Monday, March 30, 2009

Tutoring: Superhero Men and Women Proportions




Last week during tutoring we discussed how the next goal for my student was to be able to draw the human bod with good proportions. He wanted to be able to draw men and women with proper muscle structure and proper size. These three pencil drawings are good examples of good proportions with the exception of the last drawing to the right on the bottom picture.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Tutoring: Women's Faces

Examples of girl's faces at relatively simple angles. These are all fairly simple and straightforward photos of girl's faces but I think they will be instrumental in my student learning how to draw and master such things as lips, eyebrows and jawlines for women. Those were his noted trouble areas, but if he keeps drawing from photographs of women, he will improve and will be able to draw a basic woman's face from memory eventually and that is the goal.



First Tutoring Session

Last Thursday. March 19th, was the first tutoring and I made some changes to the original plan during this session. My student is very intent on learning a number of things, and I have decided to attempt to teach him how to draw certain things, rather than a wide "how-to-draw" curriculum. He wants to learn to draw better women, animals, and more realistic proportions on his people. I consider myself good at proportions and women, so I feel like I actually have something to contribute on those subjects. Animals are not a particular strong point for me, but I can still help. We mostly worked from various "how-to-draw" books that he bought, and I decided at the end of the session that it was time to take the realistic next step from the copying from the books, copying from photographs. Copying from a drawing book is fairly basic, but with a photograph you have to make your own judgement calls about lights and darks and where to put the lines. I wouldn't consider drawing from a "how-to-draw" book drawing from a reference, but I definitely would consider drawing from a photograph to be that. If my student is going to take the next step then he needs to start drawing from photos and then drawing from life. If he becomes competent at drawing from references, I think that it will become easier for him to master the "manga" style of art that he is really trying to achieve. If someone can draw realistically, it is much easier to draw in a cartoon style because you then know what proportions and features to exaggerate. This Thursday I gave him a homework assignment to draw girl's faces from photographic reference and I am going to bring in a few photographs of women and animals to draw quick sketches off of. This will be the first step in him becoming able to whip up a drawing without needing a specific reference.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Advanced Lesson Plan

Stage 1: Assessment of Ability
The first part of the lesson involves finding potential strengths as well as potential weaknesses in my student's abilities. I will ask for three drawings to be created, a drawing of a person, a drawing of a small still life setup, and a drawing of a building. These will be simple sketches, taking five to ten minutes to create each.

Stage 2: Improvement of Weaknesses
After drawing three sample pieces, my student and I will pick the one that we agree needs the most work and we will focus on improving his technique in this area for the next couple classes. I will bring "how-to" manuals on improvement of this area and I will also try and lend my skills to helping improve his technique.

Stage 3: Assessment of Improvement
At the end of the first day, we will have created three sketches, as well as a few sketches of the area that needs improvement. At the end of the session, we will step back and review what has been learned over the course of the lesson. We will discuss the plan for next lesson, what worked and what didn't and I will assign some sort of small homework involving making a drawing or two for the next week's session.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Lesson Plan #1

The objective, in my opinion, of today's tutoring session is assessment of ability. I want to find out where my student is in terms of talent and technique and from there make further lesson plans. On this first day I plan to have my student draw a few quick exercises and I can make a basic assessment. We will draw a person, a background, and a still life-type composition. Once we figure out what needs work, we can work on perfecting the form. I also want to find out from him what he feels is his weak point, what he wants to work on. Today is the introduction and the overall assessment of what works for him and what doesn't. I plan on bringing a couple "how-to-draw" books and perhaps a comic with simplistic style art. I will try and stress the importance of constant practice and repetition to acheive perfection of form. I will also try to show my student how important it is to reference from photographs or other sources when drawing something difficult. I hope that I am able to connect with my student and I truly hope that I will be able to teach him at least something of value today that he can use when drawing even when I'm not around. I do not know anything about what he wants other than that he draws cartoons and hopefully we can work on improvement of his form. If I can acheive proper assessment today, next Thursday will be alot easier because I will have an idea of what he needs and what he wants to do. My criteria for assessment will be based upon three things, proportion, composition, and technique. I will find his weakest point and that is what we will work on for the next few lessons.