Composition

Before we really get into art class and creating, I spend about two class periods talking about composition and coloring/shading. My hope is that by giving them these tools or suggestions, they will use them in their work. I often refer to our composition guidelines when explaining projects.

We begin by taking some notes about composition and "hints" to remember when drawing. I have them draw a house, tree and clouds. And then I ask where they placed these items in their picture.

Then we do a drawing activity that I found in Carla Sonheim's book Drawing Lab for Mixed-Media Artists: 52 Creative Exercises to Make Drawing Fun. As a class we come up with 12 random nouns. I then use a random number generator to choose 4 of them, one at a time. We then draw each one, keeping in mind the composition hints. It's pretty fun and I talk about how to make it look like a cohesive, yet weird drawing. I usually draw along with them, but AFTER so I don't influence their composition choices.

This takes about one class period. The next class we talk about shading and using colored pencils (since we use those the most): even coverage, short strokes, blending and layering color. Then they have to color their composition drawings.