One Drawing A Day; week one

I have been participating in the Artsy Book Club, formed recently by blogger friend Cassie Stephens.  For our first book, we are following the exercises in a book called One Drawing a Day: a 6-week Course Exploring Creativity with Illustration and Mixed Media. by Veronica Lawlor.  The exercises encourage us to get out of our comfort zones, using materials and sometimes subject matter that might be in our usual (and comfortable!) repertoire.  We finish our first week today, so I thought I'd share my week's worth of drawing exercises with you.

Day 1: Still life with fine point pen

 My still life consisted of a beloved old camera from my college darkroom photography days, a stuffed alien, a demented looking Barbie, a troll doll, a barometer, and more.

 Day 2: Garden-like still life with dip pen and ink

 

Day 3: Study of a person (or perhaps hands) with bamboo pen and ink.  

My sleepy-eyed husband modeled for me, and as a result he ended up with a larger-than-life chin.  I just got a new bamboo pen, so I used it for a 2nd drawing, with white ink on black paper.

 

 

Day 4: Person or objects from around the house with charcoal to render value and fine point pen for added line. (I used a fountain pen.) 

 I didn't have a person available, so I used stuffed toys from around the house, including a sock monkey that I made, and Nelson the Adirondack black bear, who's cross-continental saga I detailed here on the blog, three years ago.  And how could I forget the stuffed dragon?

By the way, I know some of you have made sock monkeys with kids.  I thought it was absolutely one of the most challenging projects I ever did, with the sock unraveling as I tried to stitch it together.  So Flossie, my sock monkey, is my first and will be my last. 

Day 5: Person, with diluted ink  and watercolor brush; I used a 'neutral tint' ink as well as some black.

Day 6: A  garden with soft graphite pencils

It's the wrong time of the year for that around here, with snow everywhere, so I substituted one of my bay windows filled with plants as subject for this assignment.  I used 2B, 4B, and 6B pencils, as well as a big chunky graphite stick. Along with the drawing you can see my actual window.

Day 7: An outdoor scene with plenty of texture, using a mix of pens, ink, brush, and water.  

Again, I wasn't going to sit outside for this, so I decided to work from a photo on my PC, that I took in warmer weather.  It was a very challenging assignment, since my photo was bursting with autumnal colors, and I was drawing in tints of black ink.  The paper didn't like getting wet, and the pens didn't like drawing on the soggy paper.  On to better things tomorrow!!

One more day of just neutrals and values, and then I think we move on to color!   Yay!!!! I love color!!!

You Gotta Have Heart(s)!

 I first posted this lesson (with these pictures and much of the text) two years ago, February 2012.   I thought it would be fun to share it with you again today, with Valentine's day in barely a week.

 The fun (and messy) quickie lesson took two sessions, but turned out to be a lot tougher for my 2nd graders than I expected, though in the end everyone was successful and happy, and the hallway display got rave reviews! 

  The kids began by choosing 2 colors of tissue paper, and cutting out hearts (this was a hard part). We used our papier-mache paste ("art paste") to glue them down with a paintbrush.

Then everyone took one toilet paper tube and crunched it into a heart shape for printing. Thanks to the blogger who recommended this to me, though I could not find where or who that was. The kids had a hard time making the heart shape, so I went around the room and crunched for them. They LOVED stamping the hearts! I let them use both ends of the tube, and a few kids discovered they were also making heart stamps in their palms, because of the paint on both ends. They were SO excited about this!

 We completed these by selecting a construction paper mat for a border, and then using a thin Sharpie and other thin markers to write things we love, and to add more design and color. I was tickled at how many kids wrote "I love art" or "I love my art teacher". Some of their spelling is pretty funny, but I really likeD what they wrote. A lot of them wrote "I love myself"! I guess they have pretty strong self-images. Hmmm...

Here's the bunch of them all displayed together on one hallway bulletin board.  

I hope you enjoyed this 'vintage' lesson from my blog!