Perspective Lesson for Kids

The thing I love about tutoring kids in art, is that I can focus all of my attention on one student. I have the luxury of time and focus to making sure that my one student "gets" whatever we're working on. I can modify my lessons to suit their individual needs, wants and interests. Whatever she's into learning, I teach. Whenever she doesn't understand a concept, we back up and go slower. Ahhhhh how nice it is to only teach one kid at a time. And it helps that my student is a rockstar and a sweetheart. I will very much miss our tutoring sessions when I'm in Portland. Anyway, onto my student's favorite lesson. I was blown away that this was her favorite. Perspective had to be one of my least favorite classes of my entire college career. Didn't help that my Professor had a big rubber stamp that said, "DO OVER" that he used liberally with bright red ink on our homework assignments.... that took hours. Ugh! This lesson takes a little know-how and basic knowledge in perspective rules and techniques. But it's not that complicated. Here, I'll help:

One-Point Perspective for 4th grade and up:

1.) All you need is a paper and pencil for this one. 

2.) Give basic concept of perspective rules: Why do we use these "rules"? They help us build anything 3D on a 2D surface and make it look real. Talk about how things that are farther away are drawn smaller to trick the eye into making depth.... etc. etc.

3.) Draw a Horizon line. Talk about what this even means - it's where the sky separated from the Earth in the viewers point of view. 

4.) Draw a vanishing point. Or, if you're me, you call it "The Magic Dot". Explain that that thing is basically the point where things are so far away that they're out of view. You're making an interior, now, so draw a small rectangle, with your "orthogonal" lines as shown in the bottom picture. 

5.) Erase the horizon line. Use the Magic Dot to help build objects for your interior. Remember you will have vertical lines, horizontal lines, and the others will connect to the Magic Dot. You can even go into ellipses, and how they operate in Perspective. Give it a try. My Tutee rockstar student really got into this lesson. At first it's hard, then its freeing to know this amazing, amazing rule of drawing. Have fun!! 

Look at the amazing bakery interior that my student made!!!! Can you believe she's a 4th grader? So proud :)

Easy Perspective Lesson - Mother's Day Cards

Just in time for Mother's Day (it comes up, quick!!), here is a great card idea.  In the school I'm working at right now, we are preparing for next month's art walk event, which will feature student artwork for sale as a fundraiser for their schools.  The principal thought notecards would be great for this and I totally agree! Not everyone wants to hang a stranger's kid's artwork on their wall, but who wouldn't want to send their "thank you's" on these cuties???!!! And they're educational for the kids, too! Here's how we made them:

You'll need:

• super fine tip black sharpies

• watercolor pencils (or just watercolor if you don't have these...either works great!)

• whatever size card you want to work on, and some cut down white construction paper to fit onto them, leaving a small border. 

- Talk about what is a "landscape".  Show some pictures of landscapes, and explain "foreground" (everything that's closest to the viewer), "middleground" (everything a big further away), and "background" (everything that's the farthest away from the viewer). Maybe have the kids close their eyes and visualize a landscape that they know of...maybe when they're camping or hiking. This step actually helps a lot!!

- Have kids divide their papers into 3 equal parts, marking lines with pencil (in the first picture below, you can see these lines faintly). The bottom will be foreground, the middle is middleground, and the top is background. 

- Tell kids to put away their pencils and just "go for it" with their sharpies the rest of the time. This is scary to many kids (and adults!) but it's good practice to be brave in these small ways and in art. 

- You draw on the board or under a doc cam while they draw. Just give them examples and ideas of what they could draw in each section, but empasize that these will...and should....all look different. Here's what a few of the kids came up with.  Enjoy making these!!