SKYSCRAPER LINE DRAWING

By Morgan Johnson, Art Room Intern

“I aim to create fun, simple, peaceful images that viewers can relate to and connect with in their own personal ways. I’ve always been attracted to drawing and enjoy the immediate response I can have on a viewer.” — Marz Jr.

Using the illustrative style of artist Marz Jr. as inspiration, students will create a line drawing by choosing iconic New York City skyscrapers to depict. Students will focus on their use of line, shape, and form by cutting out skyscraper shapes and gluing them to colored paper to create a unique cityscape scene.

Marz Jr. Work Inspiration:

Supply List:

• Images of New York City Skyline for Inspiration
• 1 to 2 Pieces of White Construction Paper
• 1 Piece of Colored Construction Paper 
• Pencils
• Black Marker
• Scissors
• Glue

Grab your supplies and let’s get drawing!

Look at the New York City skyline inspiration images and choose a couple of     buildings that you would like to draw.

Using pencil, start by sketching two to three skyscraper buildings onto your colored piece of paper. Plan your composition with space for the cutout skyscraper that will be glued on later. Draw all of the windows onto your skyscraper buildings, too. 

Using a black marker, darken your skyscraper contour lines.

On a piece of white paper, draw your final skyscraper with windows, making sure that it will fit between your others when glued onto the page.

Cut and glue your white skyscraper onto the colored piece of paper.

Add any final touches to your unique cityscape! Think about using varying shapes for the windows on your skyscrapers, such as circles, triangles, or even octagons!

The Skyscraper Line Drawing!

THE BLUE DOG

By Morgan Johnson, Art Room Intern

“The yellow eyes are really the soul of the dog. He has this piercing stare. People say the dog keeps talking to them with the eyes, always saying something different.” — George Rodrigue

In this playful and colorful project, students will learn how to draw and paint the Blue Dog, the cherished pet of famed artist George Rodrigue. Students will focus on their use of line and practice choosing complementary colors to create a one-of-a-kind animal creation. 

George Rodrigue painting The Blue Dog in his studio.

Supply List:

• Drawing Paper
• Pencils
• Black Marker
• Watercolor Paint
• Paintbrush
• Water Cup
• Paper Towels

Grab your supplies and let’s get drawing!

Use a pencil to draw the dog’s head by creating a medium-sized circle in the top center of the paper.

Use a pencil to draw the dog’s facial features. Draw a small rounded square shape for the dog’s nose, two small circular eyes, and a short line for the mouth underneath the nose.

Use a pencil to draw two triangular shapes on either side of the head for ears.

Use a pencil to draw the dog’s body shape. Start with the two outward facing legs     and then draw the two legs sticking out behind the front legs. Use a horizontal line     to connect the two legs with the rest of the body. 

Darken your pencil marks by going over the outline with a black marker.

Use watercolor paint and a paintbrush to paint the dog blue. Add a contrasting color for the nose. 

Choose complementary colors to paint the background. 

Let your imagination run wild with color and pattern combinations for your dog! 
Take a look at this color wheel for ideas! 

The Blue Dog!

MANDALA COLOR WHEEL

By Owen Curtsinger, Contributing Teaching Artist

In today’s drawing project, we will be making a mandala and using shapes and lines to explore pattern, repetition, and color. Some religions like Hinduism and Buddhism use mandalas as spiritual symbols; some folks in those religions create very big mandalas to focus their spiritual attention. But no matter what religion you may be, mandalas are a beautiful and creative way to focus your attention!

Supply List:

• Paper
• Pencil
• Ruler or straight edge
• Markers
• Crayons
• Colored Pencils

But wait, what exactly is a mandala? Good question! A mandala is a geometric display of different patterns and symbols arranged in radial symmetry. Wow! Let’s look at this example of a 19th-century Tibetan mandala to unpack what that all means.

“a geometric display of different patterns and symbols arranged in radial symmetry”

So first of all, you may notice that this is in the shape of a square. Then you can see a big circle inside the square, and then a square inside the circle, and on and on and on. These geometric shapes make up a geometric display. You may see some symbols that are important to the Buddhist religion, like the gods sitting on their altars, and if you look closely, some deer sitting under a wheel. These and other images are repeated around and around the circles and squares, making them a pattern. OK, one last thing, you may notice that no matter what side of the mandala you look, it will look the same as any other. You could turn it on its side and it will mostly look the same as if it were turned right-side up. This is radial symmetry, and you can also observe this in sunflowers, starfish, and most importantly, pizza.

OK, let’s make our own mandalas. First we need to make a few circles. You can use a compass if you have one, but if you don’t, look around the house to find some circular objects of different sizes to trace (bottle caps and jar lids work well!). Let’s make about three circles.

Now draw some lines going all the way through the center, as if you were slicing up a pizza (now I’m getting hungry!). A ruler is recommended, but just find some other sort of straight edge, like a book spine if you don’t have a ruler.

Now we’re going to work inside just one of those pizza slices. You’ll notice that your pizza slice has three sections. In each separate section, make a different shape or series of shapes and lines. Be sure to make your designs simple enough that they can be repeated all the way around the entire pizza. Here’s what mine looks like:

Now fill in every pizza slice with the exact same series of shapes and lines that you made in the first one, turning your geometric shapes into a repeated pattern displaying radial symmetry! Go slowly and try to make it look neat and tidy.

You’ve finished your mandala! Excellent! But what would a mandala be without color? You may color the shapes and patterns any colors that you wish. I chose to color mine while keeping in mind a past lesson that I taught about the color wheel.

That’s it! Hopefully drawing and coloring your mandala brought you some peace, calm, and focus…I know mine did!

ANIMALS IN ART

By Morgan Johnson, Art Room Intern

Today’s hands-on project is inspired by animals in art! Students will explore Line, Shape, Color, and Pattern while they create their very own cat drawing.

Supply List:

• Paper
• Markers
• Crayons
• Oil Pastels (Optional)

An 8.5 x 11 or 11 x 14-inch piece of paper works great for this project. Fold your piece of paper in half horizontally (hamburger fold) and vertically (hotdog fold) to create guidelines to help you draw your cat.

Open up your folded paper and flatten out your creases. You now have a piece of paper with a helpful four-square grid. Use a black marker to draw the outline of the cat, starting with the face in the upper left-hand square on your paper. Follow along with the photo demonstrations below for a step-by-step visual guide on how to draw your cat!

You now have the outline of your cat drawn! So far, you have used lines and shapes to create your cat drawing—a face with eyes, a nose, and whiskers & a body with a curly tail.

Now it is time to add a unique pattern to your cat’s body. A pattern is when an element of art—like a line or a shape—repeats itself. You can also add lines to the paws to add details for your cat’s toes.

You have all created such unique cat drawings! You can make your cat even more fun with a pop of color. Think about using warm colors for the body of the cat—maybe yellow & orange—and use cool colors for the details of the cat—maybe purple & blue! You can use crayons or oil pastels to color in your cat.

There is just one more step for you to do on your cat drawing. Pick your favorite color to color in the background of the cat—make your cat really stand out!