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?