Anchorage Public School
Fabric Appliqué Self
Portraits
Ellen's sixth grade
students at Anchorage Public School in Kentucky did these colorful appliqué portrait collage all with
donated fabrics. Start collecting now! Much of the sewing was done
at home with periodic check in. Students began with contour
drawings using mirrors - then watercolor portraits for
practice.
Ellen demonstrated the
freezer paper technique of appliqué (resource below) and got the
students started. Ellen encouraged chunky stitches in a
contrasting thread for interest. Once the stitching was done,
embellishments were added (buttons, beads, ribbon, etc).
Click images for larger views
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Appliqué Resource:
Quilter's
Newsletter Magazine -Fool Proof Appliqué
Ellen was inspired by
Marvin Bartel's post to Getty TeacherArtExchange
March 7, 2004: Teach a formula for a face
and you get one solution. Learn to measure and to formulate and
you can create any and every face. When they learn to see contour
and tone and ways to render it in addition to skills in measuring
proportions they will need no formula to follow.
Learning to draw by learning to see goes
beyond knowing what certain things look like. Learning the specific techniques of seeing
better helps us find out what everything looks like. There are good
methods to teach seeing and drawing without resorting to other people's formulas. Teach students how to observe/express and students can draw/express anything - not only those things for which they have memorized a formula.
This is a list of six eye/brain/hand skills
to learn in order to learn to draw everything. Sighting devices and aides such as viewfinders, blinders, and sighting with pencil or ruler can help
us learn the first three of these. Assignment limitations and
changing habits of learning can teach the second three. Most of this list comes from a talk by Betty Edwards.
Eye/brain/hand skills
1. edges and contours (including shapes)
2. size relationships and proportions (including perspective)
3. angles and inclines (including perspective)
4. tone changes (shading) (including form and perspective)
5. negative space (inclusive vision)
6. pattern, texture, color (the rest of it)
See elaboration and illustrations here.
http://www.goshen.edu/art/ed/drawingskills.html
One of Marvin's suggestions was to draw
right on the mirror using a grease pencil. Another idea would be
to place a sheet of clear acetate/transparency over the mirror and
draw on the acetate with a marker. |
