Duplication Exercise

Train your students to notice details and "see like artists" with this fun activity!

In her classic drawing books, Drawing with Children and Drawing for Older Children and Teens, art teacher and author Mona Brookes offers an engaging way to practice seeing and drawing using her "Duplication Exercise". This activity is completely adaptable to any ability level, K through adult. You can start out easy and increase the difficulty as you go, as you can see in this spread from Mona Brookes' book. And did I mention that it's FUN, too??!

I created a blank duplication form for my last teacher workshop (with designs drawn in and being copied at the top of this post). All you do is draw a simple (or not so simple) design in each box across the top and then make a copy for each of your students. Then ask them to copy each design in the box below it. This activity will train them to really look closely at their subject and notice details. If you like to doodle (and who doesn't?) you will enjoy both creating the designs to be copied as well as copying designs that others have created. Students love this activity and especially enjoy making their own designs for their classmates to copy. This process is even therapeutic.... try it during testing week or as a "filler" when other work is finished.

Be sure to check out Drawing with Children and Drawing for Older Children and Teens for more great ideas on developing your students' drawing skills!

"Touch" Contour Drawing

A workshop participant trying out the "touch" method of contour drawing

In my last teacher workshop, I showed how students can improve their drawing skills with different types of contour drawing. In previous posts, I've talked about blind, memory and guided contour drawing. Last, but not least, is "touch" contour drawing. This is another great way to train students to pay close attention to their subject... this time by using their sense of touch!

Use one paper lunch bag per student and number them (ex. 20 students = 20 bags). Place one small item in each bag (a different item in each bag, if possible) and fold the top closed. Give one bag to each student and instruct them to wait until you tell them to begin. Pass out enough sheets of paper so that each student can fold their paper into four sections and have one section per bag. You can number the sections if you want. If you have a large class, you may need two sessions for students to draw each of the objects, or just do as many drawings as you have time for and don't worry about finishing.

Now, using a timer, allow students two minutes to reach into their bags, carefully feel their object, and then draw it without looking at it. (It’s okay for them to look at their drawings!) They can reach back in the bag to feel their object as many times as they need to. Encourage them to take their time and include as much detail as possible in their drawings. When the timer goes off, they pass their bag to the next person. (I suggest calling this a “no talking time” as it will get very noisy with all the rustling of bags!)

Encourage students not to look at their neighbors’ drawings while bags are being passed.... it’s more fun if they don’t know what item they’re getting next. They love to be surprised!

Try each of these different methods of contour drawing and watch your students leap to the next level in their ability to notice details and "see like artists"!

More Contour Drawing - "Memory" and "Guided"

"Guided" Contour Drawing by Austin, grade 5

In her book, Art for Kids: Drawing, artist and author Kathryn Temple reminds us that, "The most important thing an artist can do is pay attention." It's amazing how most people go through life without really looking at the world around them. Contour drawing will help you break this pattern and begin to notice all the amazing details that surround you each day!

"Memory" contour drawing simply means that you carefully study your subject for a couple of minutes, then put it away (or turn so you can't see it!) and draw everything you can remember about it without looking at your subject again (it's okay to look at your drawing!). On your first attempt, you will probably be wishing you had looked more carefully while you had the chance! It won't take many times of doing this before you find yourself paying better attention!

"Guided" contour drawing will feel like a welcome relief after this! In a guided contour, you can look back and forth between your subject and your drawing, as often as you like. It's still a good idea to spend more time looking at your subject than at your drawing, but you have control over when and for how long!

The tricycle drawing above was a guided contour drawing done with a black chisel tip marker on a sheet of 22x28 railroad board (a lightweight poster board). The tricycle is a super-fun subject for this activity and working directly with a permanent marker (no pencil first!) produces a quirky, go-for-it result with tons of personality! If you don't have a preschooler at home to loan you a tricycle, you can see if there is a "Freecycle" group in your area. (Freecycle is a nonprofit organization made up of people who give (and get) stuff for free by creating a post on their local website. It's awesome, so check it out!)

“Art does not reproduce what we see; rather, it makes us see.”
~ Paul Klee

Teacher Workshop - Contour Drawing!

"Blind Contour Drawing" of a student in my workshop!

I love this quote by Kathryn Temple, author of Art for Kids: Drawing.... "Drawing has more to do with seeing than it does with holding a pencil in your hand." So true!! In my teacher workshop last weekend ("Teaching Drawing to Kids") we focused on how to help kids unleash the power of the right side of the brain to learn to "see like an artist". One great way to do this is by practicing the four types of contour drawing, the first of which is "Blind Contour Drawing", like the drawing pictured above.

