Continuing Figure Drawing with Kindergarten

As our kindergarten students continue to study the human figure, we have moved on from simply drawing the figure, or constructing the figure using different materials. First we turned one of our drawings into a white outline on black paper and then we added macaroni to it to experiment with a different way of creating a figure drawing. This also helped with student's fine motor skills.
After each student had drawn their figure, I came around with a bottle of glue and outlined it. Then students went to town gluing on those little pasta bits.

After we finished this project, we moved onto making a figure sculpture. Students followed step by step instructions to make a little man (or lady) out of pipe cleaners. They did pretty well attaching and twisting the pieces. This took them the whole class however, and when they were done we marked the sculpture with tape and their name since they all looked alike.

During the second class, the kids covered the pipe cleaner 'armature' with tin foil to make their sculpture look like metal. We talked about wrapping and then crunching together the tin foil to make sure it stayed in place. Again this helped with developing our student's fine motor skills.

After the students were finished, we affixed their sculptures to a piece of colored construction paper. I think they turned out fun and whimsical!

One half of a Self-Portrait

I always do a self-portrait with the students each year. I try to change it up for every grade level so they're not just drawing themselves the same way every time. That would get boring! This year, the second grade students are drawing their self-portrait with half a picture of themselves as a guide. They turned out so wonderfully!
I had the kids do a pre-instructional drawing of their face first thing. I wanted them to see how much they could improve when drawing a face in just a matter of weeks. I didn't give them any directions, I only handed out pencils, erasers, paper and mirrors and told them to draw a picture of themselves. While they were doing this I called them up to a picture of their head and shoulders. The pre-instructional drawings I saved for afterwards so show growth.

During the next class, we had a talk about the face and how things line up. We talked about where the eyes and ears and all the facial features should go. We also spent a lot of time talking about the hair and how far down it should come onto the forehead. We also reviewed symmetry and how most of the facial features are the same on both sides of the face. (Before this class, I cut the picture I had taken and glued down one half on to a piece of tag board with sticky glue spray.) After our talk about facial proportions, I handed out these papers and the other half of their face for reference. Students spent the remainder of this class and the next drawing and the coloring their self-portraits.

 

At the end of the last class, each student had to hold their first drawing and their final drawing together for a picture so we could all see the improvement they had made.

Using Clay with Kindergarten and Figure Drawing with Kindergarten!

This post will be about all things kindergarten today! They have been busy little bees and have been working on two very exciting and fun projects. The first of which deals with clay. We are using Model Magic because it lessens the mess and is easy to work with, but also allows students to get an idea of what clay feels like and to learn the basic techniques. Their project was to make a pinch pot owl. And although they don't quite look like owls, they turned out so cute!

On the first day we talked on the rug for a bit about what we knew about owls. Then students went back to their table to work on their pinch pots. I did a demo on how to make a pinch pot, but then of course went around and helped students to make it correctly. There were a lot of pinch plates on the first try :)

On the second day we painted our, now dry, pinch pots using watercolors. Students had to make sure to give them several coats so that the color was nice and dark.

On the third day I had students do an owl coloring sheet, while I called students back to a separate table where I hot glued eyes and three feathers of their choice onto their owl. They're so adorable and the students loved their experience with clay.

Now students are working on figure drawing. What's fun about this unit is that I really wanted to students to be drawing from observation. So to achieve that we have students take turns standing on the table (yikes!) and modeling for their classmates. They have to be so still and careful or else they could lose their balance and fall! Or at least that's what I tell them.

I usually only pick students that I know can handle standing still for that long. Which trust me, isn't many of them in kindergarten! We usually do this for two class periods. Students use markers so that there's no erasing.

They just work on doing their best and if they mess up the move onto another open area of their paper and try again. This is great practice in observational drawing and looking at and drawing a figure. I don't do much instruction during this time, just give them the freedom to try it and see where it goes. We get much more detailed in later grades.

Step by Step Drawing and Painting

One thing I try to do every year with the 1st grade students is a step by step drawing that is then painted. These serves a couple of different purposes. First of all it makes the students slow down with their drawing. There are many students who rush through the most important part of any piece of art work, the sketching and drawing part! Second, it helps them to edit their artwork by giving them several opportunities to redraw their picture without having to erase over and over.

We spent two class periods, practicing the dragon that we were eventually going to draw on a canvas board. Students were told that they would only get one canvas board and so we needed to practice drawing the dragon several times on scrap paper. I think kids really get hung up on the idea that their artwork has to be perfect and they get frustrated when it isn't right the first time. For me personally, I know there is a lot of freedom in the idea of sketching. Practice drawings are what I call sketches with the younger kids, and it helps them to sharpen their ideas and edit when necessary.
In between sketches we talked about things that we didn't like on each one (the wings, the body shape, the feet etc...), that way students could mentally make a note to themselves to change these things on their next practice drawing.

 

 

After going through the practice drawing several times, students each got a small canvas board and did their (hopefully) perfected drawing of a dragon on it. I stressed drawing lightly since erasing on a canvas board isn't easy.

 

The next class we painted these bad boys. I had students use acrylic paint. I feel that the color and coverage of acrylic is better on canvas than tempera. I had several colors and each student had an individual palette and could pick up to three colors.

 

Our next step was to paint the background all black. In an effort to keep things clean I had students leave an outline of white around the dragons. Some were good at it, some had a hard time. Either way, they were paying attention to their brush and making sure that didn't paint over the dragon.

 

Our last step was done today actually! Students painted fire coming out of the dragon's mouth. I did it at the beginning of class and then cleaned up and used the rest of class time for something else. Here's a really well done finished product!

In other news, I think I finally finished my felted sweater. I'm not sure if I'm in love with it. I tried adding blue but really didn't like the way it looked. I still think it's missing something. If you have any grand ideas, let me know :)