Thursday, September 5, 2013

Virtual Refrigerator: Art Lessons in a New School Year

Welcome to the Virtual Refrigerator, which I'm delighted to be co-hosting with three wonderful bloggers. Each week the blog hop will rotate between A Glimpse of Our LifeAngels of HeartHomeschool Coffee Break, and Every Bed of Roses. Add your link and then hop over to the other blogs and see what others are sharing!

Kennady is my student that truly enjoys art. I've mentioned it before, but this year she is picking up where she left off in the ARTistic Pursuits book she started with last year, Book One for Grades 4-6. (The most recent editions of ARTistic Pursuits books changed the grade levels a little, so if you're looking to buy this one, it's now titled Book One for Middle School.) This book focuses on the elements of art and composition, and most of the projects are pencil or charcoal drawings. These are some of the drawings Kennady has done so far this year.




For this assignment, she was supposed to draw a bird - a live bird she could observe, or it was suggested to go to a library or museum and draw a stuffed bird. The birds that are plentiful in our yard were not cooperating at all, and it was convenient to go to a museum, so we compromised. I have a Blue Mountain pottery eagle that is quite realistic in form, if not in color or size, she she used that. At least it stood completely still! She had trouble getting one wing right, but the other one looks really good! Here's her model:


This project asked her to draw a simple object in fairly bright light so she could work on light and shadow, and using an eraser to lighten areas of her drawing.  Drawing an accurate shadow of her subject is something she is still working on.


For yesterday's assignment, she had to draw something outside and show form, shading and shadow. I thought she did a great job with this potted palm on our deck, and because it was bright sunshine, she had a much easier time getting the shadow in her drawing to look like the actual shadow she could see.

We'd love to have you join the blog hop by adding a link to share your child's art or your arts and crafts how-to posts, and visit the other blogs and admire what's on their Virtual Refrigerators!
Thanks to Heather at Only Passionate Curiosity, you can grab the image below and help us share about the linky.





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3 comments:

Lynn said...

I LOVE your daughters art work and love for art! If I may, one tip to share with your young artist is to really LOOK at what she is drawing. One thing we artists have to do is to train our brains and hands to work together. Our brain first sees the object as for what it is and then it sees the actual form. Might look into doing some blind contour drawings, an exercise that trains you hand to draw what you see not what you know. Have your daughter look again at the wing of the eagle....I am not sure what angle she had the bird set up as, but it seems to me that the one "problem" wing was drawn with a rather horizontal line...the actual wing is more of a curved line. (Let her discover this for herself) I hope you don't mind my unrequested tips! Happy drawing!! Keep it up!!

Kym said...

I will pass on the tip - it is something she is working on (especially drawing the shadow she SEES instead of the way she imagines it would look) and something I've told her, but the same advice coming from somebody else is often very valuable. Especially as I don't draw well, and she knows it. LOL

Jennifer said...

What a great job with the shadows.

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