What's Going on in the Classroom: Surreal Hallway-One Point Perspective

As I mentioned last post, we are moving from value and shading into drawing things more as we see them. The first stop on that road was lessons on one-point perspective. Again, I am borrowing this idea from Patti Fields, a fellow art teacher.
Student's assignment was to draw the hallway outside our room. We discussed how to draw the most prominent parts, the floors ceiling and walls, the lockers, signs, etc... Students were then unleashed on the hallway to spend time doing observational drawing.

The next day, we talked about Surrealism. I showed students famous exemplar works by Surrealist painters and we talked about what makes art Surreal. I also showed some examples of hallways that had been made into Surreal art so that everyone had a clear picture of what was expected. Students did some brainstorming about how they would like to turn their hallway into a Surreal piece of art.

Last step was to add value. Student's identified a light source and then shaded each object or part of the hallway accordingly. Man! Were some people mad that I wasn't letting them use color! However, adding value is a skill and practice makes perfect. Check out these amazing Surreal Hallways!