animal drawings « Art Classes in Virginia

Posts Tagged ‘animal drawings’

Puppy In Hammock

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

This week’s drawing is of a PUPPY IN A HAMMOCK using OIL PASTELS as the medium.

In this picture, your child explored:

Drawing animals
Using oil pastels
Building a drawing using layering

THE DRAWING:

Puppy in Hammock

This week’s drawing is of a cute puppy peering out of a hammock.

THE MEDIUM:

Using Oil Pastels:

The primary focus of this particular project was using oil pastels. Oil pastels look very similar to crayons; they are made from pigment mixed with oil and wax. The most high quality brands are quite soft, and can yield stunning results when used carefully.

The first oil pastels were made in 1925 and were called Cray-Pas because they were a cross between crayons and brilliantly pigmented soft pastels. Professional grade oil pastels were specially developed not long after this for Pablo Picasso and Henri Goetz! Goetz wanted a sketch medium that would blend in with painted layers, so he could use it to start oil paintings; Picasso wanted to draw and blend the crayons directly onto the canvas, using the crayons as a medium in their own right.

Oil pastels can be a difficult medium; they require patience and perseverance. One of the things your child may have heard from his teacher during the lesson is that sometimes drawings have an “ugly phase” before they are completed. This is often true of pictures using oil pastels as a medium, because the initial, unblended stages of the picture can look very basic and unfinished.

Oil pastels should be applied in layers and carefully blended with a finger tip or q-tip between each layer. While this process can be difficult, especially for younger children, careful practice with oil pastels will yield amazing results for your young artist!

If you are interested in experimenting with oil pastels with your child, there are many different brands available both online and in most art and craft supply stores. You can read more helpful tips for using oil pastels here.

We also experimented with using texture plates to add dimension and interest to the picture.

Ask Your Child:

· To describe the scene he created; ask questions about the background, breed of puppy, etc.

· What she learned about layering and coloring with oil pastels.

Tags: animal drawings, KidzArt, oil pastels
Posted in Drawings - in depth | 1 Comment »

Gecko & Hibiscus

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

This week’s project is of a FLOWER using MIXED MEDIA (including PRISMACOLOR MARKERS and CHALK PASTELS) as the medium.

In this picture, your child explored:

Mixed media
Warm & cool colors
Composition, including realistic drawing

THE DRAWING:

Gecko & Hibiscus

This week’s drawing is a picture of a gecko posing by a hibiscus flower. The hibiscus flower is a bright tropical flower which can be very fun to draw. The Hawaiian hibiscus is the state flower of Hawaii; these flowers bear blooms almost every day, but the blossoms last only for a day, even when on the bush. The flowers bloom from spring through the early summer.

Fun facts About Geckos:

Adult geckos can range in size anywhere from 3/4 inch to 14 inches long.
Most geckos are nocturnal; their large eyes see very well in the dark.
Geckos are found on every continent except Antarctica.
Most domesticated geckos are leopard geckos. They have an extremely long lifespan (usually 15-20 years – and some have lived up to 30 years!).
Geckos are the only reptiles who can use their “voice.” They can make barking, chirping or clicking noises when interacting socially with other geckos.
Some geckos can be fairly aggressive, and will bite when provoked. Some geckos eat other lizards and small rodents, and some species of geckos are able to spray an irritating liquid from the end of their tails.
One of the strangest geckos is the flying gecko (Ptychozoon kuhli), which is found the tropical rain forests of Malaysia. It has wide flaps of skin along its abdomen and webbed feet, legs and tail, which makes it able to glide through the air from tree to tree.
Teflon is the only known surface to which geckos cannot cling.

THE MEDIUM:

Mixed Media

Mixing mediums (the materials used to create a picture) is a fun technique to create contrast in a picture. Encourage your child to try more multimedia projects at home. Mixing mediums encourages children to think carefully about the effect created by different mediums – the contrast between the texture created by markers and that created by chalk, for example, can be better understood by children when the elements are presented side-by-side.