In "Blind Contour Drawing" you look only at your subject, not at your paper. I like to demonstrate this technique on the board by drawing a blind contour portrait of a student “volunteer”. This always gets lots of giggles as they watch my drawing become more and more "Picasso-like" as I go along!! Then I have students draw a blind contour portrait of me on a piece of copy paper at their desk. (They think this is pretty funny, too!) Once they get the hang of it, they enjoy taking turns posing and drawing blind contour portraits of each other.

The purpose of this exercise is to train yourself to really focus on your subject, moving your eyes slowly around it at the same speed as your pencil moves across the paper. You will begin to notice more details than you ever have before! It may take several reminders to keep your students looking only at their subject and not at their drawings.... students younger than grade 3 can be especially challenged by this. Remember, no peeking!! :)

Personalized Self-Portraits

Third grade self-portrait by Zachary

Use the inspiration of artist Frida Kahlo to have your students add a personalized touch to their self-portraits. Frida Kahlo is known for her prolific painting career.... paintings mostly of herself! She often used symbolism in her paintings as a "window to her soul". I like to have students add "something that helps people know them better" to their self-portraits, even if it's as simple as using their favorite color in the background. The technique for making borders that I showed you in my last post creates a great space for displaying all kinds of images and designs.

To help students come up with ideas of things that describe them (for some reason they often struggle with this), I first have them fill out a "Personal Inventory". I usually print up a 1/2 page form for them to complete, but sometimes I just asked them questions and have them jot down simple one-word answers.

Here are some of the questions from my "Personal Inventory": What is your favorite color? Favorite food? Favorite subject in school? Favorite sport? Favorite sports team? Favorite hobby or after school activity? Favorite season? Favorite holiday? Favorite animal? Favorite time of day? Favorite thing to draw or design to doodle? Favorite place? Those are just a few ideas.... add some more of your own! Be sure to tell students that it's not necessary to answer every question.... this isn't a test! The point is just to brainstorm ideas of things they like. Then have students create symbols to represent those ideas and add them to their background or border. The "Personal Inventory" will help students to create self-portraits that show more than just what they look like!

Easy Borders - Without Measuring!

Creating a border without using a ruler

Using rulers is an important skill for kids to develop, but it can add a lot of time (and sometimes frustration) to an Art lesson. Sometimes it's best to do a separate lesson on using rulers and find ways to avoid them during Art time!

In my last teacher workshop, I shared an easy way to create a border without having to use a ruler. Here's the key.... your paper needs to be proportioned to a 3:4 ratio. In other words, if you are working on a 9x12 size paper, the 9" side is 3/4 of the 12" side, so that size paper works perfectly for this technique! All you do is take another piece of paper of the same size and fold it in half, then center the folded paper on the other paper and trace around it. That's it! No measuring, just eyeball it and that's close enough!

This is a great way to add a decorative border around any drawing or painting. I often use the 12x18 size paper, so in order to make this work I trim both papers to 12x16 (there's the 3:4 ratio again), then fold one in half and center it on the other. This technique not only saves your students a lot of time, but it usually saves lots of erasing, too!

Self-Portrait Workshop - Paul Klee

Here is a sampling of self-portraits inspired by artist Paul Klee (including one in progress) from my last teacher workshop. Paul Klee (1879-1940) was a Swiss artist known for his highly individual, abstract style. His work was influenced by many different art movements, including Expressionism, Cubism and Surrealism. This project uses squares of "bleeding tissue" for it's vivid colors. If you haven't tried this technique yet, you really must!! It's so much fun.... even for adults! I originally found this idea on the always inspiring blog "Art Projects for Kids". I changed it a little to focus more on realistic proportions, but check out both ways of doing it and see which you like best! Here's how we did it:

Materials:

• 9x12 white construction paper
• Black chisel tip marker OR black crayon
• Mirror (for self-portraits)
• “Bleeding” tissue paper in bright colors, cut into squares and rectangles
• Watercolor brush
• Water and containers

Directions:

1. After watching you demonstrate, have students draw a very basic self-portrait (see instructions in previous post). Encourage the use of stylized shapes, simple lines and minimal detail. I like to have Kindergarteners draw directly with their marker or crayon, but older students may choose to draw with pencil first and then trace over their drawing. The point is not so much to create a “realistic” portrait as it is to create a simple line drawing, so if the proportions, etc. are a little off, so much the better!
2. Place a piece of tissue paper on your drawing and use a paint brush to paint over it with water. Repeat with contrasting colors until the entire paper is covered with pieces of wet tissue paper and no white paper is left showing.
3. You may wait for tissue to dry before removing it, or simply take it off as soon as it has had a chance to bleed its color onto the paper.

Closure:

• Ask students what makes their self-portrait “abstract”?
• Have students compare and contrast their self-portrait with those of other famous artists. Is their self-portrait more abstract or less abstract? Why?

Teacher Workshop: Self-Portraits!

