CHARCOAL DRAWINGS

This is a fun project to do and I've had great success with it with grades 9, 10 and 11.  Have the students fold a large piece of newsprint into eights.  In each square they will be doing a drawing (in pencil) in response to a word that you give them but they will only have 1 minute to complete it.  The goal is to draw the first thing that comes to their mind.   Some of the words that you give them will be concrete and the other words will be more abstract and therefore a little more challenging for them to respond to quickly.  Here are the eight words that I used - fire, explosion, city, outer space, flight, growth, death, and animal.  The next step requires them to develop a composition using five of the words/drawings.  While the words that you used cannot change, their original drawn response can be further developed or even changed when they are developing their final charcoal composition.  Some years I have the kids work with a combination of conte and charcoal.

IB 11's AT WORK

With the school year quickly coming to a close, the grade 11 IB students are feeling the pressure of time to finish their last drawing project (free choice).

REMEMBRANCE DAY SILHOUETTES

Some simple silhouettes out of black construction paper on white paper.  The students used a variety of photographs from books to help them develop their vignette.

FAIRYTALE SILHOUETTES

Inspired by Kara Walker, the grade 9's worked with a scene from a story or movie and created these lovely silhouette vignettes (black construction paper on white drawing paper).
 

FIGURATIVE CLOTH DRAWINGS

After starting the class with gesture drawings to warm up, the grade 8's spend another class or two using each other as models, resulting in about 8-10 contour figurative drawings.  They then choose their favourite drawing and use it as a pattern to cut out cloth.  The cloth figures are glued down onto a prepared paint splattered surface (the kids love this part!).  The figure can get 'lost' if the background is too dominate so some students will have to choose their fabrics carefully.  I usually get boxes of scrap material from the sewing department throughout the year.