After we review the Elements & Principles in Art 2, I have the rest of the course divided up by media. Recently, we started a unit on Colored Pencils, so we began learning general Colored Pencil techniques.
I generally begin with a quick review of basic color theory that they have hopefully been taught in Art 1. Then, I give them a little colored pencil techniques demonstration. Many students don’t know how to mix colors with colored pencils, so I show them how to apply the color lightly in layers and then burnish to mix new values and colors. I have students complete a practice worksheet that has various value and intensity scales. It is available in my TpT store.
The next day, we watch a video tutorial from The Virtual Instructor that shows three different methods for shading a sphere with colored pencils. I make them draw the 5 basic geometric forms and one organic form (jelly bean, mango, pear, peanut shape, etc.) using any or all of the techniques from the video. Colored pencil must be properly layered and/or burnished until no white from the paper shows through.
After all this colored pencil techniques prep work, we are ready to start an actual artwork using them! They use all this newfound knowledge of colored pencil techniques in their Art 2 colored pencil artwork, Arcimboldo Inspired Self-Portraits.