I just finished the 4th workshop in my "Teaching Teachers to Teach Art" series. This workshop focused on teaching Self-Portraits and we had a blast! We learned the basic "rules" for drawing portraits (see below) and did three self-portrait projects inspired by famous artists Paul Klee, Frida Kahlo and Amedeo Modigliani. I'll be sharing those lessons here on my blog over the next few days.

It's been encouraging to see not only classroom teachers, but also home school teachers, student teachers just finishing their credential programs, professional artists who want to learn to teach art to kids and even grandparents looking for new ways to spend quality time with their grandkids - all interested in learning to Teach Kids Art!!! Art truly is alive and well, despite all the budget cuts we keep hearing about!!

Just a note to my a.m. workshop students.... we ran out of time to make the paper "frames" I had planned for our Paul Klee project, but my afternoon students got to do it.... So, to be fair, here's the link to my post "Fun Paper Frames" from a couple of months ago where I shared how to do this!

Read on for my "Tips for Teaching Portraits and Self-Portraits"....

These instructions will help you with the basic placement of facial features and their proportions, whether you are creating a self-portrait or a portrait of someone else. Each of our faces will vary in shape and proportion because we are all unique individuals!

• Show examples of portraits and self-portraits by famous artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Amadeo Modigliani and others. Explain to younger students that a portrait is a picture of someone else and a self-portrait is a picture of your self.

• Discuss the location and shape of each feature as you demonstrate, explaining that your instructions are for the “average” face and that each of our faces will vary slightly from these basic guidelines. (Students will retain more and more of these “rules of portraiture” as they continue to hear them repeated each year!)

• Pass out small mirrors and encourage students to look closely at the shapes of their facial features and the shape that their hair makes against their face as well as its outside shape. (Inexpensive mirrors can usually be found at the Dollar Store. A less breakable option for Kindergarten is “mirrored poster board” cut to 5”x7” and mounted onto foam core board to make it rigid.) Keep your mirror handy and refer to it often, comparing the shapes and lines you are drawing (and their relationships to each other) with what you see in the mirror!

• Have students draw with pencil first, reminding them to press lightly so they can erase when they need to!

How to Draw a Self-Portrait:

1. Begin by drawing the head shape as a large oval in the center of your paper. Make your oval slightly larger at the top. It may be helpful to use the pink eraser on the end of your pencil to sketch basic shapes like this before drawing them with pencil.
2. The eyes are almond shaped and are halfway down the head, five widths across, with the width of one eye in between. Add the upper eyelid by drawing a second line just above the top of the eye, matching that curve. If you choose to add eyelashes, they curve up and out, away from the middle of the face. The iris of each eye is partially cut off at the top and the bottom. Darken in the pupil, but leave a small speck of white to represent reflected light. (Have students take a minute to look for this tiny reflection in each other’s eyes.)
3. Eyebrows generally follow the curve of the eye shape and are made up of tiny hairs, not a solid line.
4. The tip of the nose is halfway between the eyes and the chin. The bottom of the nose is the width of the space between the eyes. For K and 1st grade, I suggest drawing the nose as a slightly curved “L” shape. For 2nd grade and up, you can teach them to draw the tip of the nose like a tiny “smile” line with the ends curving downward, and the sides of the nostrils like a parenthesis on either side of it.
5. The bottom of the mouth is halfway between the bottom of the nose and the chin with the width being the space between the pupils. First draw a slight curve to represent the space between the upper and lower lips. Add a curved line below this for the lower lip and two curved lines that meet in the middle above it for the upper lip.
6. Form a front view of the ears with a simple curved line along the side of the head, running from the top of the eyes to the tip of the nose.
7. The width of the neck is equal to the space between the outside edges of the eyes.
8. For K and 1st grade, draw a curved line from the lower left to the lower right side of your paper to represent the shoulders. For 2nd grade and up, you can curve the neck into the shoulders in a more realistic way.
9. Draw the hair as a solid shape, focusing on the shape it makes against your face and also against the background. You may add a few individual hairs to indicate the direction the hair is growing, but don’t overdo it! Erase any part of the ears that the hair covers.

Important!! Drawing the hair as a single shape is probably the best piece of advice you can share with your students to help them achieve more success with their portraits. Point out that the hair takes up space on the top and sides of the head. Have them study their own hair in a mirror so they can observe this first hand. Students have a tendency to draw hair as individual hairs growing out of the head. When you help them to see the difference and start drawing the hair as a shape, you’ll convince them to break this habit, and their work will immediately improve 100%!

• If you choose to trace your pencil drawing with another medium (such as Sharpie), trace carefully over your drawing and then use a Magic Rub eraser to remove any pencil lines that are still showing afterward.

• When painting your portrait, be careful to leave the whites of the eyes unpainted! It’s usually a good idea to paint the iris first as a reminder.

• If using watercolor, a tiny amount of red or orange may be added to well-diluted brown paint to get a good skin tone. Be sure to add enough water to your paint! You may want to have students “try out” their skin color on a separate paper first.