Using NuPastel Chalk Pastels

At KidzArt we use Prismacolor NuPastel color sticks. This form of chalk has a slightly varnished surface, which keeps it harder and cleaner than other varieties. They come in thin sticks which can be easily broken to be more manageable for small hands.

We show the kids how to use their fingers or a tissue to blend the chalk pastels; q-tips blend well in smaller areas. Because of the medium’s texture, the pictures can smear easily; you may want to spray the finished artwork with hairspray to help the chalk adhere to the page. When coloring with chalk pastels, it is important for right handed kids to start coloring on the left side of their paper, and vice-versa for left-handed students. This minimizes smearing with the hand as it moves across the page. Start with lighter colors and then add darker colors on top.

Using Prismacolor Markers:

Prismacolor Markers are fun and easy to use. These artist quality markers have two tips: a fine tip for coloring small spaces, and a broad, flat tip for coloring larger areas. These markers provide rich color saturation and smooth ink coverage.

Ask Your Child:

· What he learned about geckos.

· To explain various design elements (symmetry, color, etc) within her flower.

· To discuss the techniques he used while mixing prismacolor markers and chalk pastels in his drawing.

Tags: animal drawings, chalk, flower, KidzArt, mixed media, prismacolor markers
Posted in Drawings - in depth | 2 Comments »

Thunderbird

Monday, February 8th, 2010

This week’s picture is of an NATIVE AMERICAN THUNDERBIRD using CHALK PASTELS as the medium.

In this picture, your child explored:

Designs and history of the Native American Thunderbird symbol
Symbols and motifs in art
Repetition, pattern, and symmetry

THE DRAWING:

Native American Thunderbird

This week’s drawing is of the Native American Thunderbird. Some fun facts about the thunderbird symbol:

The Thunderbird’s name comes from the idea that its enormous wings create thunder. The Lakota name for the Thunderbird is Wakį́ya, a word formed from two words meaning “sacred” and “winged.”
According to Indian legend in the Pacific Northwest Coast, the Thunderbird is powerful enough to hurt and even carry off the giant Killer Whale. This is the basis for the legend “The Thunderbird and the Whale.”
Some tribes saw the Thunderbird as an individual entity, some as plural.
The singular Thunderbird was said to be the servant of the Great Spirit, residing on the top of a mountain. It only flew about to carry messages from one spirit to another.
The plural form of the thunderbirds were believed to be able to shape shift into human form by tilting back their beaks like a mask, and removing their feathers like feather-covered blankets. There are even stories of thunderbirds in human form marrying into pure human families; some Native American families trace their lineage to such an event.
Some legends saw the Thunderbird as protective, keeping Indian tribes safe from harm. Others saw it as a fearful creature, carrying off any who dared cross its sacred mountain.

The Air Force Thunderbirds adopted the name, influenced by the strong Indian culture and folklore of the southwestern U.S. where the team was activated. Indian legends regarded the Thunderbird with fear and respect; when it took to the skies, the earth trembled with the thunder of its great wings. Nothing in nature could challenge the Thunderbird. This was just the commanding presence the Air Force Thunderbirds wished to inspire.

THE MEDIUM:

Using NuPastel Chalk Pastels

Ask Your Child:

· To describe their Thunderbird’s unique patterns and symbols.

· To talk about the history behind the Thunderbird symbol.

· To explain the chalk pastel techniques she used in her picture.

Tags: animal drawings, chalk, KidzArt, nature, symbols
Posted in Drawings - in depth | No Comments »

African Wild Dog

Monday, February 8th, 2010

This week’s picture is of an AFRICAN WILD DOG using WATERCOLOR PENCILS and LIQUID WATERCOLOR as the medium.

