Picasso Peace Doves/Pattern Practice

Pictures (L to R) (1) Rachel W., Canaan K., Sam S. (2)Maria B-H, Adrian J. , Daughter M, Caleb I.

We are back to co-op classes after missing one week for Easter. We can hardly believe there are only three weeks left in this semester!

This week we did a nice drawing project based on Picasso's peace doves. It also allowed for a review of patterns and line. We found out that simple line drawings may be quite difficult to render and talked about capturing the "essence" of an object. We had several students who wailed that they "could not draw." This phrase is not allowed in my art classes. (Maybe we have spent too much time on "crafty" art projects with our ethnic art unit.)

We spent a good amount of time sketching and looking at how to study and revise sketches to get an end result we liked better than our first attempts. Eventually everyone had a successful project, and the "wailers" found that they truly did like their drawing results. This was a satisfying and successful project. I found the idea at Incredible Art Lessons at Incredibleart.org.

Here is the process.

1. We referenced Picasso's peace doves and talked about the symbolism of doves (and olive branches). We talked about how simple Picasso's dove line drawings were, and noticed how different they were from much of Picasso's most famous works. We also noted how much skill it takes to make a really good simple line drawing.

2.We used a practice sheet to draw Picasso-like doves and then drew one on blue paper, making it large enough to fill the center of the paper. Then, the student pointed to the center of their dove with one finger and drew imaginary "rays" out from that central spot to the edges of the paper with their other (writing) hand, starting each line only from the outline edge of the dove. Do not put these lines too close together, or there will be too many areas to fill in.

3. Each student chose one color to outline the dove and the rays. We used oil pastels for this project and students were also allowed to use black Sharpies if they wanted.

4. Each space outside the dove should be carefully filled in with a pattern. I had them try to do a different pattern for each space. I drew a variety of pattern types on the board for them to work from, and also encouraged them to think of their own patterns. Color choice for pattern was open. The center of the dove was left plain.