Russian Matryoshka Doll Drawings

This was a lesson I left for my substitute teacher when I was out sick. It's the perfect sub lesson as it only uses markers, but also allows for a lot of creativity and engagement from students.

See my previous post about this lesson HERE. It has all the steps.

Find the doll template HERE.

Some finished work by Grade 4-6:

 

Scratch Art

This was an open project I gave to my Grade 10-12 class. They have done scratch art before so I didn't need to review much, other than telling them lots of details, pattern and line work. Fur and feathers work very well with scratchboard techniques.

They sketched a drawing first on regular copy paper. Then they tape it onto their chosen scratchboard and trace over the lines firmly with a ball point pen. This transfers a faint grey line onto the scratchboard. 

The gold ones were very difficult to photograph as they are metallic and highly reflective! Hence why I had to photograph these n an angle. 

 

Yayoi Kusama Pumpkins

Yayoi Kusama (born 22 March 1929) is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. She has been acknowledged as one of the most important living artists to come out of Japan, the world's top-selling female artist, and the world's most successful living artist. Her work influenced that of her contemporaries, including Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.

Kusama has been open about her mental health and has resided since the 1970s in a mental health facility which she leaves daily to walk to her nearby studio to work. 

Grade 4-6 students watched a video about Kasuma's life. Then they looked at photos of her work, including her pumpkins and mushrooms. 

Yayoi Kusama often features kabocha, or pumpkin, in her work. Since 1946 Kusama’s pumpkins have taken many forms, colours and shapes, but they are always covered in the artist’s signature polka dot pattern.

Although she makes lots of different types of art – paintings, sculptures, performances and installations – she has become known for the one thing they have in common, DOTS! Yayoi Kusama tells the story of how when she was a little girl she had a hallucination that freaked her out. She was in a field of flowers when they all started talking to her! The heads of flowers were like dots that went on as far as she could see, and she felt as if she was disappearing or as she calls it ‘self-obliterating’ – into this field of endless dots. This weird experience influenced most of her later work. By adding all-over marks and dots to her paintings, drawings, objects and clothes she feels as if she is making them (and herself) melt into, and become part of, the bigger universe. 

Students started off by drawing a 3D pumpkin on regular white paper.

Then they outlined it in sharpie and added dots of different sizes in vertical lines down the pumpkin.

Then we did the tin foil bingo dauber transfer technique which I saw on an Instagram reel.

Cut tin foil the same size as the paper. Students use bingo daubers to create a pattern on the tin foil.

Then spray the tin foil with water and place the pumpkin drawing face down. Rub and peel off to reveal the colorful transfer!

Finished Grade 4-6 artworks!

 

Drawing Disney Characters

Grade 4-6 students drew along with videos by Disney animators to create portraits of

 some famous Disney characters. 

You can find the videos HERE on YouTube on the official Disney Parks channel. It features animators from the Animation Academy at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. They explain their drawing process step by step. It is SO interesting watching their techniques and the fantastic way they explain symmetry and sighting. My students really enjoyed following along with these videos and their favourite animator was Heather Worley!

Highly recommend these videos for improving technical drawing skills!