IF - Train

Hair like this doesn't just happen, you've got to tease it and train it and mousse it. But it's worth it because it's a hit with the ladies. :)

Illustration Friday - the theme this week is TRAIN

First Friday Art Class for April 2013 - Color Theory

Today was all about color. Before class I assigned the girls a color to wear so they could sit at the table in the color wheel. So perfect that we have exactly 6 girls. The table isn't round, but they still got the "wheel" idea. :)

As usual, these little sweeties took this idea and ran with it. At one point one of them said, "I sure hope Orange gets here soon!" From then on, they each were known as their color instead of their name. Then, when I asked what you got when you mixed yellow and blue, they answered "Tabitha!" (she was our green). Hilarious and so much fun.

I think it was good for them to physically see who was opposite them on the color wheel. It was a great way to talk about primary and secondary colors, complementary colors, and warm colors/cool colors, etc. Fun!

During our discussion, the girls worked on this worksheet. (The first thing they asked was, "Can we color Roy??" This made me happy.)

I asked them to color the rectangles starting with dark heavy pressure and then fading into a lighter tone of each color. Most of them were familiar with the "Roy G. Biv" memorization tool, but it was new to a few of them. Roy has 6 distinct hair segments to color in the order of the rainbow (skipping indigo as today we stuck with just the primary and secondary colors).

Here's a sample of a finished worksheet. (Several of them decided ol' Roy could use a sweet mustache. This one is quite French, non?)

We then moved onto a really great design and color project found HERE from Art With Mr. E. I began by letting them know that it took me a couple of tries before I really got the hang of it. Here are my examples as well as several of my first attempts that are headed for the recycling bin.

I showed them how to do it step by step really stressing that you need to make sure each line goes from dot to dot. They practiced with pencil on scrap paper first until they felt more comfortable. I made sure to let them know that even if you have a couple little sloppy spots or tiny mess ups, these still look oh so cool!

They did their finished drawing on a 4x6 card with a fine tip Sharpie. They chose any color scheme that appealed to them. And they turned out amazing!

This was a really great project that combines design and color and also light and highlight. (Thanks Mr. Edinger for sharing this great project!!) HERE is another variation on the Line Design project. It's the same concept but with some tweaks.

I had a lovely, colorful afternoon with these colorful, amazing, fun, sweet girls!

See you next month!

IF - Eye Glasses

Illustration Friday - the theme this week is eyeglasses.

Drawing for a Friend's Birthday

I spent a nice afternoon indoors today drawing this for a friend. It was windy and cold outside and I had a lovely drawing companion to keep me company. The perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon!!

Here it is from inspiration photo (secretly taken from Facebook as this is a surprise for his birthday) to rough sketch to finished drawing.

This is the drawing my daughter did today while drawing with me.

I love that she loves to draw with me!!

Drawing for Church Tomorrow

I did this drawing for church tomorrow. I'm going to cut out the plane and the point 'A' and point 'B', laminate them, and put magnets on the back so I can move and maneuver the pieces around on the board and talk to the kids about the point of safe return.

We'll be talking about when flying, a pilot has a "point of no return", but because of Christ's atonement, there is no point of no return for us with Lord. He will always welcome us back!

The concept comes from THIS TALK. He puts is much better than I do:
If we have taken a wrong course, the Atonement of Jesus Christ can give us the assurance that sin is not a point of no return. A safe return is possible if we will follow God’s plan for our salvation.

Tags

I recently gave some gifts and included these tags on the bags. I like to make tags that the recipient can take off and either use for a baby book or scrapbook or as a bookmark. These three would make great bookmarks.

A tiny bit of extra time, a few layers of paper, some pen and colored pencil and the recipient can have a little something extra when you give them a gift.

Love that!

Newest Name Signs

This one is for my daughter's darling friend who has been reminding me for months that a) her birthday was coming up, b) she didn't yet have a name sign, and c) her favorite color is green. :)

And this one is for a friend's beautiful new baby girl.

First Friday Art Class for March 2013 - Bunnies, Bunnies and More Bunnies

I was running a bit behind and scattered this week and didn't get to create a handout for class today...so I decided to have the girls create their own handout. It ended up being VERY effective. (Note to self: DO THIS AGAIN!) :)

I drew the information on the white board and they drew it on a page in their sketchbook.

We approached out task today - drawing bunnies - the same way we approached drawing people in our  October Class. We started with some mix and match parts, talked about how placement and size of these parts can change the entire drawing. I challenged the girls to try all kinds of bunnies - big head/small body, small head/big body, big ear, small ears, etc., etc., etc.

We got some wonderful bunny drawings that I unfortunately was so busy admiring I forgot to take pictures of. But trust me, these girls produced some amazing, fun, creative and sweet drawings!

We also used this page from Illustration School: Let's Draw Cute Animals by Sachiko Umoto. (I adore this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in drawing. Sachiko's books are beautiful and lyrical and simple, yet also elegant. I have all three of her drawing books. I'm a huge fan!)

Next we moved onto drawing a more realistic bunny. I used THIS excellent step by step tutorial from idrawgirls (I've included a picture of it below because parents be warned that the idrawgirls site has some mature content. This bunny page is rated G, but the rest of the site may not be!).

For this bunny, we drew together in steps. I didn't give the girls the full handout until the end. I think I have mentioned this before that I find that kids can get discouraged or distracted if they see the end from the beginning. I like to draw with them, doing each step slowly, making sure they are getting it. Then they were given the handout to take home and practice with after we had completed one bunny together.

I drew with them on the whiteboard. Before we even drew one line for this bunny, though, we reviewed drawing lightly. I had the girls draw a circle at the top of their page. And then a lighter one. And then an even lighter one. This way they were reminded about a soft touch and a light pencil mark as some of the lines would be erased at the end. We struggled to find a good description of the head shape and came up with "slightly smashed gumdrop". This seemed to help them make that first mark on the page.

And wow did we get some amazing drawings! The girls found that if you made the ears even smaller, your drawing would look like a guinea pig and if the ears were even bigger and the body a little leaner, you'd get a more mature looking rabbit as opposed to a bunny.

I had some other activities on deck (specifically THESE chicks) but as they sometimes will, these bunnies just kept multiplying and multiplying until our time was suddenly up. This was a great way to hop into spring!

See you next month!