Today I decided to try observational drawings with the girls. I collected a bunch of items from around my house as you see above and told the girls to each choose what they would like to draw. Observational drawing is exactly what its name implies. Observe and draw. The trick is to find simple things for them to try.
There are certainly some children that are better than others at this skill of copying but, most of them can do a reasonable rendering of simple objects.
I gave them black, fine tipped markers for this because I wanted them to paint in their drawing with watercolors and I know it looks beautiful when the outside is drawn with a black marker.
This is definitely an activity that is better done individually or in very small groups. You don’t have to be an artist to attempt this with children, just have them try to follow the lines and shapes they see as best as they can.
One child got the idea to copy the paints themselves and many of the girls followed along.
After they drew a number of objects on a few sheets of paper, they got the pan watercolors to paint in their drawings.
After they were done I had them make larger versions of landscapes. The week before we learned about horizon lines and landscapes and created small landscapes with watercolors.
I always hang up pictures to show them what are the options they have in terms of covering their whole paper with color. I am trying to move them away from the blue strip across the sky and a green strip for the ground.
They had to draw in an horizon line and then paint a sky as they saw fit and the ground.
This girl spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make brown for her rocks.
Next lesson I will use those landscapes as backgrounds for multi media artwork.