In this picture, your child explored:

Using watercolor pencils lightly and darkly to show depth and shadow
Technique to make surfaces look wet or shiny (white paper on nose and pupils)
The African wild dog

THE DRAWING:

African Wild Dog

This week’s drawing is of the African wild dog. Some fun facts about this animal:

Their scientific name is Lycaon pictus, Latin for “painted wolf.”
African wild dogs are the second most endangered carnivore in Africa. This is due to habitat loss and fragmentation, as people are moving into more and more of the dogs’ territory. Packs needs between 80 and 800 square miles of land to roam and hunt. Most national parks in Africa are not large enough for even one wild dog pack, and family groups living outside protected areas are often killed by farmers and ranchers.
African wild dogs are most like wolves in their social structure but seem to be gentler within their pack. The average pack is between 5 - 20 dogs
Each dog has an individual pattern of splotches and splashes of black and different shades of brown-and-white markings. These marking give it one of its common names: African painted dog. Their “disruptive coloration” makes the pack look much larger than it really is.
African wild dogs hunt twice a day, usually at dawn and dusk.
When chasing prey they can run up to 60 km/ hr and sustain this for several kilometers.
Wild dogs are very efficient hunters, with a 38-85% success rate – almost always more efficient than lions and spotted hyenas.
Packs begin each day with a greeting ceremony. The dogs fill the morning air with excited chirps and twitters as they gear up for the first hunt of the day. They run shoulder to shoulder and then pause to leap over and dive under each other. The dogs appear to “kiss” one another, licking and poking at the corners of each other’s mouths. This is a food-begging behavior that plays an important role in social bonding within the pack.
There is one dominant male and female, the “alpha pair,” in a wild dog pack.
The alpha female can have up to 21 pups in one litter, more than any other dog species. All the pack members help care for the puppies.
With most social mammals, the females stay with the group and raise their young while the males leave to start new groups. The African wild dogs do just the opposite! The females leave the pack, sometimes as a group of sisters, to join a new pack, when they are about three years old. Males generally remain in the pack they were born into. Therefore, packs are mostly made up of males and have very few females, sometimes only one.

THE MEDIUM:

Using Watercolor Pencils & Liquid Watercolor

At KidzArt we use Watercolor Crayons, a great medium for creating lovely watercolor pictures without the mess. (Some classes also used liquid watercolor to color the background of the picture.) We use several brands of watercolor crayons; one is Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Artists’ Crayons.

Watercolor crayons look just like regular crayons; pictures are colored just as any normal picture would be, allowing children more control over color than they can often manage with traditional or liquid watercolors. Once the drawing is colored, however, a paint-brush or q-tip is used to add water over the color. The crayon seemingly “melts,” creating a beautiful watercolor picture!

Ask Your Child:

· To describe their dog’s unique “painted” pattern.

· To point out and describe any unique elements in the African landscape he may have added.

· To explain the watercolor crayons and liquid watercolor techniques she used in her picture.

Tags: animal drawings, KidzArt, watercolor
Posted in Drawings - in depth | 2 Comments »

Owl

Thursday, December 17th, 2009

This week’s picture is a wise OWL, using PRISMACOLOR MARKERS as the medium.

In this picture, your child explored:

Creating depth and realism by layering color and shading with markers
Using repetition of shape and pattern
Creating pattern and texture with lines and shading

Fun Facts about Owls:

