Tag: portraits

Drawing, Sketchbook challenge 2012, Sketchbooks, Teaching art, This inspires me

Great ideas to get drawing

This week I have been contemplating how to get my senior students drawing more. Not just drawing but enjoying the drawing process and being artistically fed by drawing. No easy feat with the pressures of the VCE (Victorian Certificate of Education – last 2 years of secondary schooling), part time work and of course the socialising that ‘has to go on or else I won’t survive’. I think back to my own life at this time and I believe it was the same for me, and I am smiling. Nevertheless, it has now become my job to inspire, encourage and teach, and part of that is to enthuse the students about the value and importance of just plain drawing.

As I have been thinking about this aspect of art/school life I’ve come across some great ideas that, if persevered with, will enable the drawing and creative process.

Still life in charcoal by Year 10 student, 2010

Continue reading “Great ideas to get drawing”

artyjenniep2 Comments
iHanna postcard swap 2012, Random arty stuff, This inspires me

iHanna Postcard swap 2012

I have been trying to wait until all my 10 postcards arrived but time is passing and I still only have 8 to share with you. I can wait no longer. The Postcard swap was a brilliant things to do. What a treat to receive artworks from artists all round the world. And even more great to have some personal contact with some of those … Continue reading iHanna Postcard swap 2012

artyjenniepLeave a comment
Artists, Faces, How to..., Random arty stuff, Teaching art

And still more faces, challenges and a new artist.

This week one of my students challenged me, yet again! I’m sure they didn’t mean to but I found myself faced with another new artist that I had not heard of and who’s techniques I was not too familiar with. But not to be daunted…after all my “word” for 2012 is VENTURE…I rose to the challenge, armed myself with more drawings of faces and investigated her inquiries thoroughly!  Continue reading “And still more faces, challenges and a new artist.”

artyjenniepLeave a comment
Teaching art, This inspires me

Just a little bit of showing off…

This week we are finishing up with learning the proportions of a face and drawing them in different media. So just wanted to share how proud of the new class of Year 7’s I am. I just wanted to show off just a little bit! Here are their charcoal portraits from this week. (They have given me permission to share their work…maybe they were a … Continue reading Just a little bit of showing off…

artyjenniep1 Comment
How to..., Random arty stuff, Teaching art

Faces – a new challenge

Somehow this term much of my secondary planning has the students drawing faces.

The middle school elective is all about the figure – proportions, methods to help them draw people more easily, the figure in movement and portraying emotion through our expressions. Challenging – yes. Fun – for sure. Well, for most of us.

It just so happens that the Unit 1 VCE students begin their studies by looking at faces and the figure too. Definitely a challenge for many. These are all students with an incredible ability to draw, to draw what they see and to do it amazingly well. As opposed to what they think they see – those symbols they’ve developed in their brains for how the world around them works. [See here and here for where that idea comes from. I read Betty Edwards book “Drawing on the right side of the brain” – fascinating.] Having said all that, it has been both a challenge and an adventure for all of us to improve the way we create drawings of people.

Continue reading “Faces – a new challenge”

artyjenniepLeave a comment