Mini Monets

Hello Everyone!

For the final project of the Drawing Lines and Shapes session, I wanted the artists to create an observational drawings where they focused on creating real and implied texture. Implied texture is illustrating how something should feel (animal fur, metal, etc.) when it is really just created on paper. Since the leaves have finally started falling, I thought they would be great for drawing. We went out on a scavenger hunt to find leaves on bushes or trees when we had the chance or I brought in my own leaves. Then we brought them back into the class to study them while I read the book Leaves by Patricia Whitehouse. The book talks about all the different types of leaves, the parts that make leaves different, and what leaves do for the plants and trees that they are on. For this drawing, I introduced Conte to the artists. Invented in France in 1795 by Nicolas-Jacques Conté especially for drawing and sketching, Conté Crayons are made from a blend of natural pigments, kaolin clay, and graphite. Conte is a traditional medium for artists to draw in for life drawing or still lifes. For the first picture, we placed the leaves veins up under our paper to create texture rubbings, held the Conte on it’s side, and used a back and forth or side to side motion so that the texture of the leaf will show through the paper. Many of the artists were familiar with this technique to show texture in their art.

For the next class, I showed some works by Albrecht Durer. Durer was a High Renaissance artist who worked in the early 1500s. His attention to detail in his works creates an amazing sense of texture. We looked at many of his drawings and paintings of animals and how he uses details create texture. I followed up with a diagram of leaves so that we could refamiliarize ourselves with the parts of the leaves. It’s great for an artist to have as much visual reference as possible with all the additional information. For the second picture, the artists began to draw their leaves by starting with the midrib of the leaf. Next they drew the curved lines for the shape of the leaf. Leaves are organic shapes that are not perfectly symmetrical and I encouraged the artists to show this. Next they added the lateral and sub lateral veins and the margins around the edges. By showing all the details in a leaf, it creates the implied texture of how their leaves would feel in real life.

            The objective of this project is to identify an artist’s style and using observation skills of the immediate environment to create original imagery.