Drawing With Children: Tiger Lilies

Last week, my fourth grade students drew tiger lilies, a lesson from Mona Brookes' Drawing With Children.

I didn't do the lesson as written because it calls for markers, and we didn't have markers. Instead, I had the children use crayons (yellow orange, orange, and red orange, and green yellow, yellow green, and green, and the purple of their choice). They also used fine-tipped black felt markers for the anthers and filaments, and for the black dots on the petals.

To prepare my students for this lesson, I explained that, in real life, things don't have black outlines.

We also discussed negative space and the children did the negative space activities in Brookes' book:

Next, using their three green crayons, they did these shading exercises from Brookes' book:

Finally, I gave them copies of Brookes' black and white image of tiger lilies:

The students grumbled and whined that the task was too hard, and I said, "But you're doing it anyway."

And they turned out beautiful work.

This was a two part lesson, with all of the excercises done the first day (1 hour), and the tiger lilies done the second day (1 hour). And I had students do a purple background for a triadic color scheme.

After the children had completed their drawings, they were all pleased with what they'd accomplished.

If you're looking for a book to help you teach drawing to an elementary schooler, I highly recommend Drawing With Children.