5th Grade: Figure Drawing–Structure

 

In class today I decided to prepare 5th grade for a painting project that will focus on having figures in their picture. The website below was a great way to show them visually the basic shapes of a skeleton and how to draw the basic structure of the body.

http://www.elfwood.com/farp/figure/williamlibodyconstruction.html

I had wood figures on each table. Students were to draw the three main body masses first (head, chest, and torso), then joints, arms and legs. This was to be drawn quickly and very lightly. After a couple of minutes students were to rotate to the next table and sketch a new pose. Everyone was very reluctant when I set such a short amount of time to sketch but after the second drawing they were gaining confidence and getting excited about beating the clock.

After they sketched three different poses, they were to draw around their original structure and create thicker arms and legs.

Next week I will have students drawing each other using the same structure they used to draw their figures. Stay tuned for an update.

Bulletin Board: Dancing Giraffe

Here is a few pictures of the new bulletin board. I like to start the year out with something fun to look at. Everybody loved the dancing giraffe and a couple of teachers said they want to steal it and put it in their room. If you haven’t figured it out already, the bulletin board is based on the book “Giraffes Can’t Dance”.

Excited About Brush Shaper

One issue I often run into is the bending of paintbrush bristles. I try to teach my students to place wet brushes, brush up, so that they dry properly. There is always one or two that still get stuck in the bucket the wrong way. It makes it very difficult for students to use the brushes and I hate having to throw them away. I came across this product when ordering supplies and tested it recently. As you can see in the picture below. It works very well. I am super excited about giving some of my brushes a “lift”.

Website: Art in the Picture

 

I ran across this website when I was looking for ideas for one of my camps. It had great images and lots of great information about different artists and art movements. When you are looking up one particular artist, the artwork, history, and quotes are all contained in one place and easy to find. I was thinking this would be great to use in lessons and to even use as an art webquest.

Check it out! http://www.artinthepicture.com/

This video was featured on the website and I thought it would be great to use when I teach 6th grade portrait drawing. It shows how often Van Gogh painted himself.

Photoshop and Animoto

One of my first camps this summer was the digital art camp. This is the second year having this camp and it is one of my favorites. The kids get to do things that are completely new.

One of my favorite projects was inspired by Video Art in Photoshop and Video Art and Photoshop for Kids by Nicole Dalesio. She is another great educator and blogger. She has some fun projects using video and Photoshop that are very easy to follow.

For one of the projects the kids picked a theme that would be easy to film short clips. For this project the them was “kids at play”. The kids went out in groups and picked something to play on in the playground. I showed them how to film at different angles to get more interesting compositions. It was important that they keep the videos short.

 

Then, I taught them how to edit the length of their clips and apply adjustment layers to their videos using Photoshop.

Once all the videos were complete, I finished the project by uploading the video files to Animoto. Here is the final result.

Check out Nicole Dalesio’s website to see how to apply the filters to video in Photoshop.

Back from a Blogging Break

Hello all! It has been a while since I posted anything substantial, mainly because of a busy summer. I have been working hard trying to finish a professional certification program, teaching five camps, and cleaning and preparing for the new school year. The great part about not writing for a while is that I have some new things to share with all of you. I will be posting real soon (tonight). Hope you all enjoy and learn something new.

I couldn’t resist.

“70 Million” Music Video

I could not resist posting this music video from a band called Hold Your Horse that show the band members posing as different famous paintings. I first saw the video on Free Technology for Teachers blog and thought it was great.


70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L'Ogre on Vimeo.