Drawing a Better Cat

I just read this article about a "transcranial magnetic stimulator" which interestingly enabled the reporter who experienced it to draw a cat from memory much better when it was operating then when it was not.  The article unfortunately didn't include pictures which would have been interesting.  Anyway, it is a fascinating read.

The Da Vinci Initiative

After my post yesterday I remembered an email I had received from the Art Renewal Center about the Da Vinci Initiative.  I went looking around their site at the lesson plans they have available and low and behold:

"The Da Vinci Initiative is developing a series of educational videos and K-12 lesson plans. These lesson plans intend to both train teachers who may be unfamiliar with certain technical art skills, and provide a direct learning experience for K-12 students in art classrooms. These resources will be made available online for homeschooling parents as well as adults interested in learning skill-based art methods and techniques."

Click here for a link to their Drawing with Envelopes lesson plan.

Drawing with an Envelope

I was teaching two of my younger students today, they are in 2nd and 5th grade.  I have been working with them, especially the older one, on using envelopes to start a drawing.  An envelope is an outline of a simple shape that surrounds the subject of your drawing.  It is done as the very first mark put down on the paper.  It helps to get the placement of the subject on the paper correctly, helps to start analyzing the big shapes, and helps to avoid time consuming mistakes in proportion.  I have found this to be one of the most effective ways to teach students how to start to learn to "see" and how to work big simple shapes before moving on to smaller details.  I think sometimes my students start using envelopes just to humor me, but slowly they realize what a useful tool it is and how much it improves their drawing.

The method is very simple, you draw a simple shape using straight lines that encompass the object(s) you are drawing.  This helps to simplify things and to see the big shapes, and trains you to look for the big shapes before the small ones.

For example, in Bouguereau's Virgin of the Angels, the envelope would look like this, something like a slanted diamond:

image from the J. Paul Getty Museum

Here is a picture of some of the pieces from my student art show.  All the pieces on the far right panel are of grade school students' work, ranging from 2nd to 8th grade, and I taught all of them this method.  The pencil portrait of Abraham Lincoln was done by one of my 5th grade students and it won first place in the Thinkin' Lincoln Art Contest.

Red Chalk Figure Drawing by Jaime Cooper

I used the method I learned from Robert Liberace to do this drawing.  I used white Mi-Tientes paper with a sepia watercolor wash, then a coat of amber shellac thinned with rubbing alcohol.  My only tools were a terra cotta Verithin colored pencil and an eraser pencil.