First Friday Art Class for October 2013 - Halloween Doodlin'

A very low key class this time as I was out of town until yesterday afternoon. But sometimes relaxed and simple is the biggest success. That was the case today. We just did some simple Halloween doodles and sort of let the time and our interest guide us.

We began with some crazy treats--Monster Doughnuts...and then, of course, the girls wore the fangs for the rest of class. :)

(This idea is not original to me. Found it on Pinterest. SOURCE. I forgot to add the tongue.)

Our first drawing today was a fun little bat. As usual I don't tell them what the finished object will be and we draw each step together.

SOURCE - Blue Tadpole

This is how I teach drawings like this...I liken all the shapes to things the kids are familiar with. It's MUCH less intimidating that way. 

So I start by having them draw a circle a little bigger than a quarter (head). Then give that circle a bib (body).

Now in the middle of the circle draw a rounded triangle (nose).

Give the circle two straight antenna (edge of ears).

Coming out from between the bib and the circle, draw a mountain on each side (tops of the wings). 

Add eyes and nostrils.

Add little fang type things at the bottom of the bib (feet).

Draw lines coming down from the tip of the mountain (wing veins).

Finish ears and features and finger and toes (no idea what they are really called on a bat).

Draw 3 little rainbows (or arch or bridge) on each wing to connect the points (bottom of the wings). 

Then I tell them they can add a hat or a bow or eyelashes or a shirt or whatever they'd like to add to make the bat their own. 

We then moved to spiderwebs.

This is a great, simple spiderweb to start with.

Here's the one that inspired us to add color.

We went back to our Zentangle days to do a spider web like this one. (We really could have spent the bulk of our time on this Zentangle Spiderweb, but we did have a few more doodles to do).

We drew some cute Halloween characters together. (We kept the bat on the board and named him Stevie). :)

We talked a little about art prompts and things that can get your imagination going. I showed them some calendar examples from Bob Canada's BlogWorld. We discussed other calendar ideas you could do--a flower on each day, a sweet girl on each day, a heart a day in February, etc. The ideas for this are limitless and those little desk calendars can be found very inexpensively around the beginning of the year. I will definitely be picking one up for myself! 

Here's an example Bob's blog:

SOURCE

The girls were really inspired by this. I had a calendar for October printed and ready for them with only the numbers on the days. They decorated the days with little Halloween characters (ghosts, monsters, jack-o-lanters, etc.) and wrote the word "October" at the top using fun Halloween letters.

Simple supplies, simple concepts, and a really fun Halloween-inspired afternoon!

See you next month!