Volume Drawing II

    I woke up wanting to do a drawing lesson, so I warned the boys to set their minds to something different, put on some Chopin piano, made sure I found all the stuff they’d need, then called them to come pray with me.

    The book combined thinking about light sources with volume drawing applied to a real project, so I knew it would take all morning, actually, B finished his project during nap time, I finished mine during run around outside hour.  M experimented with markers and crayons and did his own thing.  He was ready for snack and run around time way before the rest of us, but he is 4 after all.

    I pulled the curtains, got out some objects, and had the boys describe the lights and shadows from a flashlight held behind, before, and on both sides of the objects.  They both caught on quickly that whatever side the light is on is bright, and the other side is shadowed.  Then we opened the shades, turned on the kitchen lights, and looked at how many shadows my had cast on the table and talked about how confusing the lights and shadows can be indoors.  I explained the trick that both Mona Brooks and Barry Stebbing mentioned: draw a little sun in the corner of your blotter paper under your drawing to remind you to keep the highlights and shadows consistent.

    The "Drawing with children," book recommended doing all the eye and body relaxing exercises in chapter one before trying the project, they felt wonderful.  Maybe that’s why I wanted to draw so much this morning.

    The project was to take a black and white drawing of Tiger Lilies (actually, they are Asiatic lilies, but the book labeled them Tigers.)  We chose three shades of green, and three shades of flower color, with either black or sepia for the stamens and freckles.
We were to start with the central flower, block out the shape in our palest flower color, then add the shadow on top, then the mid-light, then the dark details.  We followed the same procedure for leaves and stems, drawing the shapes in the foreground first.  I’d never been taught this technique, it was actually not that hard!  Not that hard when M remembered our "Don’t talk during drawing" rule that is.