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| Drawing our tiger. Observing details. |
One of the first projects I EVER did with my 6-11 year olds, after opening the 'Art Room', was this very fun tiger head project. Objective here was for the kids to exercise their observation skills, and for them to follow line instructions as I demonstrated a guided drawing of a tiger on the board. Listening, observing, connecting art elements with art vocabulary... and then creating on their own.... all critical skills when starting out in a new art class. It also helped me gage where my new students were at in their art experience and it was actually a pretty simple project with clear guidelines that delivered success (and pride) to all.
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| Tiger Heads. 6-11 year olds |
We began by closely examining tiger photographs, and describing the various elements of his features (color, texture, shape, line...). I did a guided drawing on the white board and kids followed along. I showed them step-by-step how all the features lined up with one another proportionally (as they do), for example, nose is between the width of inner eyes; mouth is as wide of as the total width of both eyes, outer eye to outer eye; rounded ears are spaced evenly right above each eye; eye balls are slightly hidden at the top by the eyelid. etc etc. Most of these measurements are true for all animals, including humans, so it's a valuable lesson in face proportion drawing and symmetry.
Next, students then examined their tiger photograph and added the various black lines and patterns, whiskers, fur and other details on their own. Then, these were colored in using colored pencil in black, tiger in orange, and the fur was done with very light pencil shading with white colored pencil over top to smudge and smear the pencil shadings to a natural-looking slightly greying shade.
Additional colors were added as desired (eyes, nose, inside of ears). As always, I stressed the importance of adding a reflection spot (light catcher) in the eye, and using more than one color in the eye for a more natural looking iris.
Backgrounds were done in a very light application of chalk and smeared with fingers.
These kids were very proud, and dare I say, some were amazed by their results!
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| Hazel 7 |
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| Sif 6 |
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| Vita 9 |
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| Madalena 10 |
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| Adela 8 |
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| Marko 11 |
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| Michat 10 |
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| Matylda 7 |
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| Ned 8 |
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| Oliver 6 |
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| Koh 6 |
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| Ottilie 8 |
