Name of Project: Multiple Gesture Drawing Lesson
Classroom, School: 11th grade classroom at Arts High School in Golden Valley
Cooperating teacher: Karen Monson
Grade Level: 11th grade
Presenter's Name: Rob Lee
Subject: Drawing
Topics: Compositional Balance
Visual Elements
Figure-gesture drawing; formal elements of: line, mass, shape, value, and placement
Skills Development
Introduction to drawing on a gessoed support and wet on dry painting in drawing
Key Knowledge and Applications
The students are to begin to think of composition in terms of a critical working plan during drawing
Previous Learning Needed
Prior Knowledge: The students should have existing concepts of contour and cross contour line drawing.
Gesture and mass gesture drawing needs to be introduced as a critical concept to the drawings.
The students are expected to have working knowledge of figure-ground relationships as well as a familiarity with a paintbrush.
Objectives
- Students will learn a process-oriented approach to compositional balance in two-dimensional drawing
- Students will learn new techniques and gain familiarity with new mediums
- Students will make sustained charcoal drawings on a pre-gessoed support
- Students will gain understanding of balance durring the act of drawing
Materials
pre-gessoed paper, compressed charcoal, cups, gesso, and 1" paintbrushes
Teacher Vocabulary
write on chalk board
Gesture: descriptive line that moves freely from the edges through the interior of the form recording
movement of the eye as well as distilling the form.
Asymmetrical Balance: dissimilar objects which achieve balance with either visual weight or by competing for attraction of the eye.
Balance: equilibrium of opposing or interacting forces in pictorial composition.
Focusing Attention
"This is a process-oriented approach asking for compositional and editing choices while working."
Learning Activities
- Slide presentation with examples of the concepts of gesture, mass gesture, as well.
- Discussion of exemplars to imbed expectations of teaching goals into the lesson.
- Distribution of materials (compressed charcoal, cups, gesso, and paintbrushes
- Six timed drawing sessions, 4.5-5 minutes each.
- Cleanup and short break.
- Display drawings.
- Critique and discussion.
Summary of Lesson
The project will consist of short gesture drawings made on the same support over a sustained period of time.
The students create figure-ground relationships additively with charcoal and subtractively with gesso to create asymmetrically balanced compositions using two-dimensional design principals.
Feedback Activities
Staging a critique and discussion in which key concepts of balance are identified by students and reviewed as well as other relevant observations from class.