Warm Ups and Homework

Always a fun warm up drawing, the sunken treasure.

These drawings are brought to you by the Letters, E, M, and L.

Dragons!

The Club House Artists worked hard on their 3D castles. They learned how to combine their boxes, cylinders, and cones to create more complicated drawings like the castle in the sky. No castle is complete without a dragon, knight, and perhaps a princess in need of rescue.

 

I think the Club House Artists really enjoyed this project.

 

Here's a really awesome homework.

 

A Princess Night

A last minute change of plans created a night of princess drawings. The Club House Artists needed something different for once.I showed them how to start a drawing for a princess or any character, hopefully it will help when they try on their own. They did really well!

Here's an example of how a Club House Artist used the base drawing to create a different princess.

Roundtable Sale

While walking into the building where we meet to draw, I noticed a row of picnic tables all stacked from winter. The first one was just placed normal, but then the rest were standing like a row of elephants on the first table. Then there were two men eating a picnic lunch on the one half of the first table. I wanted to take a picture, but it gave me an idea for our warm up drawing. Our theme was castles and dragons so for a quick warm up to practice our foreshortened circles, shading, and thickness I had the Club House Artists draw King Arthur's round table. Then we stacked as many round tables as we could on top of each other. This was a great exercise to get us warmed up for our longer drawing. The second drawing was not completed in class today. We're hoping to finish it next week and we can't wait to share. 

 One of the completed homework assignments was this Flying Dragon by M: This dragon is not one to mess with as he's flying high in the sky to capture his lunch. . .a HELICOPTER! Check out the great textures and details.

Luck of the Irish

The Club House Artists had a test today. I asked them to draw the pot of gold for the lephercaun. They all did really well except one thing was missing from each drawing to really make the pots look 3D. Thickness. They all forgot to add thickness to the rim of their pots. This was a good exercise so I could see what we need to focus more on. I may do this more often. 

 

I love the next group of drawings. We haven't explored much with vehicles, so I thought it would be fun to start to show them how to draw 3D cars, vans, trucks, etc. We started out with the easiest -- the bus. The Club House Artists added character to them with eyes and mouths. 

Here are the homework drawings for this week:

A message from God by A: God told the princess she needed to eat more fruit in her diet. That night the princess decided she would try but she wasn't too happy about it. The painting in the background is of the princess and her prince and their little baby.

Phil was left in charge by E:Phil was left in charge of his little sister. He decided to go and drink all the Sprite cans, a glass of milk, and then the cookies. He forgot to feed his dog.

What was in the present?

Last week we drew "The present I always wanted." So what was the present that they always wanted?

I love these drawings. Each one has such personality.

I only had one taker for the homework assignment in this class.


Homework: Flying Presents for ME! What a great thing to have dozens of flying presents all for me, me, me! The horizon line is no where in sight as the page is filled with presents. I like how he used different sizes of presents to really make the drawing look 3D. Great job!

A Lucky Day

Homework. Dare I say the word? Homework? In art class? Yes. And now, I'm offering incentives to motivate the kids to practice their drawings. I had two takers for the first week's assignment. I'm using homework as a chance for the students to teach their fellow Club House Artists what they have learned. This will also teach them how to be presenters and how to be a good audience. I would like to spend more time having the students critique and compliment their fellow artists drawings, but right now we don't have time in class. We are also focusing more on the story behind their drawings. No longer just drawing something for the sake, but putting a story behind it. We already do it without thinking as most drawing ideas are created during class. (Remember to click on the drawings to view them larger.)

Homework One by S, age 6: Zhu Zhu pet land. She said her drawing was based on a still life of her toy set that she set up for the drawing. She made sure to use contour lines around her tunnels and shadows to help give the 3D feel. I like how she used placement on the page to show depth and also making for a nice composition. Awesome job!

 Homework Two by A, age 6: St. Patty's Day Cake Explosion. Homework is the chance to use color. We spend the class focusing on the skills and techniques and don't have time for color. The story is poor Mom spent a lot of time making this special St. Patty's day cake and her daughter decided to jump inside it. Mom was not very pleased. To make the cake look 3D she said she used her foreshortened circles, shading, shadow, and a horizon line. Very creative.

Great job Club House Artists! Moving on with our upcoming holiday, St. Patrick's day, we decided to plant some lucky clovers in hopes of finding gold. In fact, we placed a small gold piece in the planter hoping it multiples for us soon! The Club House Artists did really well adding thickness to the rim of the planters and making sure to stagger their plants around the soil. Their shading techniques are improving as well.

Something a bit more challenging, aligning two objects on the same space by using guidelines. Then they learned how to use a cube and turn it into a piece of furniture. The stories that went with each artists drawings were great! See if you can imagine their stories?

A fresh group

Today we had a couple new Club House members join the club. We quickly reviewed a handful of "tool box" words to get them started. When I asked for ideas for what we could turn a cube into the first idea was present. This is a good practice drawing to start with when first learning how to draw in 3D so I always like this choice. 

I love the details in these drawings. It's fun to see the patterns they come up with and who will they put on the gift tag? Next, we continued a cube discovery journey and decided to draw a birdhouse. Drawing the cube became easier to this time around. They also learned how to put a roof on a cube that looks stable enough to hold the rest of the house in the tree by it's tiny little hook.

Zhu Zhu Land

The Club House Artists learned three new "tool box" words tonight. Overlapping, Density, and Repetition. We practiced drawing small rocks in water and overlapped the rocks. As the rocks went further away from us we drew lighter lines and less detail. 

Then the fun began as we drew our Zhu Zhu pet land.