Welcome back!
Hope you are all doing well. The weather has gotten quite chilly since the last blog entry, but I wish you all are staying warm. Although it is getting colder outdoors, there are small things that warm my heart during this season. Every class, our little artists run through the door wearing furry sweaters and need help hanging their coats. It is just the cutest thing!
These past few weeks we learned about shape and form through another few exercises and finished the lesson off with a fun project. Let me take you step by step as always!
If you haven’t read our previous blog, please be sure to read that before going ahead with today’s entry because all of our lessons are connected. We ended Lesson 2 with an introduction to shape and form by adding different geometric shapes to our rooster line drawing. We continued with shape and form by incorporating it into our Pet Rock project.
Pet Rock is a collectible toy that was made in 1975 by advertising executive Gary Dahl. Pet Rocks are smooth stones from Mexico’s Rosarito Beach. They were marketed like live pets, in custom cardboard boxes, complete with straw and breathing holes.
Our students created their own Pet Rocks by using a smooth stone and creating a unique creative with diverse materials of different texture, color, and shapes.
The materials were smooth stones, googly eyes, clay, pom-poms, pipe cleaners, modeling clay, and sequins.
Our students began by choosing their stone and gluing down their pom-poms. They also added pipe cleaners for the antennae and added the googly eyes to gift their pets vision! Some students used modeling clay to add even more texture to their pets.
This might look like simple arts and crafts, but if you have been a part of our program for some time now, you will know that this is not where we stop!
If you look at our pet rocks, you can see that there are various textures and shapes. Some of the pom-poms have extra fuzz and the pipe cleaners also have a lot of fuzzy texture. The modeling clay has a soft smooth texture that contrasts with the pom-poms. These different materials were used to have our students learn how to draw with texture.
Observational drawing is very important when teaching students foundation skills. This skill was mentioned in many previous blog entries, and is mentioned today as well because it is just that important. Our students took this project into the next step and created direct observational drawings of their own creatures. They were also encouraged to use shading techniques.
Ms. Jackie always demonstrates before having the students work. She shows quick easy demonstrations and then gives the students freedom to express themselves in their projects.
Each student carefully observed their Pet Rock and drew each detail exactly as they saw it. We used pencils and colored pencils to portray all the different textures of our creature. It was amazing to see how focused the students were during the drawing portion of the class. Our students added as much detail in texture as they could in their drawings.
We also introduced a color mixing to the students at the end of this lesson. In order for the students to understand more of mixing color, they need knowledge of the complementary colors.
Hm.. can you foreshadow what the next lesson will be? Stay tuned for Lesson 4!
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