Lesson 2: Design, Pattern, and Color

Suggested Time: 60 minutes
Overview
In workshop style, students will experiment with shapes and color, object drawing (using examples from architecture and engineering), figure drawing, and drawing action and mood— superhero style! This lesson builds drawing and diagramming skills while appealing to a wide variety of ages, backgrounds, and skill levels.
Vocabulary
Objectives
Next Generation Science Standards
Required Project Materials
Multimedia Resources
Optional Multimedia Resources
Before the Lesson/ Background Information
The Lesson
Part 1: Design, Pattern, and Color Workshops* (50 mins)
  1. Separate the students into three groups. Each group will work on a different skill—coloring (practicing with various shapes and patterns); drawing human figures (first, rudimentary figures, then figures in action); and copying and playing with architectural and engineering designs.
  2. The coloring group will use Outside the Lines: an Artist’s Coloring Book for Giant Imaginations. The drawing group will use Figure it Out! The Beginner’s Guide to Drawing People and progress to Draw Comic Book Action with each individual working at their own pace. The object design group will work with the drawings you’ve provided, the architecture books, and/or How to Draw: Drawing and Sketching Objects and Environments from Your Imagination.
  3. Individual students should work on their own, incorporating their own homework into their designs, but consulting with and learning from other group members as well.
  4. Every twenty minutes, groups should rotate tasks, so that everyone gains practice in each area.
*If you have many students, or students that are particularly interested in textile design, you can have another group work on making a small quilt. They will cut out squares of fabric and hand-sew them together. This is another way of experimenting with pattern and color combinations.
Part 2: Discussion (10 mins)
  1. Reserve a few minutes at the end of class to discuss the importance of working with drawings, diagrams, patterns, and colors in design fields. How are these skills used in engineering? In architecture? In fine arts?
Homework Due Next Class
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