Student Work: The Hand Book

So much art, so little time. 

Here's a project my Drawing 1 students finished over two weeks ago, entitled "The Hand Book."  For this artistic endeavor, my students had to approach the same subject (their own hand) from 8 different stylistic standpoints: breaking down their hand into the four basic forms (cone, cylinder, sphere and cube); drawing the contour lines with two pencils taped together; Cubist-inspired; Surrealist-inspired; less-dominant blind-contour drawing; stippled; regular old drawing; and of course, a cover for their books.  A grand total of 8 drawings on four pieces of paper, bound in a corner with a brad. 

This is a good exercise in finding freedom in restrictions, but some students weren't comfortable with that.  Lots of them said that they got really tired of drawing their hands, and funnily enough, these were the students that obviously needed the most practice.  Lots of them also just traced their hands, thinking I wouldn't notice.  Oh, hand turkeys...

Most students churned out some good stuff.  Check it out:

a finished book

cubist-inspired

a regular old drawing

Surrealist-inspired

an exemplary cover

a finished book

a finished book detail

stippled hand

I think I'll do this project again next trimester, maybe throwing some more or different prompts.  It turned out pretty well, overall.

I can't wait to show you what they're up to now!