Drawing Assessments

Over the last 2 weeks my year 7, 8 and 9 classes have participated in an end of year drawing assessment where they had 2 hours to complete a still life drawing.  Here are some examples of their work.  I think it's lovely to see the different drawing styles, and also I think that the students' characters are often translated into their drawings.  My favourites are always the 'wonky' ones.

(The shading looks particularly dark in these images)

This is one of the still life groups that they were drawing...



Portrait Drawings

This is a photo of one of my displays in my room.  It's the year 10 drawings.  Tonal pencil drawings and an oil pastel study using hot and cold colours.

Charcoal Portraits

These are some charcoal drawings done by my year 10 class.  They started by covering their page with charcoal and worked in reverse by rubbing away the lighter areas with a putty rubber, then using charcoal and chalk for details. 

Bird Drawings - Year 11s

We recently bought some stuffed birds in the art department.  They are such a great resource to have and drawings are so much better done from life than from a photo.  These are drawings done by my year 11 class this year.

Charcoal & Chalk Eyes

The large ey drawings done by my year 10 class.  I started the year off by doing these, as it is quite an easy drawing technique and the results are fantastic in my opinion.  It also gets them to consider detail very carefully.

I also did this drawing lesson when I was doing my teacher training placement in Glasgow.  This is the work from 2nd year students, I gave them the choice to draw any feature of their face. 

Shoe Drawings

Some tonal pencil drawings of shoes done by the year 8s before making their Bug Shoe Designs.  Shoes are one of my favourite things to draw!

Big Heads!

My year 8 classes have been working in groups to produce large collage portraits. Each student made a tonal charcoal and chalk drawing of a close up of their own face, using the mirrors.  I assigned them each a different part of the face to draw, working within their table groups.  I didn’t tell them what we were doing at the drawing stage – I told them it was a surprise.  They love a bit of mystery!

We looked at the work of contemporary artist, Yi Chen, who makes collages of faces and paints these.  I am a really big fan of his work.  The students had mixed feelings about Chen’s work – but it opened up lots of discussions in class.  His work questions the role of cosmetic surgery in our society and what true beauty is.  I really enjoy have class discussions with the studets, it's great to hear things from their perspective - often they give very insightful opinions.

I then explained that we would be making a large Yi Chen inspired collage within our groups.  I had taken photocopies of the students’ drawings (I didn’t want to destroy their drawings which were beautiful on their own), and they worked together in their groups to make these collages.  I love these lessons as it allows for some group work, which you don’t often get a chance to do in Art.  The students love making them too as they get a chance to be really messy, work on a large scale and they can make really funny faces.  I think the end results are great!

I’ve been working with the technician, Adam, to get the heads standing up and dotted around school.  This is our trial attempts and I think they look pretty good.  We have an Arts Festival coming up next month, and I’m hoping that all 12 of the heads will be on display.

I did this project a few years ago when I was on my probationer year in Cumbernauld, Scotland.  These heads were made using the students real drawings, rather than photocopies.  I displayed them on the walls at the entrance of my classroom and I think they looked great.