Number 2 Pencil Project

Students are again attempting to blend their own content with the concepts of No. 2 pencils.

Inspiration and Purpose of the Assignment:

Any object that is seen or used on a regular basis begins to go unnoticed.  What we stop seeing is the form, color, or the object's visual properties.  For years you have been using No. 2 pencils in school on a daily basis.  They are indeed an ordinary, everyday object.  What can you develop when you build a 2-D image using pencil shapes and colors?

Studio Assignment

Transform a simple line drawing into an unusual new idea:  What if this object was made completely out of pencils?

 Steps in class:

1.    Introduce the project, start brainstorming:  Give students their drawing paper from the drawing center (18x12) and write name, date, hour in left corner, and below, work as a class to remember the characteristics of regular pencils.  In other words, what do they look like?  What materials?  What colors are used?  What shapes?  ( yellow, hexagonal, etc.)

2.    On the front they need to create a contour line drawing of the subject that you have chosen.  This means no shading, little or no texture.  Just lines.  It needs to be drawn LARGE on the paper or they will need to restart.  There are drawing books in drawing “studio” that students could use if they need.  You could also look things up on the internet, or students can in the research “studio” if necessary.

3.    Fill the contour drawing with drawings of no. 2 pencils (using a no.2 pencil).  Stretch, squish, curve, and transform the pencil shapes to fit your space (You must include at least 30 pencils in your drawing).   Look at the examples from the sub folder for inspiration on how to do this.

4.    Add color to your drawing using colored pencils. 

Grid Drawing Project

In addition to learning drawing from observation, I have students learn grid drawing.  It works in a similar way, but may be easier since it breaks down an image into smaller, possibly more abstracted tasks.  

For ours, I pre-selected some images, and used http://www.griddrawingtool.com/ to automatically apply a 4x6 grid of squares.  If students wanted a different image, it was easy enough to pump it into the online program and print out in a minute or so.

our drawing paper is 12- 18 inches, so a 3 inch grid works with a 4x6 matrix.

In fact, I made a classroom set of grids that students could place under their drawing so they did not even have to draw the grid!  They could see the grid lightly through the drawing paper.  

We had not talked about color yet, so these were finished with pencil and we focused on value.

  Grid Drawing Rubric:

Accurate drawing          40 points

Full range of Value        30

Craftsmanship               30

total                                100 points

 Here are some of our results.

Drawing with Perspective

Perspective drawings re create the way our eyes really work, but does not rely on direct observation.  Pre-Renaissance  and Renaissance artists like Giotto  and DaVinci figured out how this works.

Its been a while since students used perspective in my class. I introduce t-squares for verticals, a triangle for horizontals, and using rulers for orthogonal (lines that go to the Vanishing Point) then  all the rules of perspective:

Rules of 1 Point Perspective

1.  As things go back in space, they go to a Vanishing Point (V.P.)

2.  Front and back edges match/go the same direction.

3. On round objects, the outermost point connects to the V.P.

4.  If something gets in between an orthogonal and the V.P. the the line stops (overlapping)

5.  As things go back in space they get smaller

Vocabulary:

Vertical-lines that go up and down

Horizontal- lines that go left and right

Orthogonal- lines that lead to the Vanishing Point.

We make 3 projects, 2 class hours each.  After this quick start, students finish one to a higher degree, finishing details and adding color.

Rubric:

Correct Perspective              40 points

Color                                    20

Use of all Space                   20

Craftsmanship                      20

total                                      100 points

Here are some of the results:

Design a Minion project

Design-A-Minion Lesson

Mintert     Art 2016

Objective:  Each student will design their own minion.

What could your minion be?

 As a self-portrait?

 As a superhero?

Character from a movie?

 Famous person?

Famous athlete?

or someone from history?

1.      1.  Draw a basic minion.  Some have one eye, some have 2.  See one of the tutorials on how to draw minions.

2.   2  Change and add parts to make it new.  For example, if it is a Captain America Minion, it will have a shield, mask, and costume like Captain America, but the body, head and parts of a minion.

3.     3  Title the Minion so we know what you were trying to make.

4.     4  Add a background that matches.

5.     5  Outline with black Sharpie Marker.

6.     6  Color with colored pencils and markers.

Rubric                                                                                        Points

Minion body/ characteristics                                                       30

New content-transformed into something more than Minion     30

Background                                                                                 10

Craftsmanship                                                                              30

Total                                                                                             100

Skeleton drawings

Superhero grid drawing

Since so many Hollywood movies have superhero content, I figured we could use them to learn a new drawing technique, grid drawing...