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!
