Ice Cream sundaes

 This was a three day sub assignment for middle school classes. I showed students how to draw the outline shape of the sundae cup and the ice cream then let them create their own sundaes with a choice of their topping and favors. This is outlined first drawn in pencil then, outlined in black permanent markers then colored with oil pastel.

Snowmen Castrophe

My challenge, teach a cartooning lesson that does not use people or animals.
 .I went through my comic book collection I have mostly people,superheroes and personified animals in there.I looked through my old examples of comic strips that I had made--all about my dog.."No,those are not  not going to work" I said.

I spent some time on several web pages  looking up cartoon tutorials. I found one on drawing a cartoon snowman..No tutorial really needed just three circles but I did like the cartoon eyes. This would work and gave me tons of great ideas.Snowmen could have facial expressions.They could have conversations and if personified they would also have problems,conflicts and issues just like other cartoon characters.

I tried this first  with the morning program kids. The students were  kindergarten, fourth and fifth grades.

They  had some great ideas of what could happen that would be bad for a snowman. I thouhght of limbs falling off mine other thins kids thought of were "They could melt". "A dog could pee on them","Someone could throw hot water on them."

I tried this again later the same day with another group of students. I showed them my examples and walked them through a few morecompostional  drawing tips then the morning crew had. This was the class I had prepred it for.The morning group I was using it as a timefiller . I talked to them about snowmen not being perfectly round and that they could be other shapes,I mentioned that they could be female instead of male. I got questions about this..  I clarified with "Keep it appropriate. I do not need to see snow people genitals. The clothing is descriptive enough."



 I was working along with another artist teacher this class and she is partial to using washable markers and brushing into them with water for a watercolor effect.  I worked very successfully for this project. It allowed you to get the bold markers colors were you wanted bold but to also get nice color washes in areas for snow or sky were you want some transparency.The students had great success with them and created snow people that wore tie dye, had huge hats being attacked by cats, triangular snow people, cubed snow people etc.

I really enjoyed these and honestly want to do a whole series with the three cartoon snow persons I created.

Private tutor tie -Dyes

So amongst my many art teaching jobs I continue to love to work with private tutor students. I have been meeting with one student for private tutor lessons for over a year now. I work with a very energetic and funny sixth grader. We were working on Boy Scout requirements and he had to put a logo he designed himself onto some personalized items. So, I thought "Lets make some t-shirts.We can put your logo on that". I gave him an option of tie dye, paint with acrylics and to use a stencil and spray dye.

He wanted tie- dye so that is what we did. I always tie dye outside. It damages the grass a lot less then carpets in side. You can put the shirt right on the lawn. I have done this with ninth graders. They loved it. In the past I have used rubbers band and Rit dye then dipped the shirt into the dye. This time we used Tulip dye in bottles and dumped the dye onto our twisted shirts.

Oldie but Goodie

I was called in for a last minute sub job. The teacher calls and says. "They have been drawing a lot.They are bored with it, I don't want them using clay today....."I mention. I have drawing challenge cards, with items on them like draw a neighbors shoe. This brings me back to projects I did in middle school.

1. Using pencil,Draw a shoe outline first use contour and draw only the outside, use pencil
then move to details.
2.Next outline in fine point sharpie.Erase remaining pencil
3.Then add pen and ink techniques.
4.Fill in areas with watercolor. One color per section.

Things I found helpful to demonstrate to students.
Simple contour outline beginning. to count number of details that fit into the space they are drawing. ie:grommets, holes for lacing.

How much water to have on your paint brush and how much is too much.Explaining that without the correct amount of water the paint is hard to control.

Sign language drawings

When I lived in Arkansas and taught Jr. High I had a friend that was a sign language interpreter. I had also had several experiences with deaf culture at R.I. T. when I attended there. However I never really learned sign language the way I wish I would have.

These drawing simply use letters from a sign language alphabet and you pose your hand it each letter to create a three letter (appropriate) word or your initials.

I have seen several teachers use this drawing projects including my favorite art teacher Max Robertson. It is him that I blame for my wanting to become on art teacher. I was pleasantly surprised to see he taught the lesson in the similar fashion that I had.

Students will first practice drawing there hands. The should look for lines folds, creases, knuckles nails all details and learn how to use outline and contour shapes as well as using scale of one part of the hand in relation to another.
Drawing by John 2005

After a few sketches of the hand they then choose there there letters from the sign language alphabet and drew their hands posed in those three letters to create a word or their initials.

My drawing- done as example for Mr. Robertson's class 2009



The final step was to outline them in sharpie marker.

Drawing by Whitney 2005