Finished still life sketches

The students worked hard for most of the day finishing the sketches.
We talked about how dark lines highlighted depth and shadows. And how dark shading makes the foreground more prominent.

As the students saw their artwork taking shape and looking good they really concentrated on getting the shapes and angles right. The work we have done on perspective became a tool they used to get the weaving look like it was going around the flower or basket and shells on the right angle. The classroom was very quiet for most of the day as the students became absorbed in their work.

Next teaching strategy will be in increasing the variation of sketching techniques.
By regularly doing observational sketching, either long enough to finish a sketch or a series of quick sketches, the students are looking more closely at the relationship between objects, shadows and light. They are wanting to make the objects look 3 dimensional.

The standard of these finished sketches have far exceeded my expectations.

The Process of making an artwork

Working though a process to make a piece of art continued today.

After being exposed to local art works, photos and books about West Auckland history, the students sketched images that were of interest to them.
We talked about art telling a story. Many of the students are interested in how things have changes over the years and what to tell the story of this.

After the images had been drawn I got the students to draw a pattern using triangles, rectangles or circles. This design became the layout for displaying their images to tell the story.
Examples of the patterns






See the photos that show the process of drawing images then putting them into a composition. The composition is a ‘rough’ (sketch plan) of the final artwork. This is one students work and a good example of the work done by all the students.

The students were given a choice of medium to make their artwork. All have chosen painting. Next week we will start the creating process. Undoubtedly there will be many more skills they will have to learn as they begin to paint.

Final sketches

Building up the student’s observation and sketching skills is beginning to show results.
Today they had to put together still life displays and beginning sketching on A3 paper. This pencil sketch will be their ‘good’ piece of artwork. The focus for this first session was to fill the page with the shapes of the objects using whisper lines (no erasers), then go over the permanent lines with talking lines. Some started to put in shadows.

The photos are NOT the finished artworks, they are a work in progress.

To get the results I ask the students questions about their work. They have to tell me how they can improve and what part needs work to make it stand out. The work they submit first is never the finished product; they always have to improve it, often going back many times (perseverance in the making).
I know it sounds harsh, but these students are now carefully looking at their work and not rushing to be finished first or thinking 'that’s good enough'. They want to make it better than their best.


The next session will focus on shadow and light, light lines and dark lines.

Finished collaborative art

Finally we finish the collaborative art mural on the history of West Auckland. You will be able to find reference to the wine industry, orchards, gum digging, the timber industry, local places, old forms of transport and our local out law Don Buck.

Artist Toolbox

The students are building an artist toolbox to draw on when doing artwork. The toolbox is a range of skills they are learning. We are continuing to build sketching skills with warm-up exercises each session.
The toolbox learning today was simple perspective drawing.
The students draw a block before we started as a before view. (see photo)

We discussed a painting where the vanishing points were obvious, I then demonstrated using 2 vanishing points to draw a box. They made a very good attempt at using the vanishing points for the first time. (see photo)

The next exercise was to create a drawing using vanishing points. This proved to be very challenging for the students. The result of this was the children deadly quiet from the intense concentration.

In our third session for the day the students started developing a composition telling a story about West Auckland. To do this they are following Bloom’s Taxonomy. The first part of ‘knowing’ the student drew images for old photos. As they started looking at the photos in books some of them began to form a story. It was interesting listening to the conversations.
Our next step will be the ‘understanding’, where the students will take objects in some of the draws and develop them.

Reflections for some student:

What inspired me today (the WOW!) …

“The perspective because it caused me to really think about what I was doing”. Sophie-Lee

“Was making the pictures alive and realistic”. Shari

“I made large, medium and small 3D shapes. It as so fun. I didn’t know I could do it, I’m so proud”. Courtney

“Surreal art. I understand what that kind of art is, when normal stuff is in an unusual place.” Jared

“Was doing 3D shapes. It caused me to really want to keep doing it and do it at home”. Courtney


What was the most important thing I learnt today?

"About surreal art because it’s cool to be creative and crazy.” Joey

"Perspective because I learnt how to make stuff look like 3D by just doing lines”. Salote

What did I find tricky?

“I found the shading tricky. I solved the problem by looking closer at what I was shading and saw the different tones.” Louisa

Collaborative art work

This week we looked at a range of old photos. We joined a number of A1 pieces of paper on the wall and all chose a spot to draw an image from the photos. After 10 minutes the students had to change places and take over someone else's drawing. This change over happened a few times before the drawing was complete.
The reason for working on other peoples drawings was to take the idea of ownership of one image and develop the idea of ownership for the whole art work. After the first change over the students became comfortable with working on many images. Initially they were precious about the image they started, thinking "they will stuff it up, they don't know what I am doing."
In the end they were all looking and improving parts of the artwork.

They uses black crayon, starting by using whisper lines (very light lines). Then when the paper was full of images they went over the lines with shouting lines (very heavy lines). White crayon was used to blank in areas they wanted to be white.

We discussed the colour of old photos and decided to colour the art work with a range of brown tones in dye.

The students were amazed at how much they completed in one day.
Over hearing a conversation between two students, "Wow, I didn't know I could draw like that."

The art work continues...

Getting started

The first week these students got together we went on a field trip to view the art works in local area. These art works depict the rich local history and each tells a story.
The students are expected to do their own research and find historical images that interest them.

Each art day starts with observational drawing. Students move around same still life clusters, being given about 5 minutes to draw each one. Each time they move we discuss another aspect of sketching.

As they continue to develop their sketching skills, the students powers of observation are improving and the shapes, proportions and connections with other objects in the still life clusters are getting more accurate.

Some of the students get very frustrated because they cannot get the image exactly right and want to use the eraser constantly (there is only one eraser in the classroom and I hold it). The use of other medium like crayon and charcoal help them to loosen-up.