SERIOUSLY SCARY DRAWING SKILLS WITH SKULLS FOR HALLOWEEN

Halloween was seriously scary at Kids Make Art with the seriously challenging Observational Drawing of seriously Still Life Human Skulls.

But GOSH.....I was so impressed with how all these wonderful young artists embraced the challenge of learning about observational drawing. Such a universally hated subject but so important for a visual and special intelligence. No matter what anybody will tell you there is a group of skills and tricks to drawing that takes years to learn. So why not start now, I wish I had this opportunity at this age.

 First we had fun experimenting with lots of different types & grades of pencils to create various lines and tones. How holding a pencil in different ways can change the kinds of marks you make. Experimenting with different pressure to create different shades and marks. Using paper stubs and rubber for shading.

I was astonished how willing everyone was to try these skills out drawing 3D shapes. Trying basic shapes and measuring up in our speedy thumb nail sketches. Then the most difficult challenging part, the one I was find so hard, putting all these skills together, to create our Still-Life with A Skull Drawing.

It was intense learning but everyone did so well I had to share these rough sketches because they are all just so great and all about creating new skills, not the final product. The final drawings of the skulls were fantastic, but I do not want to focus on those because the focus is and was about the experimentation and exploration of these really new skills and concepts. I did not get to take many pictures of the finals because it just wasn’t about that! I found these were all so brilliant!

Some of the drawn skulls and cartoon skulls at the end here that everyone had a play with in free time would never have been so cool if we had not explored some drawing techniques first.

EXTREME ART & MORE THIS TERM

Such an amazingly creative busy time at Kids Make Art already this term.

We kicked off the term with Extreme Doodling.

Random thoughts and patterns. Our hands and heads in free-fall. 

Thinking about Graffiti, Maximalist Art, early Howard Arkley paintings, Dr Seuss and more.

We Doodled to the MAX! AND what an amazing result.

Did you know that research has shown that Doodling can actually be good for us? Not only does it help us problem solve, free our minds from clutter but apparently it also keeps us from day-dreaming and falling asleep during important classes and meetings. Meaning we are actually more engaged in what is going on around us when doodling than was previously thought. How cool is that?

Now I have more pictures to come very soon and more stories from Kids Make Art too!

I will be updating this entry as soon as I can.