Throughout history, owls have been a part of human folklore and legend. They have been found depicted in cave paintings in France dating back as far as 20,000 years ago. They were also used in Egyptian hieroglyphics. They have represented a wide variety of symbols, ranging from misfortune and death to prosperity and wisdom.
Owls’ eyes are fixed in their sockets. To look around they have to move their entire head. They have extra vertebrate in their spines that allow them to turn their head three-quarters of the way around.
The color of owl eyes indicate what time of day the owl hunts in; owls with dark eyes hunt at night; orange eyes indicate dawn or dusk hunters, and yellow-eyed owls hunt during the day.
Owls can make a wide variety of sounds. The owl uses its familiar “hoot” noise to declare its territory, though not all species can actually hoot. Other sounds include screeches, hisses, and screams.
Many owls have special flight feathers which enable them to fly in almost complete silence.
Most owls don’t make their own nests; instead they often “squat” in tree cavities or old crow, raven, or hawk nests. The tiny Elf Owl usually nests in woodpecker holes dug into large cactus plants.
The smallest owl is the Elf Owl; it is 5-6 inches tall and weighs about 1.5 ounces. The Great Horned Owls weigh about 4 pounds. Its eyes weigh almost an ounce – more than the eyes of a 200 pound human!
Owls lack the senses of smell and taste – which allows the Great Horned Owl to regularly make a meal of skunk.
Owls possess acute sense of hearing; their unevenly aligned ears augment their ability to receive sound. Most owls can hunt in complete darkness, and are even able to hear and catch small animals moving beneath snow.
Owls mate for life, but because they have an innate fear of one another, it takes a lot of time and courage to proceed through courtship.

Look at these pictures of various representations of owls in art:

This owl was drawn with just two lines, similar to the owls often represented in hieroglyps.

This owl was drawn with just two lines, similar to the owls often represented in hieroglyphs.

This owl depicts a familiar modern representation of owls as wise and scholarly.

: This humorous drawing also reflects the popular impression of owls as wise leaders. (Drawing by Andreas Bloch.)

This drawing portrays another concept of the owl: cute and whimsical.This stone owl represents bravery, strength, and wisdom.

Using Prismacolor Markers:

Mixing mediums (the materials used to create a picture) is a fun technique to create contrast in a picture. Some classes may have added details and texture to their pictures with chalk or colored pencil. At KidzArt we use Prismacolor NuPastel color sticks. This form of chalk has a slightly varnished surface, which keeps it harder and cleaner than other varieties. They come in thin sticks which can be easily broken to be more manageable for small hands.

Ask Your Child …

To explain the techniques he used to make his owl look realistic.
How she used lines, pattern, and repetition to make her tree realistic and textured.
To explain any unusual background or scenery details.
If your child used mixed media, ask him to explain how the picture was enhanced by the addition of chalk or colored pencils.

Tags: animal drawings, birds, KidzArt, mixed media, prismacolor markers
Posted in Drawings - in depth | No Comments »

Tiger

Monday, October 12th, 2009

This week’s picture is a TIGER, using CHALK PASTELS as the medium.

In this picture, your child explored:

Drawing animals
Foreground, middle ground, and background
Using chalk pastels to create shadow and texture

THE DRAWING:

Fun Facts About Tigers:

A group of tigers is called a “streak,” although they are usually solitary animals. (Individual tigers will claim territory of up to 100 square miles.)
Female tigers are “grown up” at age 3; males are “grown up” at age 4.
Tigers like water, are good swimmers, and will often cool off in rivers.
Most tigers have more than 100 stripes, and no two tigers have the same stripe pattern!
Tigers are diurnal, which means their peak activity occurs at dawn and dusk.
Tigers eat around 6 kilos of meat a day, but can go as long as a week without food.
Tiger saliva is antiseptic, and they use it to clean their wounds.
If you were to shave off a tiger’s fur, it would still be striped!
The heaviest recorded tiger was a Siberian tiger weighing 1,025 pounds.
Tiger cubs are blind at birth, and can gain 100 grams in weight per day.
All tigers have a similar marking on their foreheads, which resembles the Chinese symbol Wang, meaning “King.”
Tigers move both legs on one side of the body simultaneously when they walk.
A tiger’s night vision is six times greater than a human’s.
A captive tiger can live up to twenty years; a wild tiger usually lives between ten and fifteen years.

In this week’s picture the actual drawing of the tiger is fairly simple. The tricky part comes in drawing the tiger’s habitat. The drawing has a foreground (anything in front of the tiger), a middle ground (where the tiger is standing), and a background (the landscape and sky behind the tiger). We used “bump and jump” to add grasses in front of the tiger. Two fun opportunities for creativity in this picture are in the tiger’s stripe pattern and in the landscape around the tiger.

