Surreal Shoe

Many of my 5th graders express interest in learning to draw REAL.

I start this lesson by having everyone take off their shoe and pose it on the table.

Once in position I usually explain the importance of practice! And that practice can be FUN!
We play a few different drawing "games" to get comfortable drawing from observation.

We do blind drawings, speed drawings, and drawings where we start/stop/swap.

In the next class my students get set up to start their final project. At this point all they know is that they are going to be drawing a shoe from observation and that I want it to be at least life size or larger.

Later we learn about value.

I teach students how to make a gray-scale using different shading techniques.

Then I teach students to SEE value by having them place objects, in the classroom, in order from light to dark.

This was actually a great game! Let me explain....

My classroom is set up by color (red table, blue table...)

If students were at the red table they were to find a red object around the room and bring it back to their table, blue found blue...

Once back they had to work as a team to order the objects into a value-scale. 

We then took photos and converted them to gray-scale to see how we did. 

Students then worked to add a minimum of 4 values to their drawing.

After that I reveal the FINAL TWIST!!!

In my 5th grade curriculum I teach about
  Rene Magritte and Surrealism.

I introduce my students to Magritte and some of his Surreal friends. We look at their works, talk about them, and pick out the ways the artist combine every day objects or places in un-ordinary combinations to make it surreal.

Students then look at their own shoe drawing for surreal possibilities.

Some students choose to transform their shoe into something new and others choose to put their shoe in a setting that it doesn't belong.