Drawing Elements

Drawing Principals

Handwriting

Calligraphy & Illuminated Letters

Facial Proportion & Self Portraits

From Signature to Portraiture;Who Am I?

Mark Making, Line, Shape, Form, and Value

CLASS SYLLABUS:(subject to various time constraints, early dismissals, etc.)

1: Pretest (to assess what skills, schema, and iconography each student brings to the table)Students will draw their own face using a mirror, a person from memory, a house, and their own hand. These will be put into their portfolio for later use.

2: Mark MakingStudents will use mood and music to evoke emotion and express that in lineStudents will understand qualities available in line

Aggressive: heavy, strong, emphatically stated

Analytical: probing, questioning, investigating, measuring

Blurred: soft, fuzzy, smudged

Calligraphing: free flowing, fluid, natural, organic

Constricted: angular, tense

Scribbled: circular, fast

Mechanical: unvaried, no feeling, same width throughout

Gestural: quickly describing movement

Organizational: providing structure

Lyrical: graceful, more decorative

Implied: slower gestural between blur and gestural, just a suggestion

3: HandwritingStudents will learn that handwriting is an artform and like drawing a line with dozens of variations for each person

Fastest, best, printed (cursive charts will always be available)

4: Vases/Faces (classic optical illusion)Students will copy the profile for either left or right handed studentsStudents will draw horizontal lines at the top and bottomStudents will go over the profile naming the parts: forehead, nose, upper lip, lower lip, chin, neck. Do this twice, making sure you understand what each word means.Students will then draw the missing profile that will complete the symmetrical vase.

Students will experience confusion or conflict. Teacher will observe.Students will have to resolve the confusion in order to solve strong verbal instructions when the solution can only be done by switching to the nonverbal side of the brain and assessing relationships of sizes, curves, angles, and shapes. It is solved by not naming, drawing from the bottom up, shifting to the vase shapes.

5: PuzzleStudents will use a grid to copy an image that is cut up like a puzzle

This forces students to see only relationships of shapes and linesStudents will learn that they can draw complex drawings when they break them down to parts of a whole

This takes the fear out of complexity

These birds were done by 4th graders using a grid. They were drawn freehand.

6: Upside Down DrawingStudents will either draw from the overhead, the computer, or a variety of drawingsOnly part of the image should be revealed at a timeStudents will be forced to look only at the shapes, lines, and relationships of each in order to draw the image because they won’t know what it isThis forces students to be drawing with the visual/spatial portion of the brain

7: Blind Contour DrawingStudents will learn that this drawing mode is very much like mapping.Students will only look at the object being drawn and not their paper.This forces students to be drawing with the visual/spatial portion of the brain.This take the fear out of having to have a perfect drawing because each drawing will be messy as a result of letting your eyes have control over your pencil.

8: Round Robin PracticeStudents will do upside down practice from small laminated drawings and writings (based on lessons by Mark Kistler’s Imagination Station)

9: Value ScaleStudents will create a 7 step grayscale (9 would be better)

10: Vocabulary GameStudents will play with laminated cards in order to find the definitions to match key terms shown in visuals

11: Blended Shading & Cast ShadowsStudents will use either organic or angular shapes and then render them in blended shadingStudents will draw solid geometric form still life’s using correct blended shading and cast shadows

12: EyesTeacher will show multimedia presentation on facial featuresStudents will render eyes using samples from books or portrait presentation

13: NosesStudents will render noses using samples from books or portrait presentation

13: MouthsStudents will render noses using samples from books or portrait presentation

14: Ears and FacesStudents will render noses using samples from books or portrait presentation

Masterworks or Celebrity photos

15: Handwriting ExercisesStudents will do basic Monoline techniques with Abecedarian sentences

Extended, tall/thin, slow, fast, best, flashy

Jay visited back home and gazed upon a brown fox and quail. Six crazy kings vowed to abolish my quite pitiful jousts. May Jo equal the fine record by solving six puzzles a week? West quickly gave Bert handsome prizes for six juicy plums. Just keep examining every low bid quoted for zinc etchings. Freight to me sixty dozen-quart jars and twelve black pans. We have just quoted on nine dozen boxes of gray lamp wicks. Fred specialized in the job of making very quaint wax toys. Jack amazed a few girls by dropping the antique onyx vase! Six jolly men were quickly operating a few heavy bulldozers. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Four women quietly gave the sixth prize back to the judge. Jack quietly gave dog owners most of his prize boxers. The six men have power to seize the ship quickly.

16: Calligraphy BasicsStudents will learn basic strokes using chisel pensStudents will practice short words and phrasesStudents will chose a short poem, phrase, or lyric to letter

17: VersalsStudents will learn the basics of decorated lettersStudents will view the multimedia Versal presentationStudents will practice a variety of borders and fillersStudents will create a large versal to start their chosen poem, phrase, or lyricStudents will do calligraphic piece and add versal

18: Modern Decorated LetterStudents will learn the basics of modern decorated lettersStudents will practice their handwriting to do this pieceStudents will choose an incident where they were hurt emotionally or physically to write in cursive using interjections, adjectives, adverbs, and conjunctionsStudents must be descriptive so their reader can tell what things looked or felt likeStudents will create a large decorated letter to start chosen piece

CLOSURE & ASSESSMENT:Students will fill out a rubric assessing their work during this unit