Big Ben on the Grid

In conjunction with the school's spring musical, my 7th grade students have started creating pictures of Big Ben to compliment the set for 101 Dalmatians.  Students selected a picture from the internet to use as a focus and then created a grid to learn how to map out their picture with accurate proportion.

Vocabulary:

Grid Method

Architecture

London, England

Big Ben

Foreground

Middle ground

Background

Students used yard sticks and simple mathematics to measure out their paper.  Students needed to solve how to make 18"x 24" piece of paper into 4x6 grid.  Once the grid was mapped out, students then measured their London picture the same way to help make the correlation of what do draw in each box.  

After the drawing was in place, students erased the grid lines and began to add color with tempra paints.  Student started with the sky and progressed to the city by experimenting mixing brown, yellow, orange and white for the golden brown of Big Ben.

When the entire painting was complete, students then took a charcoal pencil to make shadows and outlines by tracing around buildings and grooves and then "smudging" the charcoal to add depth and character to their artworks.

 The results are stunning!