Black & White Chalk

We were so proud of these young artists in our Teen Camp last week!  These kids were about 13 years old, on average, if you can believe that!  I didn’t learn some of these techniques until high school!

The drawing challenge was to observe lights & darks and build them up in layers, starting with white chalk.  We let artists pick from a lot of black & white photos that we printed ahead of class, and demonstrated a simple grid technique to help them get the proportion right while loosely sketching the basic shapes.  The “loosely sketching” part was also a challenge, as most of them wanted to start drawing the detailed fur as a starting point.  They really had to have blind faith that we were leading them in the right direction because for most of the first hour these looked nothing close to their subject matter.  Many were getting discouraged or frustrated with how much work it was for a Friday morning!

They continued to lay down & blend layers of white chalk, paying close attention to the lightest parts, and then we used a subtractive method to lift & remove some of the chalk to create the darker areas.  For this we used some damp q-tips, and a kneaded eraser.

We then instructed them to start getting more detailed with white colored pencils and white china markers.  And then at the very end we gave them a black chalk pastel to add some depth to the darkest parts.  We also encouraged them to spend a lot of time on the eyes, as this is very important when drawing any living creature.

These were stunning and so impressive for their age!  Bravo!