Charcoal trees on gloomy days

I'm currently on a brief hiatus from my after-school art students, so I don't have any new student artwork to share, but thought I'd re-post some images from oldie but goodie posts, for those of you who are newer to my blog.   Today's selection was made because of the gloomy weather outside.  It's a very monochromatic day....no, not monochromatic... that would involve values of a color, and there's no color ... it's a very gloomy day, in neutral values only, outside.  Devoid of color.  The expected snow all has fallen as an icy rain thus far, and it's perfectly miserable.  I'd much prefer the predicted 6-12" of fresh fluffy snow.  I'm here on the computer because I could not convince myself to leave the house in the cold wet gloom. 

 All of these pics have been previously posted on the blog, either two, three, or four years ago, and were the work of my then-fourth grade students.  I love being able to share them with you again.

 Usually, in November, as the trees became bare, we had a good view of  'naked trees' out my classroom window.  For this project, my students used a choice of black or various values of gray paper, and charcoal (black and white charcoal pencils, vine charcoal, compressed charcoal, and some white chalk).  And kneaded erasers, which they always thought were the best thing ever.  Of course, you need rules.  If an eraser flew, the person that set it in motion was not allowed to use it again.  Because, as we know, they are made of rubber and will bounce.  And while I want the kids the enjoy using the erasers, I did not want to find them all over the floor later.

 Charcoal also requires some rules, but for my students, this was usually their first encounter with charcoal in the art room, and they did NOT want to blow it.  Yes, there were those occasions where someone's charcoal hands ended up on their face.  But, in my experience, no 9-year old has ever died from a dirty face, and yes, kids are washable!  Laugh and move on.  But put charcoal on someone else's face?  On purpose?  Then the student would be exposed to the wrath of Mrs. Brown.  Nobody wanted their charcoal taken away.  Some students definitely preferred the control of the charcoal pencils, while others enjoyed the freedom of the vine and compressed versions.  

 Students practiced making trees with branches that split and branched out, and for the most part were successful.  The basic tree was sketched lightly in pencil and then all work was done with charcoals and eraser.  I gave them the leeway to add extra details as desired.  Because the charcoal was new to them, some students caught on to the idea of highlighting the moonlit side of the tree, or creating tree texture, but I really pretty much let them make the artwork their own and didn't set too many parameters beyond the tree that branched to the top and (usually) the edges of the paper.  (No lollipop or broccoli trees allowed!)

Here's a bulletin board of some of them that were displayed together.   Crazy for me to realize that these students are all in 7th or 8th grade now! 

 

 I expect to bring back images from a couple of other old favorite posts.  The next one, I promise, will be something COLORFUL! 

One Drawing a Day; week 2

In case you don't remember from last week, I'm participating in an online 'Artsy Book Club', the brainchild of blogger Cassie Stephens.  Our first book is One Drawing A Day, and we have just completed week 2 of the 6 week adventure! 

So week one started in a drab way, with the day 8 assignment to do three portraits of someone done in different media: one with charcoal, one with pencil, and one with ink (I used my bamboo pen again).  I'm not gonna lie; I was not feeling great and was grumpy when I started, and I got grumpier the more I drew.  Isolated in my grumpiness, I drew myself.  Here are drawings 1 & 3.  Drawing 2 is in hiding and has decided not to appear on the blog!  (Let me put it this way: am not particularly a fan of drawing with pencil.)

 

 

But then, wonder of wonders, the day 9 assignment finally let us start using color!  Hurray!  As per the instructions, I played with crayons,  first tracing my hand, and then adding letters, numbers, and whatever other symbols or doodles I wanted.  It was fun. 

On day 10 we had to do another portrait, using color inspired by light and mood, with pastel chalk and colored pencil for added line.  I decided to redeem myself by drawing myself yet again, attempting to smile even though I still had a touch of the sniffles.  

Day 11 assignment was to use watercolors washes for a quick sketch of an urban setting.  I put it off, claiming all sorts of excuses.  Day 12 was no better.  Using watercolor crayons we were supposed to make monoprints of a monument.  It was a monumentally unexciting idea to me, and... Well I put it off again.  I still haven't made up either of those days and don't know if I will.  But at least I did do some creative stuff, getting out in the fresh snow a bit with my camera.

Day 13 was a still life using colorful line. I tried it with colored pencils, didn't like it, and then tried again with water soluble crayons.  I wasn't crazy about it then, but I'm feeling better about it now.

Day 14 made me feel like myself again.  It was fun, and cheerful.  We were to use tube watercolor for shrubbery.  I don't have any tube watercolor but I do have gouache, and I haven't used it in years, so I thought it was time to get it out and use it.  The world is all white outside, but in my home I have a sunny bay window filled with happy house plants, so that's what I used for my subject.  The idea was to use no pre-drawing, just to squirt paint directly on the paper from the tube, and then use a wet brush to pull the color out in washes.  That's exactly what I did.  Here's my painting:

Hard to believe two weeks have already sped by since we began this project! I'm a little nervous about some of the challenges ahead, since the book will be sending us out to busy places to sketch people.  That seems intimidating, but I'll find a way to give it a try!