Observational Drawing Lesson Plan High School

Lesson Still Life and Observation Drawing

Andy Warhol, Five Views of an Onion, 1950s
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
1998.one.1750

Learn the fundamentals of contour-line cartoon using still life.

This drawing lesson outlines the basics of contour-line cartoon using Andy Warhol'southward artworks every bit examples. Students create simple contour-line drawings of onions, followed past longer observational drawings from simple yet-life arrangements.

Objectives

• Students identify formal elements of drawing.
• Students use contour-line techniques.
• Students translate visual information into line drawings.

Andy Warhol, V Views of an Onion, 1950s
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
© The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.
1998.1.1750

About the Art

Although Warhol is best known for his silkscreen prints, he was also an excellent draughtsman. Cartoon was a abiding function of his artistic practice. Equally a child he took art classes at the Carnegie Museum of Fine art and afterwards won awards for drawings he had made in high school. At Carnegie Constitute for Engineering science (now Carnegie Mellon University, which Warhol graduated from with a degree in pictorial design), Warhol'south offbeat, nontraditional drawing style did not meet all his professors' academic standards, and he was forced to practice extra work in this area over summer break. In the 1950s, Warhol's blotted line cartoon technique defined his signature style for his commercial piece of work. He also filled sketchbooks with freehand drawings, generally done in ballpoint pen, of friends and even so lifes. Several of his whimsical sketches and drawings from this era were published in magazines and books, such every bit The Best in Children's Books series and a lilliputian-known vintage cookbook called Wild Raspberries. Other sketchbook drawings were exhibited as fine fine art, such equally Studies for a Boy Book , displayed at the Bodley gallery in New York in 1956. In his pop artwork, Warhol used a combination of mechanical and hand-drawn techniques every bit well every bit an opaque projector to trace outlines of images in preparation for his paintings. He also incorporated fatigued lines in his later silkscreened images, such as Mao Wallpaper , Mick Jagger , Gems , and his 1980s commercial piece of work.

I was doing my [cartoon] technique and then they told me I had to go to summer school, and if I didn't get to summer school I couldn't come dorsum, and then and so I went to summer school and learned how to draw similar they did.

Points of View

One Lord's day…nosotros went downwards to the flower market place and bought some irises and came back and spent the afternoon drawing…He would only draw one line and and then leave it, and when I would depict things, I was e'er erasing, changing, and improving. And he never improved on annihilation. Rather than practice that, he would describe a new i, which is something I never thought of doing in those days.

Charles Lisanby in Patrick Smith, Andy Warhol's Art and Films, 1988

Vocabulary

• Profile lines: Lines that environs and define the edges of a subject, giving information technology shape and volume. These should not exist confused with a form's outlines. Outline is drawing a line around the periphery of a ii-dimensional object. Contour is creating the effect of a third dimension using highlight and shadow. (artlex.com)
• Contour drawing: Drawing in which contour lines are used to represent subject area thing. A contour drawing has a three-dimensional quality, indicating the thickness besides every bit pinnacle and width of the forms it describes.

Discussion Questions

1. As a grouping, explore Warhol's drawing style during the 1950s using V Views of an Onion and Still-Life: Flowers, then discuss the following:
   • Describe the lines Warhol used to draw these items.
   • How does he achieve book without much utilise of shading?
2. Warhol's early on drawings were sometimes referred to as whimsical and playful. Exercise yous agree? Why or why not?
3. Warhol did not employ an eraser; he would simply outset a new drawing. Why do yous think he did this? If you lot had to draw without an eraser, what might you lot do differently?

Materials

• Notwithstanding life objects (onions, fruit, vegetables, flower arrangements, etc.)
• Paper
• Ballpoint pen, lithographic crayon, conte crayon, or pencil

Procedure

1. Explain what a contour-line cartoon is.
   
2. Explain or demonstrate to students that a continuous line contour drawing is a classic cartoon exercise in which a continuous-line drawing is produced without ever lifting the drawing musical instrument from the page. Sometimes this do is modified as a bullheaded continuous line contour in which a continuous-line drawing is produced without ever looking at the paper. Both exercises are designed to better students' visual concentration.
3. Give students materials to practise contour-line drawings of onions. Explain that the pattern on the skin of the onion helps students meet cross-contour lines, which aid give a shape volume. Try both drawing exercises with students in five to ten minute increments and so adding more time if desired. For a continuous line contour drawing, straight students to gear up their eyes on the contours of the onion and describe the contour very slowly with a steady, continuous line without lifting the drawing tool. For a blind continuous line contour, have students exercise the same but without looking at the paper.
4. Create longer observation drawings from unproblematic still-life arrangements. You may wish to include onions, fruit, vegetables, blossom arrangements, etc.

Wrap-up

Students self appraise their work and the work of their peers by using a rating scale from one to five. ane=unacceptable; 2=needs work; 3=mediocre; four=well done; five=outstanding. Students group the drawings according to each rating. Every bit a class, discuss the criteria the students used to make their choices.

Assessment

The following assessments can exist used for this lesson using the downloadable assessment rubric.

• Aesthetics 1
• Aesthetics 3
• Creative procedure 3
• Creative process five

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Source: https://www.warhol.org/lessons/still-life-and-observation-drawing/

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