Bird Drawing

Today we worked on drawing. We started with some warm up exercises, practicing the basic elements of shape. We then read 3 fun books: ish, and the dot by Peter H. Reynolds, and Tico and the Golden Wings by Leo Lionni. I then read an excerpt about Leo from the book Artist to Artist. Using pictures from Tico as his inspiration, Levi drew his bird picture. We talked (I suppose I am the one who talked) about looking for those basic elements of shape and considering them as he drew.

The drawing was done with black fine point marker and then colored in with markers. We NEED to get more blue markers, but even if we had them I don't know if he would have finished coloring in the sky. It is HARD to draw with markers. Our instinct is to want a pencil so then we can fuss with erasing and getting everything perfect. The drawing book says to learn with pen so that you don't do all that fussing and you learn to think it through more before putting the pen to paper.



Our paper from yesterday is drying nicely. Right now it is under a dictionary and a Dutch oven with 4 pounds of weights inside so that it will dry flat. It has a tendency to really curve and not dry very nice at all if left alone.

Sharon

Drawing with Children

Today we did drawing. I got my ideas from Drawing with Children by Mona Brookes, founder of the Monart method. I like her book, it's very encouraging, but I find it HARD to use as far as getting lessons from it. I found a site that has her program broken down into easier to read lesson plans, you can get them here.

We did several warm up exercises because it has been a long time since we just focused on drawing. We talked about the 5 basic elements and then did some pattern drawing. Then we practiced drawing these recognizable objects.

These are Levi's. The original is the lighter version, Levi's is darker. All is done in pen
so you can't erase. Helps you make better observations.

Then we did the guided drawing of a bird. I read from the book what he was to draw and he followed my directions to finish the bird. Then he added the tree and colored it all. It's a very basic bird style. It helps reinforce the basic elements: dot, circle, straight line, angle line and curved line.

Robin and bluebird in tree by Levi

Be on the lookout for more drawings to come.

Sharon