Mr. Stravinsky

Today we drew Mr. Stravinsky. Who is Mr. Stravinsky you are asking yourself? Well, he is one of Picasso's most famous line drawings. He was actually a composer that collaborated with Picasso, and while they were working together Picasso took the time to create a line drawing Mr. Igor Stravinsky. Since that time, Mr. Stravinsky has plagued beginning art students around the world. Year after year without fail, they are forced to try to recreate Picasso's famous portrait. In my class, I project the image of Mr. S onto the screen revealing only small rectangular sections at a time. The photo above shows some of my second period Art I students working on their drawings of Mr. Stravinsky. Yesterday we revealed the outside rectangles which can be drawn with relative ease, but today we are revealing the complicated areas of the face and hands. There is a collective groan that reverbirates throughout the class when those difficult areas are uncovered. They students are often too harsh on themselves when they see the finished project. They forget that Picasso was an art master, and they are only in their 4th day of Art I. But the project is great a teaching the students to slow down and focus on what they see. A large part of Art I is teaching student to look carefully at what is being drawn and to only draw what they see. We are making good progress.