Kevin Collier

We'll get back to the American Regionalists on Monday. Today I want to share a great website with you instead.

Kevin Collier, an author and illustrator of children's books, has begun a blog that teaches you how to draw. It's really fantastic. Every post is a video teaching you to draw something new. You can learn to draw a whale, a mouse, and several other animals and objects. I especially like the video about how to draw glass.

Also, check out the art from some of his books (here and here).

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My Current NaNoWriMo Word Count:

23038 / 50000 words. 46% done!

Draw Your Own Underwater Scene

This is a simple way to make your fish look like they really are swimming underwater.

Supplies Needed:

Blue construction paper
Washable markers
Spray bottle with water

Cover your workspace and gather your materials.

Begin by drawing an underwater scene in pencil. Your picture could include a school of fish, a shark, a dolphin, an octopus, a starfish, or anything else you can imagine. Below is the inspiration for my drawing. My mom took this picture underwater last year and I love it!
In marker, draw lots of blue water lines around your pencil drawing. Then, spray some water on your picture so the blue lines run a little.
Let the paper dry.

Go over your pencil lines with marker until your underwater scene is complete. I encourage you to include lots of different underwater creatures in your drawing. You might even choose to make up your own animals.
I love that the water lines look wet and smudgy. If you want your lines to run more, use blue copy paper instead of construction paper.

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Illustrate Your Own Sun Myth

The sun is extremely important. It lights our days, gives us warmth, and helps our food grow. I’m sure you can think of many other ways the sun is important, especially in the summer. To certain ancient cultures, the sun was even more important, though. The Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Japanese, Aztecs, Incas, Eskimos, and more believed that the sun was a god or goddess!

Each of these ancient cultures had a different idea about how the sun came to be. Read about a few of them here. When you’ve read some of the myths, or stories, draw your own sun. Be as creative as you’d like. Maybe your sun has long rays that hug the earth. Maybe it is a bright fox, running around the world, day after day. Make up your own story about the sun to go with your picture.

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Draw Like an Egyptian

You already read about how the ancient Egyptians created such perfect paintings for their tombs. They first drew a small picture on papyrus, then created a grid on the wall, then painted a larger version of their picture onto the wall. You can do this too.

Supplied Needed:

Graph paper
Pencil
Eraser
Poster board
Measuring stick
Crayons

Draw a picture onto your graph paper. Create your own picture or trace an image from a book.

Use your pencil to lightly draw a grid onto your poster board. (Note: You could instead use easel paper or cut pieces of paper from a roll.) You should measure carefully to be sure that each square is an equal size. This is something an adult can help you with. Also, be sure you include enough squares when you create your grid. If your original picture took up ten squares by twenty squares, you should draw a ten square by twenty square grid onto your poster board.

Now you can transfer your picture onto your poster board. Focus on one square at a time. Before you know it, you’ll have your own poster-board-sized drawing!

Color your picture. When it is perfect, erase the pencil lines of your grid.

What do you think? Would you have liked to paint in an ancient Egyptian tomb?
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To create your own ancient Egyptian mask, check out yesterday’s post.

To read all about Egyptian art, click on any of the following links:
Paintings, Carvings, Sculpture, Amarna Art, Fayum Portraits

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Learning from the Masters

I promised this post in December and, finally, here it is. When I went to Paris I took the picture shown below. Here, a student imitates a painting created by a master. This is a common and useful method of learning to draw or paint because it allows a student to practice many artistic techniques and to learn different styles.

In 1784, all the schools of drawing in Italy were combined to create the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence. At the Accademia, works by great masters of art were (and still are) kept so that students could draw them. These works included sculptures by Michelangelo. Today his famous David is on display in the gallery. This is an excellent example of student learning from the work of the masters.

You can use this method to learn to draw, too. Find a book with illustrations you admire. Try to keep it simple at first. Maybe choose a book about snakes and focus on making your drawing realistic. Then move on to a book about dogs. Choose more difficult images as you gain practice, confidence, and skill. Don’t forget to color in your pictures.

When you want an even bigger challenge, create paintings instead of drawing.

I have posted before on another method of learning art, learning through apprenticeships. Artist who learned through apprenticeships probably would have imitated the paintings of masters also. If you’re interested, The Young Artist, by Thomas Locker, is a good picture book about a young artist who becomes an apprentice.

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