Drawing in the Visual Arts Classroom
and Young Audiences of New Jersey LINK
and Michelle Marigliano, Senior Director of Education and Equity
and Trenton Public School School District LINK
and Elizabeth Rose Zwierzynski,
Acting Supervisor of Visual & Performing Arts and Partnerships
Session 4
June 5, 2024
Today we will be revisiting the central tenets of culturally responsive teaching as they relate to blind contour drawing for the art classroom.
Culturally Responsive Teaching Points:
- Build a positive classroom culture
- Get to know your students and families
- Provide opportunities for students to see themselves in the learning
- Set high expectations for all students
- LINK
Observational Drawing with Any Drawing Tool
In this fourth and final coaching/professional development workshop for high school art teachers at Trenton Central High School, New Jersey, YANJ/PA Teaching Artist, Triada Samaras, introduced a new drawing material: colored pastel and a new concept for the day, observational drawing from flowers native to students living in New Jersey.
Based on the book Look Closer Draw Better by Kateri Ewing
"If I could choose one lesson to pass along to other artists, there is only one real choice: The importance and joy of learning to see....not just what but how we see...." LINK
1) Mindfulness Meditation
2) Set the tone for close observational drawing
A) Focus and Study Lo-Fi Music
Tune out distraction and set yourself up for a focused, effective study session...featuring hip hop inspired lo-fi sounds to help you study, work, relax.
OR
B) New Jersey Bird Sounds
Another possible resource:
Pomodoro Technique
Pomodoro Technique
Blind contour drawings develop our attention and concentration.
They can also calm us if we stop worrying about the "outcome" the end drawing.
They can also calm us if we stop worrying about the "outcome" the end drawing.
Instead concentrate on seeing the plant in a whole new way and learning about its details!
The goals of this art activity is to see something that is very familiar in a whole in a new way.
"It is my belief that if we pay close enough attention, we can discover immense beauty in the most ordinary subjects of our daily lives" Kateri Ewing
Blind Contour Drawing Instructions
- Calm your energy down as much as possible.
- Pick a tool you would like to use to draw with (One works best for this exercise).
- Position your paper to your right if you are right handed and to your left if you are left-handed.
- Let the plant come into focus in your eyes.
- Set your eyes upon a point on the contour of the object.
- The aim is to begin and end at the same place.
- Pretend you are a tiny ant on that plant (pick a specific location where the ant is).
- Look at the "ant" again and pretend it is walking clockwise.
- As the ant walks move your drawing tool along with this motion of the imaginary and return to the place you started.
- Do not lift your drawing tool off the paper.
- This is an exercise in looking not in creating an exact copy of the object
- Take your time drawing, ten minutes at least.
- When you are done look down at your paper. Can you see where the line you made follows the path your eyes took?
Share!
What did you see about this object that is wholly new?
Try it again!
"I have been truly amazed and enchanted-to discover what happens to our artwork when we truly learn not just what, but how to see" Kateri Ewing
