Tuckered out Turtle

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Supplies Used in this Lesson

Color Swatches

Supplies

Helpful Tips

Start Small:

When designing a pencil drawing I could encourage you to draw small.  A 5 X 7 inch pencil project is so much easier to complete than an 8 X 10 inch project.  I often observe my students getting sloppy when working on large size projects.  The pencil lead covers a small area.  If you have to cover and 8 X 10 inch area the drawing will take much longer to do.

Learning how pencil supplies work: 

Experiment with using your pencil on the side to shade. Experiment using a tortillon to smooth out your drawings. Experiment using 2b, 6b and other pencil leads. The larger the number the softer the lead thus it will be easier to get the dark values. Experiment using your finger to spread the lead and so on.

Incorporating values in a project:

Make sure you have a good value range in your drawing. You always want to have a very dark value, a middle value and a very light value. Often I observe students who have to work only in the middle value. They results are a picture that might be well drawn, but it lacks vitality and interest because they have not used multiple values in the drawing.

Avoid smearing your project with your hand:

When working with pencil it is important not to allow the side of your hand to touch the paper where you have already drawn. If it does, you will find it smearing and the lead will cover the side of your hand.  You will loose the crispness and the different values of the drawing if you let this happen.

The importance of quality paper:

Use a good quality sheet of paper. If you use cheep printing paper you will not be able to erase as well, or get the deep values as there is no grit on the paper. Also, when you erase on a thin piece of paper often it wrinkles the paper and makes the entire project look cheap. A good quality drawing paper is a very important part of getting professional results even for the very young students.

Project Images

Lesson Highlights

Student Showcase

Sampling of masterpieces Sharon’s students have created after being taught the material included in this project.

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