Friday, June 19, 2015

Art Lesson: Skateboarding Rabbits

I've long admired the art of UK native, Ashley Percival.  His whimsical illustrations are so cheerful!

I thought his would be the perfect style to use as inspiration for a new drawing lesson with the children in my art class last week.

We used this illustration as our prototype:


Artist: Ashley Percival


To get the children going, I created a template for the sweater.


(I find children under the age of 12 tend to draw to a very small scale.  Having the sweater at a set size forced them to stick to the larger scale!)




I had each child trace the template onto funky printed paper, cut out the sweaters and glue them into the middle of a piece of white cardstock.

From this point, they had to draw on:

- a head
- ears
- a jaunty cap
- eyes
- rosy cheeks
- nose/whiskers/mouth
- paws
- skinny jeans
- shoes
- skateboard


This was my example.

I had the kids create their own hand-printed background as well.
This one belongs to a 7.5 year old student.



Thank you for the inspiration, Ashley!





14 comments:

  1. I love his work too! And your kids did such a good job! That's genius about giving them a template to start from to gauge scale also. :)

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    1. It can be frustrating for both me and the kids; I think they WANT to draw bigger but somehow, dimensions are easier to get right when they're tiny. Thanks, Mary!

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  2. These little rabbits are so fun! Great idea to start with the sweater in patterned paper and have them draw from there. I love their little imaginations!

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    1. Thank you, Edi! Ooooh yes: kids' imaginations are a special thing...it's a privileged to watch them in action!

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  3. Your art classes sound like so much fun :)
    The kids' bunnies are amazing! I love how they each reproduced the skinny legs and rosy cheeks :)

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    1. The skinnies and rosy cheeks are a riot, eh? The kids got a kick out of learning how to do a basic skinny jean under a sweater :)

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  4. cool idea! The kids made really nice art!

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    1. I'll let them know they were getting all this love on the blog...they'll be tickled!

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  5. That's an adorable idea, and I really love the original illustrations. Sometimes I want to go to school to be an art educator, I really love to look at student's work :) So much character.

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    1. You're right about that, Van: each child bring their very own flavor to a project. It's really, really rewarding to see them put new skills to use :)

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  6. From one art teacher to another - kudos darling! I love to see more in the new year!

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  7. This is such a great idea! Perfect for that age group, right? Looks like a lot of fun!

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  8. Wow, the work that the children produced is so imaginative! Great idea, you sound like a wonderful teacher.

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