This year I have one 60 minutes class per week with a class. This is just the perfect amount of time to do my gesture/movement lesson. I have taught gesture drawing lessons for a while. You can find an older post here.
However last year I started foil figures. I got the lesson from a wonderful site, one my favorites. Check it out here.
In 60 minutes this is what we do:
A short discussion of gesture drawing, examples.
I place one mannequin on each table. Students this year have been using charcoal, which they love, and news print.
I give them 1.5 minutes to loosely sketch one mannequin at a time. When time is up, they move clock wise to the next table. There are a total of 7 tables.
I encourage the students to draw loosely, over lap run off the paper, change sizes, but fit them all on.
The last gesture is of me, in a 2 minute pose or another student. This photo is old, taken years ago! But you get the point.
So total of 8 gestures. Then they are to chose one from their sketch to make a foil figure. The above website will show you how to cut your foil. I would suggest playing around with it, before you teach. Foil can be very tricky. I just use the heavy duty from the grocery store.
I have a stock of thin cardboard. They are to trace the figure in sharpie on board and color in with sharpie to give look at shadow. This part totally makes the project. I heat my glue gun up and I glue the figures down. This takes all of 60 minutes, any less it will not work unless you limit the gestures to less than 8. I usually keep in a few in the art room and display case for display purposes, if not they go home that day with the gesture drawing as well. Awesome! Make and take!!
