Digital @ The Arts Unit Creative Classes
Brushing up on animals
Discover techniques for drawing animals and painting an artwork
Student visual arts resource developed by The Arts Unit
Years 5 and 6 visual arts
What will I learn?
You will:
learn about the relationship between the artist and subject
watch a video on drawing animals and artmaking practice
draw animals using close observation and an understanding of form
paint using expressive mark-making and wet-into-wet paint application to blend and mix colours.
Welcome to the class
Duration: 00:30Before you begin
You will need:
paper that has been painted black or black cardboard
white chalk
a damp cloth or piece of paper
paints and a small paintbrush.
- Identify
Lucy Culliton is an Australian artist who lives in rural NSW. Lucy has many animals that are often used as subjects for her paintings. She has a pet sheep that she has painted many portraits of, up close. She has painted self-portraits surrounded by her pet sheep or chickens. She likes to experiment with showing the differences and similarities of our hair and skin and the animals' fur, feathers or wool.
Look at Lucy Culliton's artworks from the collection 'The Popular Pet Show 2016'.
She uses expressive brushstrokes to give her animal subjects life and vitality.
Can you list some adjectives that describe the types of brushstrokes that Lucy uses in her paintings?
How do these brushstrokes give life and energy to the painting?
Look closely at Lucy’s paintings of animals. Notice how her paint colours mix and blend together, creating light and dark areas, and how the brush marks and the way she moves the paint help to describe the type of fur, or wool on the animal.
Study the paintings below of her cat 'Emitt sitting', 2001 and 'Francoise' 2016, a portrait of one of her sheep.
Write down or discuss with your teacher how Lucy’s different brushstrokes help to create the texture and look of Emitt the cat’s fur and Francoise the sheep’s wool coat.
2. Watch
Meredith Rasdall, visual artist and educator, led a workshop for primary students as part of the Operation Art project inspired by the works of Lucy Culliton.
Watch the video Extending practical artmaking skills – painting created from the workshop, so you too can learn how to draw and paint animals.
Extending practical artmaking skills – painting
Duration: 16:53
3. Look
In the video, Meredith explains that learning to look is an important skill for an artist.
Look closely at this photo of a lion.
What shapes can you see?
What is the overall shape of the lion’s head?
What shape are the ears and eyes?
Is the nose similar to an upside-down triangle?
Also, notice how much space the head takes up and the size of features in relation to other areas. For example: is the nose larger than an eye? Is the top of the head wider than the bottom?
All of this careful looking is key to creating a work that captures the look of the lion.
4. Draw
Using Meredith's tips from the video, now it is your turn to create a lion artwork.
Let's start with drawing the lion.
Follow the directions below to help you through the process:
Use a piece of white chalk on black paper to loosely sketch up the shapes that you can see in the lion.
It works best if you can use a piece of good quality paper that has been painted black and allowed to dry before starting.
Using the black background will make the colours stand out.
Pressing lightly, use short sketchy lines as you try to capture the shapes and sizes like Meredith demonstrates.
Keep your drawing details simple. For example, it isn’t necessary at this stage to draw lots of hair lines for the mane, because you can capture that texture as you paint.
Using the chalk lightly means you can easily dust off any lines that you need to rework with a damp cloth.
Remember to take up the whole space with the head. This is the focus of the work and we want it to stand out.
Keep looking at the photo and getting the information you need to make your drawing. Look for shapes, size comparisons and the position of features in relation to other features.
5. Paint
Now that you have loosely sketched your lion with chalk, we can start to paint!
Let’s have a look again at the image of the lion, and this time, focus on the colours you can see.
Are there sections that are lighter or darker?
Can you see shadows?
Can you see a variety of colours in the mane?
Are the dark sections made up of darker shades of the same colours rather than just black?
Are there any patterns or marks that are important to include?
We will focus on painting the lion first and then the background later.
Follow the instructions:
Use a restricted range of colours.
For this lion, a suggested palette would include: white, black, yellow, brown, orange, (burnt umber, yellow oxide, yellow ochre if you have more choice).
It helps to use white as you mix your colours, as this will make the lion sit forward on the black background.
Remember not to paint over the chalk lines.
Using a small brush, take up some paint in the colour that you decide to use first and load up a couple of colours on your brush at the same time. This will mean that as you paint, the colours will blend on the paper to create an interesting mix.
Do not mix colours together on the palette.
You can reapply on top as you go to make the colours darker, lighter or more of one colour or another. Artists call this technique ‘wet into wet painting’.
Keep looking at the photos to get more information about the colours you need to use.
Apply with short dabbing strokes so that you create an interesting painterly texture, building up the layers of colour as you go.
Stop and step back from your work occasionally and look at it in relation to the photo to see what needs to be done next.
Avoid washing your brush between colours as all the colours will blend well. If you have too much black on your brush and you need to work with lightened colours, use a new dry brush.
When you use a wet brush, it waters down the paint and you will lose the intensity of the colours – it will be hard to make the paint marks clear.
Once you have completed the lion, use a new palette of colours for the background.
A suggestion of colours could include: white, cool blue, warm blue, or purple.
Apply the paint to the background using the same brushstroke method used to paint your lion.
Make sure not to paint over the white chalk likes.
Remember to mix the colours as you paint so that you get interesting blends.
No need to use water or clean your brush.
Look to see if there are areas in the background that are lighter or darker and use your paint to convey this.
Once finished and the paint is dry, use a damp cloth to wipe off the white chalk lines between the paint. This will reveal some of the black paper and provide some dramatic lines that will enhance your work’s impact.
Congratulations, your artwork is complete!
Display it proudly for all to see!
You can try this technique with a different animal, a photo of your pet or even a landscape scene.
Check out some of the amazing student artworks in the making from the Operation Art workshop.
Be sure to notice their use of brushstrokes and colours.
Look at various artists' works for ideas on how to apply paint with textural brushstrokes, including Brett Whiteley and Vincent van Gogh.
Congratulations!
You have completed this
Digital @ The Arts Unit Creative Class.
