Drawing Skills

In the beginning of the trimester, I always try to focus students on improving their drawing and observation skills.  Everyone is motivated and eager and I find it is easier to introduce some tougher drawing skills earlier in the trimester, rather than later on.  This year, my 7th graders practiced the concept of creating three dimensional space using paper and charcoal.  They folded an accordion with paper and drew their accordion using charcoal.  It was a challenge to see the many shadows and tones in the white paper and for them to learn how to translate the different shadows into different tones of charcoal.  With my 8th graders, they chose an object in the art room to draw using 3 different mediums.  I called this the "triptych project" so we could also discuss what a triptych is, and a diptych, and then we tried to figure out what we would call an image with 4, 5, and six sections...

From this point, my students are ready to tackle more complex artistic problems and able to incorporate shading more easily into their drawings and paintings.  The 8th graders are working on self-portraits next which incorporates their knowledge of shading and observation.