Face Your Fears 

The idea for this project came from a student. Our last project was in reference to the Fauves and Fauvism. We are still 100% virtual for my gifted art classes and sometimes hearing things clearly is not the easiest. When I was saying "Fauves" one student thought I was saying "Phobes" and thought we were doing Phobia drawings. Thus the birth of this project idea. 

Face your fears incorporates our previously learned knowledge of value and shading. 

In class we reviewed the 4 ways we learned to add value (stippling, hatching/crosshatching, scumbling, and blending)  We talked about drawing facial features and decided to start with the eyes. 

We watched a tutorial video on drawing eyes: 

After the video, I walked them through drawing an eye step by step including proper shading techniques. We talked about expression- and how the eyes can convey different expressions. I asked them to practice drawing different eyes and we used this image as a reference:

Next up was the nose, which students feel is the hardest feature to draw, and I agree! We talked about the mistakes students make (drawing the sides of the nasal canal, drawing complete circles for the nostrils, etc) I mentioned how most of the nose is made simply with shading to make it appear 3D as opposed to drawing the entire outline.

We watched this tutorial video:

After the video I walked them through drawing and shading a nose. 

When the noses were complete, we moved on to the mouth.

After watching the tutorial video, I walked them through drawing a mouth step by step.

The last feature we focused on was the ear. We watched a tutorial video on how to draw ears: 

After the video I walked them through drawing and shading an ear step-by-step.

When we finished practicing drawing facial features, I asked them to tell me some different fears that they or people they know might have. I got everything from fear of spiders to the fear of holes and everything in between. Once we had a list, I asked them to choose one fear and think about how they can illustrate that fear. 
When students had decided on a fear, they had to choose a facial feature that they would draw to "face" their fears. I asked them to think creatively and figure out how to incorporate the fear of their choice coming out of their chosen facial feature using proper shading techniques. 

These drawings aren't meant to be huge, they are mostly no larger than 6"x6" 
I will update the post as soon as students begin to complete their drawings. 

Student Project Examples:

 Line Portraits 

This project has so many options for variation! I began this project with inspiration from two artists, Lui Ferreyra, and Kris Trappeniers.

Lui Ferreyra is an artists who works largely in portraiture and his fragmented prismatic portraits are absolutely beautiful!

The other artist we looked at is a Belgian based artist named Kris Trappeniers. He creates these wonderful continuous line portraits and sometimes even with extreme patience and precision cuts them out with an X-acto knife.

For this project, we began by practicing out continuous line drawing skills. Many times students feel this is a most difficult task as they want to pick up their pencil, especially whilst drawing a portrait. I had them look at a simple contour line drawing of a face and complete a practice drawing of that face using a continuous line. 

After our continuous line practice, we ventured into the proportions of the face. We looked at a video from youtube showcasing the proportions when drawing a side profile view face. Next I gave them a tutorial on how to draw the proportions of a face in a frontal view. 

Once we have practiced with proportion and continuous line we talk about the options students have for their project and the materials they might need to complete it.

Materials: 

Pencil

Paper (white, brown, watercolor etc) 

Colored pencils, paint, marker, etc

 Sharpie (optional)

Magazines for collage (optional) 

Requirements: 

Students must choose a photograph of a person to be able to draw a portrait from observation ( itcould be someone they know, themselves or an image from someone on the internet) 

Students must consider proportion when drawing their portrait. 

Students must utilize continuous line in some way on their artwork (on the portrait itself or in the background)

Students must utilize some sort of color.

Options:

Create a background utilizing sharpie, watercolor, collage or any other type of material. 

Extension activity:

Students can utilize Google Drawings, or even Google Slides to create the following extension project.

Students will begin by saving a photo of a person and uploading it into whichever platform they are using (slides or drawings) 

Using the scribble tool, they will create continuous lines on and around the face and neck of their chosen portrait. 

The continuous line should intersect in different areas over the face to create new shapes. 

Using the line tool, students will select different colors and create repeated lines in each space on the face that was created by continuous line. 

Students are currently working on this project but please check back for more student examples :)

Imaginative Realism OC's

 

What is Imaginative Realism?

Imaginative Realism is the realistic depiction of the unreal. 

Think Dungeons and Dragons, Wings of Fire, Magic The gathering. Fairies, Monsters, Trolls, Dragons,  Mermaids, and all sorts of other make-believe creatures.

Imaginative Realism Slides

Students began with an introduction to the artwork of Jesper Ejsing who creates characters and scenes for Dungeons and Dragons, along with other fantasy creations. Some of his work is pictured below: 

Jesper Ejsing Website

After learning about what Imaginative Realism is and some of the characteristics of that type of artwork students were asked to create their own original character based off of the common characteristics of the style. 

Students must include value and shading appropriately on their characters, and had to create some sort of texture as well as including details to make their character really come to life. 

We reviewed different techniques for creating value using colored pencils and then I taught them different textures that could be achieved with colored pencils. 

Materials:
Pencil
Brown paper
Sharpie (optional) 
White Gel Pen (optional) 
Colored pencils

The examples I made are: 

Student projects are trickling in... in this virtual world were living in, it is most difficult to get things turned in when students have so much else going on in their lives. I'll take what I can get though! 

Student artwork pictured below: