Friday, November 22, 2013

Class Demonstrations

Often, when I assign a new project in my art classes, I like to work along with my students in order to demonstrate techniques and development of a drawing or painting.  I find that many of my students learn a great deal from watching how other artists tackle a project. Here are a couple of recent demonstrations.  I began each of them in class, but put in some extra time after school.  Up next . . . the Snow Elf shown in my last post.

What we see depends on what we look for (18x12, acrylic on paper)

Long Voyage in a Small Boat (12x18, acrylic on paper)

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Snow Elf

Today, I introduced my drawing students to the process of illustration, specifically concept development.  I have a small container of nouns and another of adjectives. My students pick one word from each container, then combine them to create a random concept, from which they must develop ten rough sketches.  I decided to work along with them this morning.  My concept? "Mad Winter".  I began with several rough sketches of a grumpy winter king, explored dragon-like ice creatures, and then wrapped up with some thumbnails sketches of a snow queen standing on a high peak overlooking a snow covered mountain range.  I then drew one more, not so angry, but winter inspired.  This one interested me most, so in my painting class I took a few minutes to put some acrylic paint on it, as seen here.  The sketch is about 4 inches tall.  And it has me hooked. I want to create a large painting based on the sketch.  Hopefully tomorrow I can prep a canvas or a board and get it ready to paint.  I'll try to post updates.