SENSORY OBSERVATIONS
Blind Contour
Level: First Year Art & Design/ ESL low-intermediate to intermediate
Language Focus: Sensory and Art & Design vocabulary + descriptive writing
Design Focus: Direct observation drawing
Time: 3 hours 25 min. (2h 45min activities + 25min. break + debrief)
Prep time: 3 hours
Lesson Description:
This lesson introduces students to drawing as a way of seeing, analyzing, and designing. This lesson plan introduces sensory vocabulary and basic design vocabulary for students to apply technical language to descriptive narrative from direct observation. In this exercise, drawing is used as a non-verbal communication amongst peers, and drawings become a visual reference to compare and contrast descriptive writing.
Anabel Grullón, warm-up in a bar, Brooklyn, NY, 2016.
FOR TEACHER:
Readings:
- Blind Contour Explained (Betty Edwards, Drawing on The Right Side of the Brain, Chapter 6, pages 88-104)
- Descriptive Writing and the Five Senses
FOR STUDENTS:
Readings:
- Line, Color, Form, Jesse Day. Chapter 3: Compositions, pages 40-47 + Chapter 4: Materials, pages 54-63
- Visual Grammar, Christian Leborg, pages 18-29
Handouts:
Worksheets: