FACE FORMULA TIME

 BEFORE & AFTER PORTRAITS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

chalk on chalkboard

Every year I like to invite 2 of my students up to the board during their spare time at lunch

to decorate either the Frontal or Profile Formula Heads that I lecture and diagram with,

before we start the actual drawings of each other.

I never know what I'm going to get so it's always fun.

Last school year (2017-2018) senior Jessica Mones and junior Manishka Ranjit

volunteered for the honors.

The girls spent several lunches working on the Profile Head

and it actually turned out resembling one of the students in the class,

senior Alyson Tam. 

How about that!

I thought it was pretty cool,

anyways.

LOL

Thank you ladies for that bit of fun.

STUDENT ARTISTS

For the past couple of years I've asked select students to go to town 

and transform my teaching Frontals & Profiles on the chalkboard into someone recognizable.

Last year senior Jesica Mones & junior Manishka Ranjit did the honors

and the young woman on the board turned out to be a fellow senior and classmate lookalike

senior Alyson Tam.

I was thrilled with the results and so were the girls!

FOR YOU LIZ FROM TEXAS

BEFORE & AFTER

BEGINNING 2-D ART

graphite on paper

I get so many great responses when I show off these Before & After Drawings,

especially from my student's faithful follower Liz Ackert from I'm Going to Texas blog fame.

I teach drawing out of Dr. Betty Edward's classic book

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain,

and take my beginners thru the first half,

 and my Intermediates thru the second half of her book.

I started teaching with her exercises after I snuck into her college class at CSULB 

as a Non Art Major  Ha!

And even though I already knew how to draw,

I really didn't know how to teach others to do it.

The big jump in my own levels was astounding to me,

and as you will see

the results here are just as remarkable as you will see from this group from last school year.

Enjoy,

and prepare to be shocked!!

It takes about 4 1/2 months to get the kids thru the drawing exercises to this finished After Portrait.

(above right)

I try to pair them up with someone they do not know (less chance of being distracted).

I ask them to draw each other in profile and do the best they can without any instruction

(drawing on the left).

I never know at what level they will come in at.

Sometimes as low as 1st & 2nd grade all the way up thru about 9th grade drawing level.

Then I don't allow the kids to see their Before

 until they are mounted next to their Afters at Open House.

It's so much fun watching them react to their improvements.

And there is always improvement!

This first one was done by senior Jessica Mones of 8th grader Brandon Delgado.

Remarkable right??

Here we have 8th grader Summer Lee

making a huge jump in skill levels drawing 8th grader Risha Cenidoza .

Lovely Summer!

And how about this one by senior David Tung capturing 8th grader Siddhant Watwani.

Dang!

Junior Esther Ahn has come in with really nice skills

and is now drawing almost photorealistically of junior Kiana Sanchez.

This is junior Ellya Gholmieh being drawn by 8th grader Madison Plotkin.

Very Rubenesque wouldn't you say of both.

Amazing work Madison!

And this is the spitting image of junior Phoebe Lao drawn by 8th grader Eric Ren.

Wow Eric,

you nailed her!

What a huge jump this is for junior Steffany Reyes.

Tremendous job woman!

And make sure to look closely at the folds in the hoodie in the After of 8th grader Tin Pham.

This last piece was drawn by junior Manishka Ranjit who also came in with some drawing skills.

But man oh man,

has her style become so much more realistic and clean.

Way to go young ones!!!

AFTER INSTRUCTION

BEFORE & AFTER

BEGINNING 2-D ART

graphite on paper

One of my favorite times of the year is the unveiling of the Before & After Instruction Drawings.

Students are paired with each other at the beginning of 2nd Quarter

and told to do the best they can and draw each other in profile.

Many of these kids have little drawing skills (from about 5 years old to about 1st grade)

but others come to me with various levels,

anywhere from 2nd grade thru about 11th grade level.

And every year I never know what I'm going to get.

Teaching from Dr. Betty Edwards Drawing on the Right Side Of the Brain,

I take the students thru the first half of her book using only right brain exercises.

Then the kids are partnered back up and redraw each other to see if they've made progress.

These Before and After pieces are mounted next to each other and are on display for the school to see and at Open House Nite for the parents to view.

What is so much fun is the kids have forgotten how they used to draw 

so are usually thrilled with the After results.

I know I am!

Right before they begin the After drawings,

 I take them thru basic head formulas to show them where the features of the face and head are located both on a Frontal view as well as the Profile.

Then I ask for a volunteer to decorate these heads.

Here senior Melissa Ongko has volunteered to do the honors.

Now let's take a peek at a few at their results.

We start with Melissa's Before & After.

She came to me with about 9th grade drawing skills already in place

and ended up at college level skills.

She was partnered with junior Michelle Hyun.

Michelle's auntie was a student of mine back in the day.

That's when you know you are getting really old.

Hee hee

Next up is junior Tiffany Chen

Her skills were pretty remarkable in her Before 

and her After is exquisite!

She nailed junior Willam Tan.

