2012: Project 3--One Point Perspective

I felt like my girls were ready for a bit of a drawing lesson as opposed to just learning about various artist's styles and techniques. So we tried one-point perspective a couple weeks ago after I found this great lesson from the smART Class blog.

I started off showing them a bunch of different artworks from different time periods. We started with some photographs I found through google images (sorry for the lack of source info, I just googled "perspective photos" and I will post some links at the bottom of this).

 I started by talking about specific terms with them: perspective, horizon line, and vanishing point.

Then I showed them the image below and how all the lines in the image all lead to the vanishing point.

I showed them all the following images, asking them to point out the horizon line and vanishing point. I pointed out the sky, ground, buildings or trees on the sides of the images.

Then I got a little tricky with the next two, but my smarties got that the vanishing point wasn't always in the same spot. ;-)

 To the left in the boat image and in the middle in the image below.

I showed them some Renaissance art paintings:

Raphael's "School of Athens", 1518

DaVinci's "Last Supper", circa 1495

Then we moved on to slightly more modern art:

Edvard Munch's "The Scream", 1893

And one of my favorite artists, Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper, "Gas", 1940

Edward Hopper, "Chair Car", 1965

Finally, I showed them images from the smART class blog assignment dividing the paper into four quadrants separated by diagonal lines.

 After the girls made their diagonal lines, they filled in the right side with buildings...

 ...the left side with trees....

 Then sky in the middle on the top and a street in the middle on the bottom.

Hard at work in the art room.

Lily's perspective drawing! She's only 6 years old  (almost seven) so I didn't get particular about showing her the horizon line.

 And here's Ella's! I pointed out the horizon line to her and she grasped the idea pretty easily.

They really liked this project and have made pictures with this same technique since we've done this. A success as far as our summer projects go!