Submitted by: Donnalyn Shuster, Frankfort Schuyler C.S.D. Frankfort, New York.
UNIT: Drawing – Still Life – Janet Fish
Lesson: Drawing on Gray Toned Paper – Opaque/Transparency
Grade Level: Studio Art (8th grade on up)

Objective: Students will

• Create an artwork that uses organizational principles and functions to solve a visual arts problem.
• Create a work of art that creates the illusion of transparency used to unify a work of art that demonstrates that light advances and darks recede.
• Deal with the duality of rendering transparent and opaque surfaces in charcoal.
• Deal with foreground, middle ground, and background areas in addition to rendering overlapping forms.

This lesson was adapted from one found in School Arts Magazine.

Curriculum Standards:

• Students apply media, techniques, and processes with sufficient skill, confidence, and sensitivity that their intentions are carried out in their artworks

• Students conceive and create works of visual art that demonstrate an understanding of how the communication of their ideas relates to the media, techniques, and processes they use

• Students initiate, define, and solve challenging visual arts problems independently using intellectual skills such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation

• Students evaluate the effectiveness of artworks in terms of organizational structures and functions

Materials:

Newsprint, Pencils, Bogus Drawing Paper, Kneaded Rubber Erasers, Charcoal, White Chalk or White Conte, Fixative, and Cover sheets.

Vocabulary: value, tone, highlight, middle value, shadows, transparency, composition, overlap, charcoal.

Motivation:

Optional -prints by Charles Sheeler (use of charcoal in dramatic illustrations - "Feline Felicity")

Charles Sheeler: Across Media - Charles Sheeler (1883-1965) is recognized as one of the founders of American modernism and one of the master photographers of the twentieth century. His work is synonymous with precisionism, a crisp, clean, hard-edged style that reconciled cubist abstraction and the machine aesthetic of Marcel Duchamp with American subject matter.

Work of Janet Fish

Janet Fish: Paintings - Still life painter Janet Fish is noted for her dynamic oil paintings and watercolors, through which she "captures the beauty of everyday objects." She has won praise for her exuberant brushstrokes and dazzling composition, but it is the movement of light and color shimmering off bowls, glasses, bottles, cellophane, and other iridescent and reflective surfaces that gives her work its distinctive allure.

Procedure:

1. Establish a strong composition through the use of prep sketches on newsprint. Create a specific focal point.

2. Transfer and enlarge to fit bogus paper.

3. Practice adding values to create a three dimensional appearance. Transparency can be done using light but well-defined areas with chalk. Render fabric using charcoal, then white chalk. Render solid forms, then glass areas last.

4. Create a strong and dramatic appearance. Add highlights where appropriate.

5. Spray Fixative and mount for presentation. Add a cover sheet to protect work.

6. Evaluate, write reflective statements and submit.

Evaluation:

Strong and accurate drawing demonstrating proportion, dramatic composition showing a well defined focal point, value used to create the illusion of transparency and form, well written reflective statement.

Reflective Statements:

a. Describe the strongest part of your work:
b. How did you achieve unity in the work? How did you achieve transparency?
c. What problems did you encounter and how did you solve them?
d. Compared to previous projects, what drawing medium have you felt the most comfortable with and why:

Lesson Extension:

Watercolor still life - see work of Janet Fish

Rendering clothing in figure drawing unit later in year.

Rubric:

Drawing on Gray toned Paper – Creating Transparency

DRAWING SKILLS

E- Accurate proportions, lightly drawn lines, reflecting careful observation and practice sketches.

C- Most objects drawn in an accurate and proportional manner, minimum number of objects shown.

F- Some objects disproportionate or not clearly drawn.

P- Unfinished drawing, many areas partially started.

COMPOSITION

E – Dramatic point of view, unusual.  Objects drawn using space well, no excess negative areas.

C – Strong focal point, parts of work extending off of page.

F – Objects shown in center of page, Weak positioning, and excess negative space.

P – Objects drawn small, areas unfinished.

USE OF VALUES

E – Dramatic and skillful use of value creating a dynamic image.  Strong feeling of transparency in glass forms.

C – Strong values in majority of work.  Transparency demonstrated in glass forms.

F – Areas weak, grayed in appearance. Little transparency noted.

P – Incomplete value application.

REFLECTIVE STATEMENT

E – Detailed self-analysis of work demonstrating insight and objective writing.

C – Understanding of the impact design elements have on a work of art and how they are used.

F – Underdeveloped statements, little understanding of concepts used.

P – Writing incomplete or not attempted.

Each area is worth a maximum of 25 points with the breakdown by category as follows:

E/Excellent=25 points

C/Competent=20 points

F/Fair=15 points

P/Poor (Needs Improvement)=10 points

PROJECT GRADE:

NAME: