The Eyes Have It!

3rd and 4th graders are learning about facial features and proportions. We began with eyes since they require the most detail study. Students worked with mirrors as well as other exemplars. Training a child's "eyes" is as important as training their hands and these students are beginning to "see" more than they used to. (See Animoto below)

I Like to Move It, Move It Final Drawing

One of the fairly recent animated movies was Madagascar and the lemurs were always dancing to the lively, "I like to Move it, Move it." I used that song to get kids to stand up and wiggle since there really was no room to move. We looked at examples of figure proportion and the artwork of Keith Haring to create stick figures in movement. This was an introduction to gesture drawing and capturing movement in drawing. (See Animoto below)

I Like to Move It, Move It!

Students pose for each other in order to practice gesture drawing. Students need to work on human proportion or they will stagnate at a stick figure/lack of movement stage in their drawings. This playful approach allows the natural growth of this skill. (See Animoto below)

First Graders Figure Drawing

I can't emphasize this enough, but children need concrete instruction in figure drawing or they will eventually struggle and give up drawing people. They need to understand the relationship of body parts and their proper proportion. They won't master this but it will give them a sense of what is correct when they see it. (See Animoto below)

Pencils Ready? Action!!

Research shows that children use the human body as reference for many other things they draw such as buildings, trees, animals, etc. Research also shows that unless children are given concrete (step by step) instruction in figure drawing that they will begin to eliminate figures from their drawings. This is because they are no longer satisfied with the less than realistic figures they drew as young children. They simply do not know how to render more realistic figures and therefore begin to avoid them.To avoid this, primary children in my art classes are given concrete instruction in gesture drawing that captures action simply in 30 second poses and allows students to not worry about being perfect. They also get instruction in human body proportion so they can understand the relation of one part to another. (See Animoto below)

Familia

Students in kindergarten looked at the Virtual Manikin interactive website so they could see just how long their arms are and how we don't always stand completely still. Developmentally, this was just an introduction to the concept and not expected to find its way into their drawings until later. Students were encouraged to include as many details as possible. (See video below)

Tissue Paper ala Keith Haring

Students in 1st and 2nd grades looked at a few of Keith Haring's stick figures and drew a stick figure in white pencil on black construction paper. They used tissue squares wrapped around the bottom of pencils and glued them to their stick figure drawing. After the initial application of tissue, students chose a second color to outline the figure.