Fun: Draw a Stickman

This is perfect for all of those who have told me they can only draw a stickman when it comes to art. Draw A Stickman is a cute website with a simple premise: draw a stick person and something will happen. I don't want to give it away, suffice to say it made me smile.

Field Trip: Walker Open Field

The Walker inaugurated Open Field last summer, and it was a huge hit. Unfortunately I never let you, my lovely reader, know about it until it was pretty much over. This year I thought I'd give you a little heads up so you can work Open Field into your summer plans. It's free, it's fun and there's something for everyone.
I wrote about one of the Open Field activities last August. I'm not sure if they'll be doing the Scavenger Hunt again this year, but I hope so. 

My favorite event was the weekly Drawing Club, held right outside the Walker's doors:
"Come doodle, sketch, or paint during weekly sessions hosted by local artists to add to a pool of collectively created artworks. Art supplies are provided on large tables in shaded areas of the outdoor Open Lounge. Start a new drawing or select one in progress from the table. Slide it back into the pool, pass it around, and alter, edit or amend it until the group declares it complete. All ages, abilities, and aesthetics welcome."
I tried to go as often as I could, because I had so much fun. They provide all the materials--you provide the artwork. All kinds of people show up, you're outside enjoying the sunshine, you get to take part in a community art project, and you might make a few friends along the way. It was cool to go back every week and see drawings I'd worked on before be changed and transformed by others' ideas. At the end of the summer, they put all the completed pictures into books and those are now in the Walker's permanent collection.
So you could make a day of it: Have a picnic on the hill overlooking the Sculpture Garden, followed by some artsy fun with Drawing Club, then cool off from the summer sun afterward as you wander a few galleries. All for the price of parking for a few hours in the Walker parking ramp, which is quite reasonable (bonus: it's a short walk back to your vehicle at the end of the day, and your car doesn't sit and bake in the sun all afternoon).

This year, they've changed Drawing Club to Thursdays 2pm-7pm, which is nice, because the Walker is free after 5pm on that day. The rest of the week you do have to pay to see the galleries (which can get a bit pricey when you have multiple kids in tow).

Resources: Altered Esthetics' Drawing Night

Altered Esthetics is a gallery in Northeast Minneapolis that I've mentioned before. They're a non-profit art organization that gives many artists their first opportunity to show work in a gallery (myself included). They have monthly art openings, artist talks, workshops, mentor programs for new artists, and more.
One of their new events this year is Suit Up Ae. Every third Wednesday of the month 6:30 - 8:30pm Ae provides an evening of figure drawing. Volunteers dress up in costumes and anyone is free to come and draw for two hours. There is a suggested donation of $3, which is very reasonable. If you have a student who wants to further their drawing skills this is a fun and low key opportunity to do so.
There's just something special about making art in the company of other artistically inclined souls. And there's no comparison to drawing from real life--you can obsess over the details from a photograph ad infinitum, but a model can only hold a pose so long. Life drawing teaches you to focus on the important details and not worry about the little things so much. It can be challenging but it's a lot of fun.

Article: More Drawing Advice Than Anyone Wanted

The artist of a webcomic I follow recently wrote up a great essay about drawing and learning to be yourself as an artist.

"Anyone who has any aptitude at drawing will be asked at some point “how do I learn how to do that?”, and it seems to me that when people care to go into a more elaborate response than “Practice all the time” they are usually advising people to read up on a lot of Hogarth and Loomis, and learn all of the fundamentals before they start trying to get creative. I think one of the best pieces of drawing advice for beginners I ever saw was once upon a time on DeviantArt when Modus Operandi’s artist Tish Doolin told someone that if you were just picking up a pencil and trying this drawing thing out for the first time, it’s going to benefit you more to draw things that you have fun with than struggling with dry fundamentals right out of the gate."

You can read the rest of her post here. It's pretty long, but it's good reading. Expressing yourself artistically takes investing some time and effort into the endeavor. She uses the analogy of learning a new language--you don't expect to be fluent after paging through a few pages of a Spanish textbook, likewise you're not going to be Monet after painting once or twice.

She references and links to several helpful resources, one of which is this essay/tutorial.
I've come across similar guides in the past, but I found this particular one to be very well done and quite informative. It's surprisingly academic (but not in a over-your-head incomprehensible way) in that it's not simply about drawing. To draw well, you have to understand some basic ideas. To draw really well and to own your artistic style, you also have to know some art theory, which is not as scary as it sounds. I've referred to the landmark graphic novel Understanding Comics by Scott Mccloud in the past. This essay paraphrases a lot of his ideas into simpler, shorter form. I'd suggest reading the book for a fuller understanding of symbols and the styles of representation in art.

