First Friday Art Class for January 2015 - Let's Draw Animals

We had our First Friday Art Class on the 2nd Friday this month because of the holidays. And this week we drew animals. Lots and lots of animals.

I began by telling the girls about how I like to draw animals. I like them to be fun, silly, and most of all cute. I can draw realistic animals...but I rarely do. To me it feels like work. And this class is all about having fun and having a relaxed atmosphere. So our animals are going to be fun, silly, and SO CUTE!!

I had the girls draw a gumdrop, a circle, some dots, a teardrop, and a heart at the top of their page. Pretty much all of our animals will start with one of these BASIC SHAPES. When drawing with kids I love to start animals with basic shapes.

After class one of these little sweethearts told me, "I love how you do art because you make it so it's not so complicated. You make it so I really feel like I can do it!"--absolutely made my day! Yes! That is the goal. I want the girls to gain confidence and to feel comfortable with their skills. This is not a stuffy, learn the rules, get out your rulers so we can measure everything art class. We are all about fun and freedom!!

I spent lots of time before class sketching out several animals I thought the girls would like. And then I sort of made a list of what shapes they started with...(here are my sketches--we didn't get to all of these animals, but we did get to most of them)

Here's the basic list:

Animals that start with a gumdrop shape- 
Whale
Racoon (the raccoon came from HERE)
Bear
Squirrel
Squid

Animals that start with a circle - 
Owl
Bunny
Pig
Elephant
Bird
Panda

Animals that start with dots or hearts or other basic shapes -
Hedgehog
Shark
Dog (the dog starts with an upside down heart, but don't even bother with this one because the girls just giggled the entire time because it looks like a bum!! They called the poor thing "Butt Dog") :)

Ok...back to the lesson...I let the girls know to start every drawing with very light pencil lines because many of the lines would later be erased as they are just guidelines to help us get the shapes where we want them. Start light and then at the end you can go over and darken the lines that are staying.

And then we dove right in. I asked the girls if they liked to know before hand what we were drawing or if they just wanted me to guide them through and they could guess along the way. The wanted to guess--so fun and adventurous, these girls!!

Here are most of the animals broken down into steps:

Here are the girls hamming it up for the camera (and drawing):

We talked a lot about how changing the size and placement of elements in the drawing can completely change the look and personality of your animal. Here are their drawing pages and I think you'll agree they each have their own wonderful personality! (Looks like I missed photographing one of them--not sure how that happened...)

It was fun today to have a very laid back, relaxed class where we all just sort of sketched and laughed and talked together. I love these darling girls!!

Next month we'll be doing lettering so we can make some gorgeous Valentine's Day cards. See you then!