Kids Art Class- Grid Drawings

Kids art class spent a couple of weeks on drawing. We talked about grids as a way to break down paper art references into small pieces. I wanted them to understand that by drawing what they see, they can draw anything they want.

In this lesson I used copies of portrait line drawings by artists of the past. Ahead of time I enlarged a copy of a portrait done by Spanish artist Juan Gris to an 11x17 size.




The enlarged copy was cut into 20 numbered rectangles. Each student was given one rectangle and a blank rectangle of the same size. They copied what they saw in their rectangle to the blank one. We talked about looking closely at lines, where they are placed their angles, thickness, etc.

After each of the students finished their rectangle we taped them in order to an old mat board and they were able to see the finished group drawing. It was surprising how well the pieces matched.



For the remainder of class they worked on a George Bellows line drawing puzzle. It was interesting to notice that his work contained light grid marks showing that he used a similar system to create his it.



I scrambled the drawing ahead of time in Photoshop.


Each of the kids used a blank grid to solve the puzzle by drawing what they saw in the rectangles in the right order.


We ran out of time and this ended up becoming homework.



The project was a little overwhelming for the younger kids.



They did well. I didn't get photos of the finished drawings but when I do I'll post them. As time goes on we'll talk explore using grids to enlarged or reduce work it would have been overload for this lesson.