Tiger

tigerdrawing2

Line Drawing of Tiger

Abstract Tiger by Franz Marc

THE MEDIUM:

Using Prismacolor NuPastels & Mixing Mediums

Prismacolor NuPastels

At KidzArt we use

Prismacolor NuPastel color sticks. This form of chalk has a slightly varnished surface, which keeps it harder and cleaner than other varieties. They come in thin sticks which can be easily broken to be more manageable for small hands.

Mixing mediums (the materials used to create a picture) is a fun technique to create contrast in a picture. In this picture, we used chalk pastels to create texture in the tigers’ fur and in several of the background elements and highlighted other portions using markers. Using black Prismacolor Markers or sharpies for the tigers’ stripes highlights their vivid boldness and makes the stripes really dominate the pictures.

Some mediums are easier to mix than others. Because chalk pastels can be a messy medium, it is best to use the markers first, then work around them with the chalk, to avoid ruining the markers. Encourage your child to try more multimedia projects at home.

Ask Your Child …

To point out the foreground, middle ground, and background of the picture.
To explain the use of “bump and jump.”
To explain any unique items in his landscape.
To show how she used chalk pastels to add shadow and texture.
Talk about how each tiger’s stripes are unique, and discuss the stripe pattern your child used.

Tags: animal drawings, chalk, foreground/background, KidzArt
Posted in Drawings - in depth | No Comments »

Crab on Velour

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

This week’s picture is a CRAB, using CHALK PASTELS on VELOUR PAPER as the medium.

In this picture, your child explored:

Using chalk pastels on an unusual surface
Blending chalk on velour
The concept of constellations as a group of stars connecting to form a figure or picture

THE DRAWING:

Crab

The picture we drew this week is of a crab. This is not just a typical, realistic scene, however! The crab does have many elements of realism, but it also represents Cancer, the crab constellation. (Cancer is Latin for crab.)

The story of the crab constellation is found in the Greek mythology Twelve Labors of Hercules. The goddess Hera sent the Crab to distract Hercules from his battle with the multi-headed monster, Hydra. The crab grabbed onto Hercules’s toe with its claws, but he effortlessly crushed the crab with his foot. Hera, grateful for the little crustacean’s heroic but pitiful effort, gave it a place in the sky.

First, look at these crab photographs with your child:

: Yellow Crab

Crab (Line Drawing)

Now, compare these to the crab constellation (inside the yellow dashed lines)… can your child figure out why it is called “crab?”

Cancer Constellation

And talk about these other examples of representative constellations:

Scorpius (Scorpion) Constellation

Leo (Lion) Constellation

Gemini (Twins) Constellation

THE MEDIUM:

Using Chalk Pastels on Velour Paper

At KidzArt we use Prismacolor NuPastel color sticks. This form of chalk has a slightly varnished surface, which keeps it harder and cleaner than other varieties. They come in thin sticks which can be easily broken to be more manageable for small hands.

Prismacolor NuPastels

This picture is very different from the other pictures we have done recently using chalk pastels because it is drawn on black velour paper. This velvety paper has a unique finish that is particularly effective when used with chalk pastels. Working on black makes the chalk colors especially vivid, but this paper is available in a variety of colors and some of the lighter colors work well with charcoal drawings.

Velour Paper

In this picture we taught your children how to layer colors to create a richer, more vivid picture. Layering pastels is always important to add depth, but on the velour paper this is particularly necessary to keep the chalk from “disappearing” into the velour.

Ask Your Child …

To explain how and where she layered the chalk pastels.
How using velour paper is different from using regular paper.
What he learned about constellations.
How she made her crab realistic, or if it has fantasy elements because it represents a constellation.

Tags: animal drawings, chalk, constellation, KidzArt, representative art, velour paper
Posted in Drawings - in depth | 1 Comment »