help- Teaching Drawing to 9 Year Olds

[adam-crockett]

It’s so great that you teach these girls drawing from such a small age. I wish I could turn back time of my youth and start drawing a little earlier, and, most importantly, with much more vigor. People, generally, get their talents along with their life, with their first breath. However, developing this talent is not something that is given. That was my problem early on: I’ve been way too lazy to work a lot on my early works, I was switching my interests too often (one day I’m all into 3dsmax, the other day i’m drawing portraits, etc), never really concentrating on something. And I’ve never had a tutor, so in my case self-discipline was so much more needed than to some who attend art-schools and the like.

I believe that no teacher, no matter how great, cannot imbue his student with a talent. However, it is the teacher’s duty to keep his student on track, to keep him motivated, and discipline him, make him motivate himself, and not being lazy in his studies. The rest will come naturally, through practice.

Anyways, I wish you and your apprentises well!

Thanks Metallix. The girls are pretty creative and talented already, which is why I was excited about giving them some direction. Keeping them on track…now THERE’S a challenge!

[adam-crockett]

I just thought of something that might motivate them to practise. Do you have any old drawings from the time you were their age? That way they can see what they can accomplish if they practise long enough

Thats an interesting idea. Im not sure if I have any art that old around here, but Im pretty sure that my mom kept a bunch. Id have to call her and see if she can scan it and send it my way. Wait… hee hee, maybe I’ll post some of that here. Maybe start a whole new thread. It probably already been done.

[Hugh-Jass]

hey adam! it’s “me”

I had typed areally long thingie over the weekend when the forums were all goofy and it just wouldn’t post.

so in summary from what I remember

variety in exercises…keep it playful

keep them interested
tracing shadows…to sort of indirectly teach neg space and graphic shape
profiles, hands, leaf…whatever…then you can ask them to try and do familiar objects from their imaginations as outlines
draw from memory (show them something…then hide it)
drawing without looking…always kooky fun
collage, mix up the media every now and then, watercolor…
draw/express vocabulary… inside… velocity… hungry… excited… compassion…messy
simultaneous portaits…facing each other drawing at same time…it’s fun simply because they wind up cracking up trying to look up at the same time

you can do those as warm ups without drawing from observation and then try and apply them to observation later or in a separate lesson

[adam-crockett]

hey adam! it’s “me”

I had typed areally long thingie over the weekend when the forums were all goofy and it just wouldn’t post.

so in summary from what I remember

variety in exercises…keep it playful

keep them interested
tracing shadows…to sort of indirectly teach neg space and graphic shape
profiles, hands, leaf…whatever…then you can ask them to try and do familiar objects from their imaginations as outlines
draw from memory (show them something…then hide it)
drawing without looking…always kooky fun
collage, mix up the media every now and then, watercolor…
draw/express vocabulary… inside… velocity… hungry… excited… compassion…messy
simultaneous portaits…facing each other drawing at same time…it’s fun simply because they wind up cracking up trying to look up at the same time

you can do those as warm ups without drawing from observation and then try and apply them to observation later or in a separate lesson

Hey Chris! Good to hear from you. Thanks for pitching in!
Good suggestions all… I’ll try to work them in. (Im going to have to print out this thread to work through all this stuff.) We have actually done collage. That was the last class I did with them actually. (Its been a while now…must just be the holiday season) I should scan the collages and post them here. Hope their mom still has them.

I like the dual self portrait idea, though they are very competitve, so it might cause problems : )

Are these exercises from personal experience? I dont remember if you have kids.

[Hugh-Jass]

I like the dual self portrait idea, though they are very competitve, so it might cause problems : )

Are these exercises from personal experience? I dont remember if you have kids.

I have a two year old who draws on her own so i haven’t started her art boot camp yet

as for experience with the suggestions
some are from memory from grade school…
some I made up… based on some language exercises I used to teach
(when i was you know where)…drawings were very useful in getting 10 year olds enthusiastic about english. they loved my drawing on the whiteboard in the lessons

but similar to starting a figure drawing class w/ gestures…to warm up…in language and I suspect with almost anything with young kids…you grab their attention with something quick and fun…sometimes reviewing previous lesson concept…then you move on to new territory or a longer lesson… give them some sort of choice in what they do so they feel like they have input in what they are doing, but not so much that they don’t have a clear direction

since they are compettitive you could do the dual portaits as a “showdown” where you time ten second intervals for them to trade roles …back and forth …and then see what comes up after a minute of that.

an example of choice is giving options for same assignment… draw one of these following words or pick any thing from this still life and make it aliive (add arms and legs etc)

the main thing is kids like to be creative …so you can make any dry assignment silly…

[Beef_Cake]

Have you tried doing some basic water coloring?

