Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Black & White Design

School is officially in full swing now. 

Our first project deals with composition and design. We talk about the rule of thirds, focal point, overlapping, value, contrast, repetition, etc. 
They were given a worksheet with three items (mostly two shapes and a line) and had to use only those three things to come up with their composition.

They got to use ebony pencils too. Fancy for Art I, huh?!

This is one of the quick examples I made for the students to show them what I expected.


Sunday, August 21, 2011

Quick Flower Drawing

Things have been a little crazy around here. I was traveling for 2 weeks, and then I thought I had a week off before work started up again, but I was wrong. 
It ended up only being one day, so I have been on the go since July 26th. 

Last week was staff development, which went really well and the students start back tomorrow, so there's not really any slowing down for me for a while. 

I finally sat down to draw for the first time in a long time and was inspired by my last post with Danny Gregory's video. 



I grabbed a calligraphy pen, jar of ink, and a small jar of water and sat down on my couch and watched Bones while I drew the flowers on my mantle. 

The flowers came first, but then the background was too empty and I was too lazy to fill it all in completely with flowers (which was my original goal). So as I sat debated about what to do.

I knew it needed something...maybe color. Nope, too lazy to get up and get anything else.

So how about a pattern? Sure. But the line quality of the flowers are so organic and interesting that anything black would have made it too busy and made the flowers disappear. 

The lighter the better....so I ended up just using my dirty water to make thick stripes for a more interesting composition. 

I am happy with it as my first attempt at drawing in a long while. 

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Drawing Video

I have signed up for the following emails from Dana

ART *FULL, a dose of ART & INSPIRATION in your inbox


And boy are they wonderful! 

In her latest email there was a great video that I want to share. 
A guy, Danny, drawing in his kitchen. 
Watch and learn...


Thursday, August 11, 2011