First Friday Art Class for October 2011 - Drawing People

We got right down to business today. We're drawing people--fun, funky people. We are not doing life-like portraits. Today it's all about F U N! 

I explained to the girls that generally when I draw my funky people, I make the eyes uneven and different sizes, I play around with lip placement, I make really wide noses. It's more fun that way. There is no pressure for perfection.

We began by drawing faces together. I drew them on a large paper in front and they copied what I drew. This is a great way to learn and gain confidence.  

I used eyes, noses, lips, etc. from the Idea Worksheet below. I told the girls before hand which ones we'd be using (these eyes, this nose, those lips, etc.). They were free to modify and also play around with placement. 

Here are the 3 drawings I demonstrated and the girls copied:

Here is the Idea Worksheet with the features that we used circled--anything circles in red we used on face #1, blue is #2, green is #3: 

And even though we drew together, everyone's drawing is still their own! For instance, we noticed that even drawing faces using the same features, every girl's drawing had it's own unique personality and style. A lot of that is determined with placement of features, especially the eyes.

We observed that if you put the eyes really high up on the head, you get a more childlike, sweetness to your person. Whereas if the eyes are very low, it can have a shy reserved look to it. This is a great place to experiment and play around. Let your drawing "talk" to you and tell you about it's personality. 

SIDE NOTE: This sounds funny, but your drawings will tell you about themselves. When I started this drawing (pictured below), I had no idea what direction I was heading in, but once I got the face done, I just felt like she seemed a bit impatient and snappish. Then the rest of the drawing fell into place...

Once we had drawn 3 or 4 faces together, I turned them loose on the 10 Faces worksheet below. The ideas is to draw 10 faces somewhat quickly using features from the idea worksheet--OR NOT. Totally up to them. Try different sizes and placement. For instance on one face, do a tiny mouth and big eyes. On the next one do large, luscious lips and small eyes. They were also free to turn the page over if they didn't want a circle head.

Play around until you find one that's your favorite. This one will be used on the final masterpiece.

I did manage to take a few pictures over their shoulders while they worked.

I am constantly amazed by their creativity and pure artistic skill. They may doubt that they have it, but it's there!

Once a favorite head was chosen, they added color with colored pencils. (Generally at this point in my work, I add paint, but I knew we'd be pressed for time so I chose colored pencils for this project.) Once the color was done, they could go over their lines with a thin ink pen or just go straight to cutting out their head.

Then they chose patterned paper to be the body. We kept the bodies very simple today since our emphasis was more of faces. I basically suggested just cutting out a triangle to be the dress then doing stick figure-esque arms and legs. They were free to add any background items, accessories, pets, etc. 

Here are some pictures of the girls with their finished masterpiece. (We had a couple girls that had to leave early--I'm excited to see what they do at home...)

And a close up of one of the finished masterpieces--see, wonderful, right?

This is a great bunch of girls and I am having so much fun! I'll see you again next month!