One of my favorite works of art by Henri Matisse is his painting "The Dance" (Le Danse).
The oil painting on canvas created in 1909 is now hanging in New York's Museum of Modern Art and can be seen in the same gallery as artists Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet.
In this lesson I wanted to teach my first graders how to properly draw a human body using shapes.
When an artist uses circles and ovals to show proper proportion, the human body looks completely different than some normal drawing habits of children at this age.
Stick figure is the term we use for children around the age of 6 and 7 who rather than perceive humans arms and legs as solid forms, they are simply lines. On the whiteboard I drew a demonstration how to draw the human body in many different poses. Asking some students to stand in various positions, I showed the class how to start with an oval head, an oval body, long ovals for the arms and legs and circles for parts of the body that move. The next step is to use the eraser to erase away all of the inside lines that are not necessary, resulting in a body that shows muscles rather than long lines.
Each student drew various people dancing around in their own personal, playful dance circle. Students were free to draw themselves, family, friends and even famous characters from pop culture dancing along together in a circle.
Here are some examples of the original sketches. I will be posting the final color process in the near future.
No comments:
Post a Comment