Art unit- Lesson 4

Lesson 4: Depth and Dimension

First we discussed the meaning of depth and practiced drawing 3-d figures. They spent quite a while on this. I've never showed them how to draw these before, and Rylan was especially interested when I showed him how to give his houses dimension by adding the sides.



Then we moved on to observation. MC Escher was my artist of choice to show dimension. And they really enjoyed looking at the prints I chose. And seeing how they show depth by using graduating sizes and 3-d shapes. I didn't show them the snake picture below just yet, but saved it for our next exercise.

Next up was a simple exercise to prepare them for their art work of the day. I simply laid out a length of yarn on the table and asked each of them in turn how to make it show depth. Cale held it up vertically- but saw that when I drew it that way it still looked 1-dimensional. Rylan formed it into a circle....and saw the same thing. Cohen, however, hit it right on. He crumbled it up and winded around itself. Which brought us to our discussion on over and under.

I then drew a snake on our board. And asked how to change the drawing to show depth. Then we looked at the MC Escher print with the snakes. We discussed how to start and stop lines to show that certain parts of the picture were over and under each other. Then they got to work....

Rylan took off, and ended with a very long snake...

Cale's snake

Part 2 of this lesson consisted of linear perspective. First we went outside and stood in our side yard facing the back, I had them pick an object and cover it completely in their line of sight. Then they walked toward their object. Cale chose the sunflower house...from the front yard his hand was bigger, but once it reached it the sunflower house was a great deal taller than him. Rylan chose his dad- who was walking toward us at the moment- from the front Rylan could cover his dad completely with his thumb.

Then we went in and looked at a very simple print that showed perspective. A desert road. Then they worked on their own artwork using linear perspective....

Here is Rylan's road, with the trees gradually getting smaller as they get further and further away.

Lesson 3
Lesson 2
Lesson 1