Another 'new' word?

Am hereby claiming another 'new' word/phrase - 'mathARTmatical drawings'! (No results found on google!!). It's as it says on the tin - drawings created from numbers and other mathematical symbols. I know that many folk use such things to create images but most of them then seem to draw over/obliterate their original starting point. My pics incorporate the numbers as part of the final piece. In fact, I've also written (and illustrated) a couple of books that use this concept - 'Once Upon a Nine' and 'The 9 Days of Christmas'.

J is for...Jedi

Today's alphARTbet drawings should, hopefully, be recognisable to Star Wars fans.

pugilists

A bit of spare time - so painted up a quick pic of boxers (based on the previous sketches).
18x20cm, acrylics + ink, on paper.

recent

Some more sketches in the 'new' style. Boxers this time! Am liking the semi-abstract nature of this style and really fancy doing some large (1m+) paintings just to see how they turn out.

LRRH

Today in FS2, by pure chance(!), they were looking at Little Red Riding Hood!
We had a go at drawing reversible images - where Granny becomes the Big, Bad Wolf if you rotate her.
Nb. she has spots and bags under her eyes 'cos she's not well, even though she's putting a brave face on! 

bears cottage

In FS2 today we continued with our 'G & 3 bears' theme. Using simple origami we made the cottage 3d so that it could stand and have both an 'outside' and an 'inside'!
The idea can be adapted for many traditional tales - 3 little pigs, Handel & Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood etc. It can even be made to pop-up! 

This is the mock-up I did.

bears & flags

In FS2 they have begun to look at traditional tales. First up is 'Goldilocks...' so we had a go at drawing bears using simple shapes.

In Y1 they are looking at Britain & the monarchy. So we created a Union flag from images of things that we considered reminded us of Britain - the different native animals, famous landmarks, flowers, people etc. You might be able to spot a London bus, the Queen and a teacup. (Nb. Some of the pics were done by the adult helpers!)

the really little ones!

Today is the day I venture down amongst the little people - our 3 yr olds!
We had a go at drawing and naming shapes (using dots to guide us) and then decided what we could make from them. We added lots of detail whilst concentrating on pencil grip, language skills etc.

new book!

Have just completed the dummy rough for a follow-up to my Little Red Riding Hood book (due out in January!). This one is The Gingerbread Man as, hopefully, you can see. It follows the same concept as LRRH in that the story is told from four different points of view - all on the same page! Fingers crossed that LRRH sells phenomenally well and that the publisher will take up this one.

elephants

The y3's today had a go at drawing elephants. They did a before sketch and were then shown different ways of creating recognisable images. Can you spot the before pic?

                        

Halloween

In FS1 today we drew Halloween pictures. A little bit early I know but its half term next week - hooray!! 
Starting with either a circle or a letter 'A', and by following step by step instructions, the 3 yr olds were able to create recognisable images.

automatons & stories

In y3 we have continued with our lever mechanisms and gone 3d! We've also turned linear motion into rotational movement!
The first pic shows Shrek panicking when he is being chased by the dragon whilst the second is a goalie making a save. The characters rotate clockwise/anticlockwise as the lever is pulled/pushed.  I must try and get videos of them in action.

In FS1 (3/4yr olds) they are looking at 'Goldilocks & the 3 bears'. We made little booklets of the story - including the cottage in the woods and Goldilocks herself.

bears & cityscapes 2

The y1's have been reading 'Peace at Last' by Jill Murphy. So we decided to have a go at drawing bears - they did a 'before' picture and then with some simple guidance as to shapes they created some much more recognisable images.

They then used clay to sculpt some semi-relief bears, using similar shapes.

The y6's have followed up their James Rizzi inspired sketches with 3d card models. We've decided the next step is to create them in clay! we might even go so far as to create slab containers and paint them in a 'James Rizzi' style!!

Fruit

In y2 today we ate apples! We also made careful observational drawings as we chomped them away!          

drawing

Today in FS2 (4/5 yr olds) we drew animals by starting with their initial letters. First try-out of the contents of my new book.

New book

Have just finished compiling my latest 'book' - An Alphabet of Animals. It's another drawing guide (to compliment 'A is for Art' - not got your copy? Then pop along to my shops to order!)  that shows how, using very simple but extremely effective methods, to draw a whole range of animals. For those folk who are into the current trend of destressing using colouring books, it's the ideal, logical, next step - whereby you create your own pictures to colour! If nothing else, it will certainly improve your doodling skills.
Any publishers out there - I'm open to offers!

Summer holiday

http://www.accessart.org.uk/the-accessart-share-a-bird-project/

A is for...

Today in 'Golden Time' ( a reward session at the end of the week that the children 'earn') we drew horses. 
They did 'before' pics ;

and then, following really simple guidelines (starting with a letter 'A'), they drew horses in various poses.   

Bear in mind that these are only thumbnail sketches and not huge.

painting

Currently on my painting table are 5 football/rugby pics that will eventually depict representations of various teams.  

dinosaurs

Y2 have started studying dinosaurs so of course today we used a letter 'A' to draw some!

They drew a 'before' picture at the start (top left) before following simple instructions to create lots of different dinosaur.

Some of these are detailed in my book 'A is for Art' along with step by step guides on how to draw almost anything - copies available in my Etsy and Folksy shops.