So, the new term saw my pupils start off with some drawing exercises, to get back into the swing of things after a long summer holiday! I had them using lovely, lushous, velvety, soft graded pencils, to create different lines and marks. Then they experimented with tone, again using their 6B and 2B pencils. In each of my classes, I looked out for three pupils wearing different tones of grey in their uniform and asked them to come up to the front of the class. By having the children all look closely at the different shades standing before them, they could then see what I was looking for them to try and create, using just one of their pencils and applying different pressure to create different tones. Some of the children also went on to try using just one coloured pencil, to create light, mid and dark tones and were fairly impressed with their results, "I've made four different tones of red with ONE pencil!" All of these exercises were carried out in their hand-made, home-made sketchbooks, which were folded from a single sheet of A2 paper. They learnt about paper shape, size and orientation. Cross-curricular maths!
Then we went on to look at shape! For some of my younger pupils, we used the 2D maths shape sets in the schools, to create shape characters. For most of my older classes, I brought in my toy model animals, to allow the children to use their observational skills, with the animal physically sitting in front of them on their tables, as they drew. The children were asked to think of the different shapes they already knew about that they thought they could see in the animals and many of them came up with rhombus, trapezium, semi-circle and so on. They were also asked to think about different angles and the direction of the different lines they were making, as well as how each line curved or not.
They could take their finger or a pencil and run it along the part of the animal they were drawing, to 'feel' the shape or the line. You can see in their drawings, how some of the pupils have used this technique when refining areas of their drawing, such as in the animals backs. In the background, while they were working, I played a recording of, 'The Carnival of the Animals', by Camille Saint-Saens, which had little introductions to each animal by Jonny Morris - his animal voices seemed to amuse the children, just as I remembered him amusing me, many, many years before!
The children were asked to look really carefully at how the lines and marks created different patterns on their individual animals and to draw exactly what they could see.
We talked about the different textures that could be created, by using techniques such as hatching and cross-hatching. I love the detail in this elephant above! Also, to help the children realise how the legs of some animals were much thicker, I asked them to look carefully at the elephant for instance, who looked like he was wearing a pair of baggy pyjama bottoms!
This pupil has been very careful to notice that the spots on the horse are not all the same size and shape - well done!
This pupil has looked carefully to see how the back of his tiger slopes and so does the tummy - great observational skills!
Working away at all the dark tones in this horse, noticing the light and dark areas. And below, a little later on, building up the areas of lighter tone.
This young boy did a tremendous drawing of the horse above and has really captured the triangular shape of the feet! Well done!
The children were asked not to be afraid to 'show their working' around about their drawings, just as they would in maths when doing sums. I really like the little light sketches above, where this pupil has tried out some of his different shapes first.
A lot of work went into this tiger above, building the pattern up into a lovely, velvety, black tone - well done!
This boy used a computer drawing programme to create his tiger!
This is one of my favourite drawings - this boy has used his observational drawing skills well, noticing all the bony parts of the cow's body and also, shown that it is not just black and white, but that there are also mid tones, in the udder, around the nose and in the hooves - really well done!
This drawing of the horse above, again shows how this pupil has looked really carefully at the different shapes that make up the animal, particularly the feet.
Another example of creating different tones through the use of cross-hatching - well done!
We can see a little perspective starting to appear in this lovely drawing of the bull above.
I was very impressed with how well the children all did with these drawings. Although some of them were keen to add colour, mean old Mrs Hardie would not allow it! I think when they saw their final drawings and realised how well they could very effectively create the illusion of colour, through their use of tone, they were pleased with what they'd achieved. I suggested to some of the class teachers, that they might like to enlarge some of the drawings on the photocopier, to achieve a lovely rich, black and white image and also see some of the grainy textures created.
