Grade 10 Observation Skull Drawings

The Grade 10 Fine Arts students (FAR) changed their FAR classes at the beginning of this new year, giving them the opportunity to experiment and to learn about the different arts.

My new students enrolled in visual arts in the FAR program started the year with basic drawing skills using mixed media.

The first drawing exercise was influenced by the American artist, Georgia O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe was an American modernist painter whose career spanned seven decades. Her focus was on natural forms, particularly flowers and desert-inspired landscapes and skulls.

For this project, I set up a few still-life objects including cow skulls around the art room. The students were given brown paper which helped them to emphasize the wide range of values (light to dark) of the skulls in front of them.

The brown paper was used as the middle tone, the white chalk was used for the highlights and black tempera washes were used for the shadows. This project was a great start to the program, amazing job by all.