Lesson plan: Comics, their history, and making one

Reading list:
-Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud
-Bone vol. 1: Out of Boneville by Jeff Smith
-How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee

Materials:
-Pencil
-Eraser
-Drawing paper (11in x 14in or bigger)
-Ruler
-Pen or extra fine tip marker

Comics are an increasingly popular form of storytelling these days. I'm sure your kids have their favorite comic strip to read in the paper. Maybe, like me, they check out comics from the library (it's easy to read them when they're free!), or they request graphic novels for Christmas.
Some popular books even get the comic treatment, bringing the story to new audiences in a different form (for example, James Patterson's children series Maximum Ride is being serialized in graphic novels).
More and more movies are based on comics these days, from Spider-Man to 300 to Batman to Watchmen to the recent release Scott Pilgrim (not endorsing these by the way, just using them as well known examples). Some filmmakers even re-create frames from the original comic--they use it like a storyboard, to plot out scenes. I've heard that a movie is in the works for the Bone series by Jeff Smith.

So, comics. I know a lot of people tend to look down on them, putting "comics" in two categories: what you read in the Sunday paper--something silly and light-hearted, told in three or four frames. And the actual comic books, those serialized stories that come out every month, are considered a waste of time, not worth reading, inappropriate or just plain stupid. Like any art form, comics are not inherently good or bad. It's the artists who use that medium that create either good or bad stories. Yes, there is a lot of dreck out there. I'm in charge of the comics section at my bookstore. and I see the mass amount of garbage and downright disgusting stuff that's out there. But comics can also be used to tell moving, insightful stories, like Maus by Art Spiegelman, which tells his father's story of enduring the horrors of the Holocaust, or Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which shows what life was like as a child growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. These are award winning tales told in the form of comics (and not stories I would suggest for children). Sometimes the old adage is true--pictures can say so much more than words.

Reading Scott McCloud's classic book is a must for anyone wanting to learn more about the history of comics. It's a graphic novel, and he uses the medium simply yet powerfully to walk the reader through the world of comics. McCloud discusses art history, the meanings of symbols and language, the types of visual representation, different kinds of comics, and more. It's a great introduction and can be a springboard into other subjects, such as modern art, art history, creative writing and storytelling.

(As always, parents, please peruse anything I mention for yourself first before assigning it to your child--I know that different kids have varying levels of maturity. I don't want to get angry e-mails that something I suggested was inappropriate for your children--please review it first.)

After reading Understanding Comics and Bone: Out of Boneville (if your kids like the first volume, there's eight more in the series), take a look at How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way. This is a classic book by Stan Lee, the creator of some of the most beloved comic characters, including the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, Spider-Man and the Avengers (Iron Man, Hulk, Thor,etc). It will take you step by step through the comic making process. The book gives you a list of more materials you can use; what I've listed cover the basics.

Here's a video that walks you through a simple comic (I suggest sketching out your comic in pencil first then going over it in ink):


This is just a brief introduction to the vast world of comics. I hope that your kids will enjoy learning about this art form, and maybe discover a new passion in the process.

Projects: Illustrate your own story

Materials:
-Paper
-something to draw and write with

Here's an activity to get the creative juices flowing--have your kids write a story and illustrate it. And it's a two-for-one project: you're combining writing skills and art.

Some kids have a hard time coming up with anything to draw when faced with a blank sheet of paper. They're usually so full of ideas, but once they have that pencil in hand and a clean piece of paper in front of them, their mind just goes blank. Other kids "don't like art" and don't think they're creative, so they just won't try when given an art assignment. And there's the kid who always insists on drawing a dog or a tree, no matter what the assigned project happens to be, because they're afraid of going beyond what they know. (these are all examples from classes that I've taught)

This activity helps all of these kids stretch their creative muscles without realizing it. First, have your child write a story. It doesn't matter what it's about as long as it's at least a few paragraphs long. Storytelling seems to come naturally to pretty much all the kids I know. Once they have the story finished, ask them to pick a few scenes to illustrate.  It's not so scary when there's already some ideas there for them to draw. It can be as simple as showing what the characters look like to an epic, highly detailed action scene. The point is that they're creating pictures to go with their story.

An alternative activity could be to have one child come up with the story and another to illustrate it. I used to do this with my younger sister, Leah. Ever since we were little, she has has always been a wonderful storyteller, whereas I was always more interested in coloring in all the pictures in my chapter books. She would fill her notebooks up with a fantastic tales, and I would draw the characters for her. It was a fun thing for us to do together.

The point of the project is just to get your kids drawing, giving them a jumping off point for their art. Sometimes a few constraints can open up a world of possibility. Rather than starting with a blank page, this can jump start their imagination and creativity.