Draw on That—Day One: The New Class

This class is very exciting as this is the first incarnation of this class of “Draw on That”. I am very anxious to see how this class will be different with this older group of children (ages 9–13). Some of my previous students from “Draw on This” (for ages 6–10) were old enough to move to this new class. I think that those students will truly benefit from being with this older group.

The difference between this class and the younger class will be mostly the level of detail and the type of discussions. In this class we will be able to go a bit further with each project and focus more on the “why” of various techniques.

Today we started with a review of Monart’s basic drawing elements—the different types of lines and shapes that we will use and talk about for the next 10 weeks. For a our warm up, we started with the introductory abstract exercise from Monart. I gave everyone the same instructions to draw a series of lines and shapes. Once again we see a wonderful variety of interpretations!—

After our warm up we were ready to start drawing! As I did with my younger students today and using our lines and shapes, I instructed the students on how to draw the head of a koala. We started by blocking in basic shapes with a light coloured marker then we recreated the lines that we wanted to keep by using a dark coloured marker. This was my initial example for the students.—

Step by step, we re-created this drawing together. Once finished, the students were permitted to decorate their koala as they pleased. In the photos below, you can see how these older students have a more sophisticated understanding of proportion and detail.  We are off to a great start!