ACTIVE art!! (Part 1)

When you're looking to draw figures in motion in art, the obvious place to go is the "stick figure" to start.  In fact, many artists have used their own version of the basic stick man in their art for years.  Keith Haring wanted his "bubble figures" to be universal -- they could be every man or woman.  In fourth grade we make collages inspired by Haring's figures.  Students draw and cut out the figures, putting them on a background with props and "action lines."  The students love to create them jumping on trampolines, riding horses, playing sports, and dancing to music.

 It's not always easy to just draw a figure into an imaginary pose, though, so we have a couple of tricks up our sleeves to practice poses.  The first is "gesture drawing!"  Gesture drawing is doing a quick sketch of a person who is posing for you.  At school I invite students up into the front of the room to pose for me, and then I draw them as a stick figure on the board. We notice where their shoulders and hip tilt and where arms and legs bend.  This starts easy with some kids dabbing and standing with crossed arms and quickly turns into yoga and gymnastics being performed.  BUT the students LOVE to pose and draw each other.  This is a great activity to have siblings do at home.  I had to practice it for my online drawing class last week, and my kids had the BEST time posing for me:




We also practice stick figure gestures in 5th grade for our mannequin drawings, and last year in 1st graders when we did our African Dancers inspired by the Maasai culture for International Night:

One of the easiest ways to work through poses when you don't have a partner or it's hard to look at a pose and draw it is to make a stick figure you can pose...out of pipe cleaners!  It only takes two of them, and you don't need glue.  It's helped my students for their Haring project because they could pose and then trace their stick figure on their own!  Here's a quick picture tutorial with two pipe cleaners:

1. Get two of the same color pipe cleaners.
2. Take the first one and make a loop in the middle, criss crossing the pipe cleaner.
3. Twist it together at the bottom of the loop by turning it where it is crossed.
4. Fold the second pipe cleaner in half.
5. Put it through the head loop with one leg in the front and the other in back.  
6. Below the neck, twist the two legs together to form the body by wrapping them around each other.  Stop about half way down.
7. Now you have a basic stick figure!
8. Pose your figure, bending half way for elbows and knees!  You can also bend hands and feet! 

You can also check out this fancier version from a craft site if you have beads and other accessories:

Via Creative Kidz Crafts (click photo for tutorial link)

The artist Giacometti made bronze sculptures much like these pipe cleaner figures.  You can take bendable metal wire (in a larger size) you've posed and and wrap it with foil to create your own sculptural figures like Giacometti.  These photos are taken from a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago with my husband and sister in law back in 2007:

Finally, I take inspiration from my former colleagues in Olentangy Schools for this last active figure project idea.  At several schools the third graders create their own super heroes (I hope to do this next year).  They have to come up with a cause for their hero, a color scheme and symbols to go with it.  Then they draw their character in an active pose in their super suit.  Here's a link to Wyandot Run's Instagram posts on this project (I believe Liberty Tree does this lesson also).  This is just the first post but there are a few others if you search the page more.  What a fun idea!!

Wyandot Run's Third grade super heroes on Instagram
*You'll want to click on the arrow at the right of the first photo to scroll through the post -- there's an artist description, then a video of her display, and then photos of the heroes and descriptions the kids wrote!  These are awesome examples!

Check back on Monday -- in honor of our Virtual Field Day next Friday I will be posting a bunch of really cool art I've found featuring SPORTS and the OLYMPICS!!  In the meantime, if you're one of my students start your own sports related drawing so we can share them on Dojo for Field Day!