Its so important to teach the skill of drawing what we see rather than copying something else or just using our imaginations. There are many benefits to observational drawing such as slowing down and taking our time, learning to concentrate on what we really see and noticing the small details. Drawing what we see is difficult and children will learn that improvement takes practice and you need to make mistakes to learn from them.
We started the lesson with a Blind Contour Drawing (idea taken from the Camp Creek Blog). We used paper plates on pencils so the children couldn't see what they were drawing. We used flowers as the subject. These were done in our Visual Arts Diary which we will be using all year for such exercises and free drawing.
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| Blind Contour drawing. The two wobbly flowers are drawn without looking (paper plate covering drawing) they then had another go when they could see what they were drawing. |
We then moved onto drawing and painting Pears which I had placed all around the table. This lesson was inspired by one at Deep Space Sparkle - thanks again Patty!
What you need:
- Tempera Cake Paints
- Paintbrushes
- Yellow, black and white oil pastels
- Real Pears for display
- White A3 paper
How To:
- Hold a pear up and get the children to really look at its shape and colour
- Ask them to draw 1, 2 or 3 pears on their paper with a yellow oil pastel
- Paint
- Let dry
- Add black pastel for outline and white pastel for highlights
Whilst the paint was drying on the pears the children did some observational drawing in the garden.
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| Rock climbing wall and slide in our garden |
Cheers
Fiona