I’m still in high school at the moment and that is one thing we are about to be working on. I know it can get pretty complex if you go into all of the different washes and what not but if you kept it simple I’m sure they could have fun with it.

A friend of mine recently did a water color of a character from an anime called “Full Metal Panic” and it turned out really well. He didn’t get really detailed in layering the different opacities either. You stated earlier that there was a manga that they liked to draw. Get them to draw either a picture from memory or a picture they pick from that show and get them to do a simple water color.

The best thing about water color is that it’s interesting and they don’t really have to know the many different techniques there are to get interesting results. You might could tell them how they can add more water to the paint to make it lighter and doing the opposite to make it darker. This might help them thing about contrast a bit even though they won’t know it. Anime and manga have shadows even though they’re simplified.

Some of that might be getting a little advanced. I know I’m still learning. I am simple amazed when I come to this site even though I just recently discovered it (this will be my second post on these forums). This thread has given me a lot of inspiration. I have trouble getting myself to draw even though I have the urge to I just can’t bring my self to get my imagination working and get my ideas on paper. That is my $.02 though. I hope I was able to contribute to the discussion here. I must say I feel most inferior while perusing around the site!

[adam-crockett]

Have you tried doing some basic water coloring?

I’m still in high school at the moment and that is one thing we are about to be working on. I know it can get pretty complex if you go into all of the different washes and what not but if you kept it simple I’m sure they could have fun with it.

A friend of mine recently did a water color of a character from an anime called “Full Metal Panic” and it turned out really well. He didn’t get really detailed in layering the different opacities either. You stated earlier that there was a manga that they liked to draw. Get them to draw either a picture from memory or a picture they pick from that show and get them to do a simple water color.

The best thing about water color is that it’s interesting and they don’t really have to know the many different techniques there are to get interesting results. You might could tell them how they can add more water to the paint to make it lighter and doing the opposite to make it darker. This might help them thing about contrast a bit even though they won’t know it. Anime and manga have shadows even though they’re simplified.

Some of that might be getting a little advanced. I know I’m still learning. I am simple amazed when I come to this site even though I just recently discovered it (this will be my second post on these forums). This thread has given me a lot of inspiration. I have trouble getting myself to draw even though I have the urge to I just can’t bring my self to get my imagination working and get my ideas on paper. That is my $.02 though. I hope I was able to contribute to the discussion here. I must say I feel most inferior while perusing around the site!

Well, I do want to introduce them to different media, so I’d definitely have to include watercolors in there sometime. I find watercolor a very difficult medium to wrangle, but I like it a lot.

Dont worry about what to draw right now. Just enjoy the process of drawing. Making marks on paper is an enjoyable physical activity. A lot of times people think that they have to have an idea what to draw before they start in. Sometimes that helps, but really you can just dig in and start drawing. Change things as you feel like it on down the road. Just ENJOY drawing! Copy magazines, comics, pause a frame on your favorite movie and draw that. Collage a picture together from magazines and reinterprit it into a drawing. You dont really need an idea of what to draw. Personally, I just like to draw, and I’ll sit down and start drawing and see what happens… basically just letting my hand run on automatic (Dali called them automatic drawings, in fact) and then when something catches my attention, I’ll manipulate it into something recogniseable. (Dori’s song: Just keep drawing, just keep drawing)

[Hugh-Jass]

you ever do the watercolor spatter with a toothbrush and running your finger accrooss the bristles to spray on to paper?

the other thing which I always liked is putting a little pool of water color down and blowing it accrossthe paper with a straw…you can get some crazy branching too.

Potato prints, potato prints, potato prints… just had to throw that in there ( if you can safely manage the carving part)

also let them get the coffee stain effect…where you let the pool of water color dry and the majority of the pigment go to edges so you get those cool edges.

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