TEACHING EXPRESSIVE LINE

 I spend a great deal of my day creating assignments for my students.  Part of that time is also preparing examples and demonstrating techniques.  My beginning students are studying the Element of Line.  We are doing line drawings of different subjects I set up in the room and currently we are working on expressive line.  I decided to update my unit with a couple of new exercises to teach expressive lines. 

First I had my students create a variety of different types of lines.  Then they had to create a drawing of flowers in a vase using expressive lines.  Like any good teacher, I had to do the assignments, too.

My second year students are about to begin a really challenging ink assignment that will take them the entire second, nine weeks to complete.  They are creating a giant self portrait built from individual grids each filled with patterns.  The trick is to create changing values within the same pattern. 

To start them off in ink work, we draw a random doodle across a sketchbook page and they are to fill each section of the doodle with a pattern.  They are also required to create light, medium and dark patterns.

Ink can feel intimidating at first so this exercise helps loosen students up and get them used to working in that medium.  One of the challenges for me in creating a demo piece is making sure I don't complete a piece that needs to be partially done so student's can figure out the process.

It's been a busy week of building new projects for my classes while also teaching a workshop on Artist Trading Cards.  I've got lots of projects planned for my weekend so stay tuned to see what pops up next.