Grade: Pre-K through 12
This assignment was great practice for my kid's fine motor skills and was also a wonderful lesson in quality versus quantity. This was a multi-step project and required the student's to really invest time into their craft.
To start we began by discussing the concept of line and even had the children explain what a line meant to them. We then talked about the differences between organic and non-organic lines and where they can be found. After that we explored some images of feather patterns and also closely looked at the lines created by overlapping feathers.
The student's were encouraged to explore lines by doodling in the air with their "magic pencil" aka their pointer finger :) When we were ready we jumped into the drawing portion.
I like to take certain assignments step by step, and when you have a desired product it is sometimes necessary to break in apart for your students. The great thing about teaching owls as a subject is that they are constructed of very basic geometric shapes like circle, triangles, diamonds and curved lines.
We began with the eyes; two large circles in the center of the paper. They then added smaller circle inside of them for the pupils. After that we added the beak; a small triangle under the eyes. At this point the children could choose a body style, round and fat, long and skinny, or more boxy shaped. They began near the eye and then came all the way up to the other eye. They then added legs, a simple line with an upside-down "V" attached to the bottom. They added wings to the sides of the birds and then, the real fun began: The lines and patterns.
At this point each student began to create their own style of lines and patterns to recreate the natural feather pattern. After they had a great sketch done in pencil I gave them a permanent black marker (fine tip) and they traced over each an every one of the lines. This brought out all of the natural contrast needed for the project.
When they finished tracing they used watercolors to fill in all of the white space on the owls.
I really adore how they turned out. Here are just a few of the finished product.
-Art Lady
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