A new session

The first class is always the best in each session. I love the transformation from their test drawings to the two drawings they complete in class. The parents have this look of shock on their face when they see how their son/daughter's drawings look so real. This group was no different and just as talented. We introduced foreshortened circles to the group by learning how to draw a hat box for grandma. Grandma would be proud.
(Click on the image to enlarge.)

Grandma enjoyed her hat box, but was quite surprised to see a frog popping out of the candy caudrin on Halloween! Eeeeek!

Check out the extras and details the Club House Artists added to their frog in the caudrin drawings. J added the frog's and the bird's shadows. T wanted to make sure her frog had it's last supper before. . .well, you know. Great job Club House Artists and Happy Halloween!

Halloween Still Lifes

My six's tried something different tonight. Since they've had about ten sessions I thought they could tackle drawing from an object. They've learned by now that every object can be broken down into simple shapes. So I tested them. Here's the two still life objects. The mouse in the mug (my favorite!) and the frogs in the cauldrin.

There are several challenges still with shading. One, shading with the sides of their pencils and two, shading from light to dark.

We also talked about the importance of "Overlapping" another tool box word. We made sure the handles on our mugs were overlapping the side of the mug to make it look more 3D!  (Don't forget to click on the artwork to see a larger version.)

The Club House Artists did a fantastic job with the still life drawings. Way to go girls!

Arrgh, where's me treasure?

Arrgh, where's me treasure? There it is in the deep blue ocean. I'll put me fins on and take a dive.

The Club House Artists started session two with a treasure hunt. We drew our treasure maps and then the treasure! They enjoyed adding all the extras and details to these drawings. We even included a baby clown fish named Zebe with his Mommy. Did you see the artists dive into their treasure boxes? Only their legs and fins were sticking out because they were so excited.

Drawing with a Magic Hat

For the last class of the first session we drew a magic hat for our warm up drawing. We stole Mickey's Sorcerer hat so we could draw our very best. The Club House Artists have been fantastic as we've travelled through their imaginations creating all of these great pieces of artwork. I hope to see them again in future sessions.

A Fantasmic Night of Drawing

I was listening to the radio today and they were making an announcement about an area orchestra that was going to perform songs from Harry Potter and Fantasia. The rest of the day I had Sorcerer Mickey on the brain which gave me an idea for our next drawing session.

I first had the club house artists watch "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from Fantasia. We talked about the shapes of the buckets, shading, and the shadows. We also talked about how Mickey's hat was basic shapes put together.

So off we went to the drawing tables to draw objects from Fantasia. We started off with a warm up drawing of Mickey's hat. We talked about using folds and overlapping to make the hat seem more 3D. (click on images to enlarge them.)

Then we were ready to draw the brooms carrying the water buckets. The girls were able to quickly draw the buckets since they are masters of foreshortened circles now and then we worked on the broom. I personally did not like putting faces on the brooms. The ones in the movie did not have a face and I liked that, BUT. . .when you have three girls in the same room together they change things and they all added faces. They said they thought it looked cute with a face. Oh well. . . pretty neat drawings again!

The girls also received their certificates for completing the first session. Which now makes them official Pen & Mouse Club House Artists! They were excited. They should be as they are the first members!

Halloween Cats

They've got it! I turn my back and they are drawing shadows and are shading without me instructing! By golly George, they've got it! I found myself agreeing as we were drawing instead of instructing. We drew flags and a chair for warm up. The Club House Artists are understanding now how to build objects with our basic shapes so drawing a chair was easy peasy one, two, three. . .a chair!

We try to draw friendly animals, but our cats were just tooo darn cute. See what you think.

Scardy Cats

My 6's struggle the most with shading. They are still learning to shade smoothly without showing pencil lines so their drawings tend to get lost when they shade. With practice they'll be much better. I'm hoping at least the concept will stick with them even if it takes a long time to master the technique.

We did a warm up of a table and building today going over the value scale and how to use shading to define the different parts of their drawing. Then we jumped into the pumpkin fun park and drew cats riding a pumpkin ride. It was supposed to be a cat sitting in a pumpkin, but all of our cats looked excited like they were holding onto a ride, so we turned it into a pumpkin tilt a whirl ride. I love how our drawings take their own twists and turns from what I had planned.

Look at those cats go!

Dragon Tales

We had so much fun drawing dragons in my 6's class that I thought the older group would also enjoy it as well, and they did! We also drew birdhouses as a warm up to continue learning how to draw forshortened squares that we turn into cubes. Now that we've covered the two basic shapes they can start building objects in 3D!

(btw, click on the drawings to see them in full screen size!)

We also worked on a value scale to help us while we shade.

I learned from my other class that drawing the individual slots on the battlement took up almost the whole class time. This time we did a simplifed version for the top of the castle tower. That gave them time to finish shading the tower, add extras, and draw a landscape that my younger group didn't get a chance to do.

Friendly Fire

Our younger group of club house artists worked hard tonight. We decided to draw a birdhouse for a warm up and then tackle something much harder, a castle tower with a friendly dragon!

We focused most of the class on drawing the Battlement part of our tower. It was a challenging concept for them to learn where all the lines go, but I believe they eventually got the hang of it. Which meant we didn't have much time for the rest of the tower (as you can tell by their quick shading) after drawing our friendly dragon on top.

"Battlement
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Crenellation)
A battlement (also called a crenellation) in defensive architecture such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e. a short wall), in which portions have been cut out at intervals to allow the discharge of arrows or other missiles. These cut-out portions form crenels (also known as carnels, embrasures, loops or wheelers). The solid widths between the crenels are called merlons (also cops or kneelers). Battlements often have openings between the supporting corbels, through which stones or burning objects could be dropped on attackers; these are known as machicolations. A wall with battlements is said to be crenellated or embattled. Battlements may have protected walkways (chemin de ronde) behind them."

Again they used their forshortened circles to draw the tower and they continued to learn about contour lines. The birdhouse was a reinforcment of drawing houses that they learned the week before with their little piggy houses. I think they did pretty awesome for such a hard 3d concept.