Drawing classes off to a good start

Marissa Lane

Cara Stockman

Megan Russo

Nicholas Lane hard at work sketching

E Block boys transferring their sketches to final drawings

Patsy MacDowell working on final drawing

My E block and B block drawing classes are off to a terrific start with the iconic "CHAIRS" project. As posted before, this project is the first drawing lesson on line and space. Our students learn the vocabulary terms listed below before we get started with three thumbnail sketches of our subject matter: chairs. As you can see from the pictures posted above, our students really did a nice job at setting up an interesting composition with such a simple subject matter. Students then transferred their sketches to their final drawing paper and decided which compositions worked better for postive space and negative space.

We then talked about various qualities of line and pen strokes. What emotional association does a zig zag line have? A wavy line? We talked about pattern in pen strokes and how pattern can create movement and texture. We looked a several works of art that showed us examples of pattern as texture and line has texture and movement. We then began to explore line as pattern and zentagles. Zentagles by definition is: a drawing using structured patterns. We practiced pen strokes and zentagles in our sketcbooks before using them on our final pieces. I will post pictures of our finished products when they are handed in next week.

Composition: The arrangement of elements such as line, value and form within an artwork, princples of design are considered in order to achieve a successful composition.
Compositional Movement: A path that the viewers gaze is directed to follow because the arrangemnt of the elements in an artwork.
Positive Space: The areas containing the subject matter of the artwork. Also referred to as figure.
Negative Space: The areas of a work of art not occupied by the subject matter, but which contribute to the composition. Also referred to as ground.
Figure/Ground Ambiguity: exsits when it is impossible to determine what would be considered figure and what would be considered ground in a work of art.

 **SPARKLE WORD**

Ambigious: Open to more than one interpretaion. Having a double meaning. Unclear.