Strike a Pose! Make a Gesture!

Tell a class of 6th graders that they are about to do a project based on drawing people and you can actually see the panic in their faces. So, I teach human figure drawing through gestures. Gestures are quick sketches used to capture movement. The kids practice drawing gestures a few times before beginning the final project. I'm still working on the actual project that we do with the gestures. This one is just a little different from last trimester and next trimester's is going to be completely different.

The 6th graders just learned about learning how to draw a person in correct proportion. We used a drawing technique called, gestures. Gestures are a nice change for the students because they previously worked on showing lots of details in their still-life drawings, and gestures require very few details. Here are a few of my favorites!!

Gestures

The 6th graders just spent some time learning about the proportions of the human body and how to draw people in gestures (quick drawings used to capture movement). I've posted some fun one's!

Strike a Post; Make a Gesture!

What middle school student doesn't hate drawing people (okay, I do have one, but he's the only one in my 11 years of teaching)? When I introduce this project and tell the kids I'm going to teach them how to draw people, there is actually a collective moan throughout the room. Then I let a kid stand on my desk while I demonstrate a gesture on the board. Usually they remain nervous about it until they start sketching their own and they see how fun it is. After practicing several times I have them pair up and they take turns modeling and drawing. The energy in the room this year was so cool! The kids really seemed to like the project and when I saw them in the school they would ask, "Do we get to draw people again today!?!?" I've posted a few that are also hanging in our hallway.

Gestures

The 6th graders recently learned how to draw people by using a technique we call "gestures". Here is an excellent project that Olivia completed.

Gestures

The 6th graders learned how to draw people by using gestures (a quick drawing used to capture movement of a person). The students worked together as model and artist, taking turns helping each other. Their only requirements were that there had to be 5 people and they had to be active. Some of there ideas were really creative! We had kids working on pictures ranging from snowball fights to playing baseball in the Milky Way! I thought these kids did a great job!