PATTERN OWLS

With the arrival of autumn, comes autumn subjects.  Is it me, or do owls seem like an autumn subject?  Maybe it's me.  Anyway.... I love doing the owl drawings.  There are just way too many things you can do with this subject. 

So we drew owls using directed drawing.  After going over those pesky pencil lines with Sharpies,(no, art teachers don't own stock in Sharpie.  I WISH!), students were challenged to add patterns to the various spaces inside the owl. This is where to owls start to differ, which is what we want in art, right?

When students were finished with their patterns, it was time for color.  I stressed repetition and they did it!  YAY!  I'm really loving the Blick Liquid Watercolors right now.  The colors stay bright and transparent.  The sky was added with Do-A-Dot markers.  Love these, too!

Hope you enjoy.

LINE CONTOUR SHOE DRAWING

In the upper grades of elementary school, I try to spend more time helping students to develop their drawing skills.  I usually teach drawing using observation to help instill more confidence at this stage. I say "at this stage" because this is the stage where students' verbal, or left brain, is really on overdrive, i.e. becoming more dominant. 

We used our shoes as our subject.  Luckily we did this drawing before the kids went to PE.  The students carefully observed their shoes and tried to draw exactly what they saw.  For fun and some variety, they added a block of color and pattern.  I think they turned out quite nice.