In Paula’s Hands

Unfortunately due my laziness, the blog has fallen into a bit of a slump. I thought I should kick start it back on track with some great skill from Paula A H (S3, OLSP High) who’s work from home was featured two weeks ago. Paula has been working on analytical drawings of her own hands (one with her drawing hand, the other with her non-drawing hand (above)), and a pastel study as an alternative to  portraiture.

Paula’s skill is very obvious, even in her pastel piece that is still to be finished. Paula starts off the piece by drawing an outline of the shapes, she then adds highlighted blobs of colour to build up the form. When using pastel it is advisable to work from light to dark colours as it is easy to cover a white pastel with black, but impossible to cover a black pastel with white.

Really beautiful work. I’ll update this post when the piece has been finished. Well Done Paula.

‘Gotta Hand It To Ya’

This week I started my year long placement at Our Lady & St Patrick’s High. As a dive into the deep end I have tested my S3 & S4 at observing their own hands. The photos displayed are from the first sitting of S4. This exercise tests pupils’ observation and proportion skills, as well as patience and their control. It’s a very tough challenge (I think that hands are probably the toughest thing to draw on the human body, if not entirely), though I often think that after it, every other task seems easy to the pupils.

Hands

Below are joint investigation/development sheets and final outcomes from S3 pupils at Notredame Secondary. There are a series of hand studies in various media leading to pupils photographing their own poses for a chalk pastel outcome.