create shapes in her work, just like Kevin Sherry of I'm the Best Artist in the Ocean.


When we looked at her work I pointed out the outlines she used to make the big animal shapes and their details. We also took some time to find out that she overlaps shapes to make some shapes look they are behind other ones. The kids identified that they could not see the whole shape of the thing being overlapped.
We focused on a few bird paintings that Kris did when we were ready to make our own drawings. The kids and I drew our parts out together. Actually, I gave them a start by drawing one set of owl ears or an oval for them on each of their papers. This assured us of having something that was big to start the drawing. We used the number 11 for our eyes, the letter V for the beak and the number 3 for our wings. We drew, we overlapped, we traced EVERYTHING. Everything is interesting. I got a lot of- do we trace the beak? do we trace the bodies? do we trace the wings? I forgot that you need to emphasize that everything means ALL of the lines:)

Then we colored. The color choices were up to each student. They could color the background or not.

The kinders have really done a great job at the start of the year. They're learning the ropes, getting to know the routine, and being a good bit entertaining to this art teacher. Keep it up kids!









3 comments:

  1. Don,
    How fantastic is this?! Thank you so much for being a fan and sharing this awesome project with your students (and me!) Their work is evidence that they totally understood both the use of contour lines and overlapping subjects. I can also tell that they took the time to add detail to and spend time carefully completing their work. Kudos to both you and your class!

    Kindly,
    Kris Williams
    We & The Bean

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  2. I've just been to Kris' site We and the Bean - just lovely, thank you for putting in the link :) I love your kinders' birds (I often give my littlies a starting basic shape too - or I end up with drawings the size of a 20c coin in a big white blankness!) especially the dali-legs :)

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  3. I love these drawings. Children are spontaneous and with the right guidance they are able to show beautiful drawings with a lovely naive line.

    Greetings from Denmark

    tatjanaknudsen.blogspot.com

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