Junior Sarah Oh came in with about 11th grade skills 

and ended up with a drawing of senior Christley Agbaroji that is almost photorealistic.

And we end with junior Christian Balbido and his Before and After of senior Deborah Harris.

Remarkable isn't it?

A LITTLE LATE

Oops,

I meant to insert this pix in the Before & After post
to show how the kids are setup to draw each other,
and how seriously they take it.
We have to have them fairly close & across from each other,
the model sitting in profile.
The kids pull the desks apart to give themselves a better vantage point.
Notice how junior Ayesha Durrani (foreground right) is using a clipboard to hold her paper up
so she can constantly scan her proportions.
She is also using her pencil to measure distances.
These are all little tips from Dr. Betty Edwards book
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

TAH DAH!

BEFORE & AFTERS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

graphite on paper

I'm really excited to share the progress that my students made this year 

in their first drawing class with me.

What was really remarkable was how many of them came in with at least junior high drawing skills.

That's pretty unusual.  

The usual range is between 2nd/3rd grade thru high school level.

If you are new to the blog,

I teach the exercises from the 1st half of Dr. Betty Edwards book 

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain in this first year class.

The kids do a pre instruction drawing before we get started with the exercises.

I partner them up with a person I feel they would work well with,

and they draw that person in profile.

I keep those before drawings 

and the kids don't see them again until they are hung with the after instruction drawings 

for Open House.

So It's always a wonderful surprise to see the progress they've made.

Let's see how they did!

We start with junior Mikaela Guerrero who came in with pretty decent sketching skills.

 Her model was senior Nandan Vinjamury.

In about a 2 1/2 month period her drawing skills have grown to record all the realism she sees.

Bravo Micky!!

Because we had an odd number of students, 

sophomore Clarissa Kim didn't have a partner,

so one of our counselors,

Yen Tseng,

 came to her rescue.

One of the similarities that you will see in most of the Befores is the small scale that the kids use.

But in their afters they are using the paper with confidence and design in mind.

You've made a huge jump in progress Clarissa.

Fantastic job!

And thank you Yen for putting up with my constant calls to the office 

reminding you to get to class.

hee hee

Here we have junior Malaya Sithichai drawing senior Thomas Kang.

What a lovely after drawing Malaya, 

and I'm so looking forward to working with you again next year!

And check out this last one by junior Eileen Lee.

She came in with the strongest drawing skills,

 her partner senior Andrew Jun,

though a little sketchy & a bit messy.

But look at her style now,

so much more sensitive and fluid.

A delight for the eye,

and a remarkable new style for her as well.

Really looking forward to working with all my sophomores and juniors next year

 in the 2nd year class,

where we will tackle the second half of Dr. Edward's book,

along with a lot of other great projects.

A REMARKABLE RESEMBLENCE

BEFORE AND AFTER DRAWINGS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

graphite on paper

I look forward all year long to sharing these drawings.

And I'm so sorry beginners that it's taken me so long to get them up.

You are seeing where each child's drawing level was when they came to me in September,

 and where they are now after instruction.

I teach from Dr. Betty Edward's Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain book,

and as you will see the results are remarkable.

First we are seeing the marked improvement junior Risha Bhakta made 

of model junior Sneha Krish.

And here is 8th grader Sara Ryave's portrait of junior Christopher Wongsavanh.

It was one of the finest portraits in the class!

Junior Jane Juan drew junior Kyla Balquin,

and all the other students marveled at her amazing background.

It was like an illustration you'd find in a fairy tale book.

You may have noticed that several of these kids came to me with some drawing skills already.

But no matter where you are, 

Betty's book and exercises help you to improve...a lot!

Another 8th grader,

Emily Chen,

worked with senior Cyrus Salvani and nailed her drawing of him.

Junior Charity came in with very good skills,

but just look at where she ended using model senior Melissa Lanto.

All the students felt like this work by junior Bernice Lin was one of the most beautifully drawn.

So many lovely details recorded for all to see.

I am so excited to see what you will create your senior year Bernice.

And the teaser that you saw last week was done by Chris of Sara.

Again,

one of the strongest pieces in the class.

I was lucky enough to take Betty's class in 1982 to learn how to draw better and to learn about the functioning of the right side of the brain and how it affects the creative process.

It was truly an aha moment for me in my own work and as a teacher of art.

I highly recommend the book if you haven't had a chance to read it yet.

WHAT'S IN STORE FOR NEXT WEEK

The Before and Afters

from my Beginning 2-D kids.

Drawing each other in profile,

 we see where each child was at the beginning of the class and then after instruction

from the infamous book Drawing on the Right side of the Brain by Dr. Betty Edwards.

And You Thought You Couldn't Draw

BEFORE & AFTERS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

graphite

If you've been a follower for the last couple of years you might notice that this year many of my beginners came to me with high level drawing skills already (drawings on the left).

But by teaching with Dr. Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" book I'm able to get my students to at least Junior Collage level techniques or higher.

Wherever they end up there is always a significant improvement, and they love seeing their results as well as the progress of their classmates.

