Value Drawing with Simple Cardboard Planes

It's been "all prom all the time," in my classroom recently.  My students and I have been trying to finish making big backdrops and table decorations for awhile. Of course, I have still also taught the curriculum with the standards I calendared at the beginning of the year, but rather than using a draped piece of fabric, or paper bags for a still life, I had my students do value drawings from the cardboard objects about to be sky scrapers for our New York themed dance.


They had to try to remember how two point linear perspective worked, but then the lines of their drawing disappeared as the planes were filled in with value. We stuck to three shades of gray, and in fact, I gave them gray pastel for the lighter areas rather than having them figure out how to lighten it.

Because this project was simplified, it only took an hour to complete.  The following class period, I gave students the freedom to make anything they wanted with charcoal on paper, which, for the most part ended up being a big mushy blob of gray.  This gave me a chance to teach the technique of using an eraser as a drawing tool to lighten.  Below is a result of a cowboy done using that process.