Overview and Background: Unit: Drawing

 Graphic organizer

Name:  Shawny Montgomery

Fine Arts : Art

Cheney High : Grades 9-12 : day : Aug. - May.

 

Title:

Drawing

Topics:

Drawing

Time Frame:

 

Start Date:

-

 

Other Designers:

 

Summary: Students will explore ways to improve their drawing skills.

 

Print Materials Needed:

Resources:

Resource Attachments:

Internet Resource Links:

 Notes:

 

 

Stage 1: Identify Desired Results

 

State:

National

Title:

Art

Standard(s):

1.  Understanding and applying media, techniques, and processes

5.  Reflecting upon and assessing the characteristics and merits of their work and the work of others.

 

Understandings:

Overarching –

Creativity comes from viewing the world differently.

 

Unit –

Drawing is a skill that can be learned.

By gaining access to the part of your mind that works in a style conducive to creative, intuitive thought, you will learn a fundamental skill of the visual arts: how to put down on paper what you see in front of your eyes.

By learning the basic skill of learning to see, you gain the ability to think more creatively in other areas of your life.

 

Essential Questions:

What makes a person “creative” and can it be learned?

Can a student learn to put down on paper what they see in front of their eyes?

 

Knowledge and Skills:

K

Gain confidence in their creative abilities.

 

S

Draw realistically or at least help to enable the student to see and draw some object or person with a high degree of similarity.

Through realism, you will learn to see deeply and profoundly.

 

Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence

 

Assessment Summary:

Student Directions:

As a now famous artist, you have been asked to write an article for the Smithsonian magazine about how your style evolved during your early years as a struggling artist and the impact that creativity had on your success as an artist.  Compare some of your very first works to your later works, analyzing the key artistic elements and the role creativity played in your works.  Your comparison should be insightfult, clear, and supported with details.

Rubric:

Other assessment evidence to be collected:

Pre-instruction portraits

Post-instruction portraits

Graphic organizer

 

Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences and Instruction

 

Learning Activities:

1.        Do 4 pre-instruction self-portraits

2.        Squaring up for drawing exercise.  Students are to transfer the lines from a portion of a drawing done by Picasso.  They will then be shown the entire drawing.  By focusing strictly on the lines in this exercise and not the content of the picture, students are turning off the left side of the brain, the logical sequential part.

3.        Students will write their name in the middle of a piece of paper the way they normally sign their names.  They will then be instructed to consider the signature to be an original drawing and decide what the drawing says about them.  Then they are to write their signature 3 more times in different styles. 

4.        Students should try to write their names backwards (Mirror writing) as Leonardo da Vinci did.  They should think back and review what they did to prepare to shift from Left to Right.  Did they tune out the outside world?  Was there an increased level of concentration?  Did time seem to pass quickly?

5.        Vase Drawings – Students will draw the silhouette of a normal face on the opposite side of the paper from their dominant hand.  They are to draw the lines and make a matching silhouette on the opposite side of the paper.  Repeat the lesson, using the oddest face profile they can envision.

6.        Upside Down Drawing of Igor Stravinsky – Students will do a complete upside down drawing of one of Picasso’s sketches.  They should repeat this lesson twice with two additional line drawings.

7.        Discussion on “Your History As An Artist; Your symbolism system you developed as a child.”  How did their early drawing affect their drawing today?

8.        Using Pure Contour Drawings.  Set a timer for 20 or 30 minutes and do a series of drawings looking strictly at the contour lines of the object.  (Their hand, a complex flower, natural inanimate object, crumpled piece of paper, vegetable, plant or tree, their own hand holding something, their foot)  Some of the more complex objects may take longer than 30 minutes to draw.

9.        Positive/Negative Space Drawings

10.     Perspective Drawings (using grids)

11.     Performance Assessment

12.     Four post-instruction portraits.