Let me start with senior Yoo-Bin Han drawing 8th grader Nari Park.  

Very decent skill level coming in but just look at where she ended up!

Remarkable!!

Senior Jackie Manipon drawing senior Cole Mesa was another who came in with skills, but her line style and attention to detail came up ten-fold!

Senior Alex Arias probably came to me with some of the highest level techniques in place.  

In his before he was really able to do a nice job with senior Catherine Chiou.

But as you view his after you can see that his proportions are so much more true, and that he is feeling more confident using all the paper rather then a small portion.

Junior Smruthi Maganti who was paired up with senior Tim Creasy, came in with junior high level skills, and did a tremendous job capturing him in real life.  

Here Nari Park, who was drawn above by Yoo-Bin, was too timid to even try to make a stab at drawing her face, sensitively captures Yoo-Bin's sweet profile.

I try to partner up the kids hoping that they don't really know each other, or one shy kid with one social student.

It takes a lot of thought on my part so that means I really need to get to know their personalities before we begin this unit.

I don't have them start until the beginning of second quarter; fist quarter is filled with color theory and design assignments.

Above senior Akash Patel is drawing sophomore Abigail Kim, a very challenging subject, right Abby?  :)

He has done such a lovely job with her.  

Junior Michael Cantu was partnered with junior Zoe Lin, and he did a sensitive and highly realistic job with his after portrait of her.

His hair techniques were remarkable!

And in this last one sophomore Elias Rodriguez really shows a lot of growth in his portrait of 8th grader Kristina Dorsz.

Congrats to all my Beginners for your trust in me as I took you on this journey.

Before and After Portraits - Student Work

In this top piece we have junior Alex Lee's remarkable likeness of senior David Kim.

These are always so exciting to show off, the progress that my Beginning 2-D kids made in their drawing skills.  I partnered them up with each other at the beginning of year and asked them to draw each other as best they could in profile.  Then I kept those first drawings safe, and onward we went as I taught them the first part of Dr. Betty Edwards book, "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".  Then about 3 months later I had them draw each other again to see the progress they'd made, and sure enough, each of the students had grown so much in their realistic skill level.  And what's so interesting, each of these kids came in at different levels.  This year I had kids coming in between 4th grade level thru high school.  But several of them ended at a college level.  You can imagine how proud of am of these hard working young ones! 

Below is the exact likeness of senior Louis Manuel by senior Sheila San Agustin.

This next one is a bit hard to see, but it was done in the very sensitive style that junior Hannah Hwang developed in the class of 8th grader Nathan Lam.

Senior Ashley Chowdhury drew a beautiful portrait of junior Judy Shih below.

And junior Deena Younan really managed to capture sophomore Jovani Garcia,

while junior Cathy Luo impressed us all with her exact likeness of junior Alex Rendon.

And what a lovely portrait senior Alice Zhang drew of  senior Sally Choi above.

And then there is the extraordinary work of junior Anne Allan who has drawn sophomore Matthew Chou.

Well, what do you think?

Send me your comments, would love to hear from you.

Thanks  :)  

Before and After Portraits - Student Work

One of my favorite assignments of the year to show is the progress that is made by my Beginning 2-d Art students thru their before and after portraits of each other.  Right before the drawing portion of the class begins I pair the kids up and ask them to draw each other in profile to the very best of their ability.

Their skill level before instruction range anywhere from pre-k thru junior college level, quite a diverse range.  Hopefully thru the teaching methods from Dr. Betty Edwards' "Drawing from the Right Side of the Brain" book, I can get them all to junior collage level and beyond.

Above we have senior William Luo who came in with medium range drawing skills doing junior Halah Elsahhar.  But you can see clearly that his skills have really soared after 3 months of Right Brain exercises.  

Above we have sophomore Megan Yeu who is drawing junior Corrine Marcus.  Megan came in with some of the highest technical skills in the class but look at her go now.  Crazy Amazing!!!

Next we have senior Joan Kim who is headed to art school.  Her skills were also very good coming into the class, but with the right brain exercises there is always room for improvement, as you can see.

Below we have junior Gisel Zabala who was paired up with senior Joseph Chon.  What a remarkable transformation Gisel has made.  I'm so proud of how hard you worked for this Gisel.

Senior Tiffany Yeh came in with a very high skill level and just look where she went...through the roof!!!  Senior Grace Liao sat very patiently while Tiffany drew her.

Then there is senior Emily He who came in with some lower level drawing skills (6th to 7th grade), but look at how realistic she is drawing junior Sabrina Velasco now.

And then there is senior Dustin Lee, who came in with 3rd to 4th grade drawing skills, maybe the lowest in the class, huh Dustin??   :)  But out of everyone, he made the biggest jump, the most progress.  I'm so thrilled for you Dustin, you couldn't have made me any happier!!! 

I have enjoyed working with you beginners so much, you guys have busted your buns for me.  Thank you all so much for making my job so enjoyable.  I love you and will remember what a wonderful experience it was teaching you to draw!!