At the Drawing Pad: April 2009

Here is some more work from my class of 2009. I taught four classes this year at Echo, ages 7-9, 10-12, & basically two classes of 13 & up. I normally have one of those classes as an intermediate level for students that have taken my class before. I love the ability to not have to go over the basics with these kids and really do some different and higher level lessons. This year though it seemed everyone of my classes except the 7-9 year old had some kids that had taken my class before. I literally had them divided into three levels in each class. Beginners, intermediate, and advanced. As I said in my previous post it was very fast paced and unfortunately I felt myself spread too thin to really impart more than a skimming of direction and help to the students this year. All in all they did do some fun work and following is a scattering of some finished, and some incomplete projects.

As a side note to the fast pace of my classes, if any of my aides are reading this blog please know how very wonderful you all were. I know I put you all to good use! At one point I remember one of my aides and I lifting up our heads for a moment simultaneously trying to catch our breath and we were only have way through the first class. It was amazing, exhilarating, and by the end of the day exhausting for this fifty something. Thank you all for the wonderful job you did and for helping me find my glasses, my pencils, my sketch pad...you get the idea. LOL

Starting with the 7-9 year old. They were my true beginners and here is what they were up to by the last few lessons. They worked on a lion portrait, and again were trying to distinguish value, and shapes that made up the pictures.

I really like how well this student used value and pencil strokes to show the flow of the lions mane. Good eyes too!

Interestingly enough this was one of my favorites. I asked Brogan to break outside of the box. He simply refused, but did such a great job on this picture that his work ended up capturing my heart :) And look at those great eyes...way to go Brogan!

Here we start with some 10-12 year old Indian portraits. I have such a passion for First Nation people groups that inhabited this region way before the white man got here. I love to draw their faces. These pictures are drawn from photographs of actual Indians from the Yakima Valley, and the Columbia Plateau region. I always emphasis to the kids that if they can concentrate on their eyes the whole portrait will come alive.

Here we have an example of a fairly simple work, but the expression in the eyes just grabs you.

Some of my advanced students wanted to pick their own portraits to do. Here is a smattering of their work.

The Indian above and below were done by two girls who sat side by side. I love how they put their own interpretation and style into their portraits.

This was my favorite drawing of the year. Done by Joseph an older first time student. In visiting with his mom, she said this was a newly discovered talent for him. WOW! The detail and the styling of his work blew me away. And again those eyes!

Here is a look at what I have been up to with my 60 plus art students these last twelve weeks. I am always completely amazed by the talent and abilities of my students. This year I was a little worried because we only had twelve lessons. I decided early on to only commit to half of the year with this group of kids from Echo. I wasn't sure how it would go. I would have to condense and simplify what I taught. Boy was I in for a big surprise. Things got extremely complicated as each class turned into about 3 different levels of student experience. I ended up with two full time aides trying to keep up with me and my kids. Phew it was exhausting, but I think somehow we were able to pull some real talent out of these kids. Take a look for your self.

These rockets represent some of my 7-9 year old who's main object in this lesson was to learn to put at least five values in there drawing using charcoal and a kneaded eraser. While the older students below worked on pencil landscapes using black and white photos. They were using their drawing skills to practice proportion, perspective,value, and texture.