Name______Date______

High School Art

Blizzard Bag Assignments

All of the Blizzard Bag assignments are assigned on the calamity day and due 2 weeks later. The assignments for all Art I-IV classes are to create sketches that can be done in or later put into your sketchbooks. They will count towards your attendance for the day missed, a grade on your quarter grades, and will need to be put into your sketchbooks- therefore they will count twice! Also, for those of you intending to attend ArtSchool for college, you will want you sketchbooks in your portfolio. THE WHOLE REASON I AM ASSIGNING THESE SKETCHES IS BECAUSE COLLEGES WANT TO SEE DRAWINGS LIKE THESE IN YOUR PORTFOLIO> DO A GOOD JOB!!!!

Calamity Day 1: Sketch Your Hand.

Choose an interesting position to observe and draw your hand. It can represent an activity you like to do or a school appropriate sign or symbol. For example, a baseball pitcher may choose the hand position for throwing a slider, a dancer may draw the position hands are supposed to be in for ballet, a guitarist may choose holding a pick, or you could look up the American Sign Language symbol for peace, love, hope, pain, etc. You will be doing a sketch of your hand in this position. Please notice I used the word ‘sketch”, not “trace”. No tracings will be accepted for a grade.

I recommend using a combination of simplest form drawing and gesture drawing to begin. The palm area, ( depending on the angle,) is a square. Use gesture drawing (1 line through the center) to capture the position of each finger. Check position and proportion. (Hint- depending on the position and angle, the palm and middle finger are close to the same length.) Once position and proportion are correct, carefully draw the flow of the contour line around the outside edge of your hand. Check the flow of the line. Add details. Create shapes of shadow.

Art II, III, and IV students, make sure you capture the shapes of shadow that show the lightsource. Check the shapes of shadow for accuracy and add value. Make sure you have created implied lines.

Grading Criteria/ Learning Goals

  • Chose a unique, meaningful hand position.
  • Overall craftsmanship of sketch. (Complete, fills the paper, no smears, wrinkles, time and effort shows in work, work looks clean and finished.)
  • Correctly captured position, proportion, and flow of contour lines.
  • Accurately created shapes of shadow.
  • Accurately captured values:

Art I- 4 values. White, Light Gray, Dark Gray, and Black.

Art II- 5 values. White, Light Gray, Medium Gray, Dark Gray, and Black.

Art III- 6 values. Same as Art II plus Medium Light or Medium Dark Gray.

Art IV- 7 values. Same as Art II plus Medium Light AND Medium Dark Gray.

  • Art II-IV only- Indication of light source.
  • Art II-IV only- Created implied lines.

Calamity Day 2: Sketch Your Foot.

You will choose a view of your own bare foot to draw. You must draw from life, so choose a view that is comfortable to sketch from. I recommend using the same techniques I described to help draw the hand. The Grading Criteria are the same as from Calamity Day 1: Sketching your hand.

Calamity Day 3: Sketch Your Favorite Piece of Apparel.

Choose a favorite piece of apparel to draw. It should represent your personality or who you are as a person. It could be a favorite shirt, jersey, shoe, purse, gym bag, hat, outfit, or anything that is appropriate for school. (Nobody wants to see your underwear!)

Set your piece of apparel up close to a light source so there are light highlights and dark shadows on it and shadows cast by it on the “ground”. Be sure to ground your object by adding the horizon line of the object the apparel is sitting on. Add the shading on the ground cast by the light source to make it look like it isn’t floating. This is called grounding your object.

There are 2 additions to your grading criteria for this assignment: accurately created texture and grounding of the object.

Grading Criteria/ Learning Goals.

  • Chose a unique, meaningful hand position.
  • Overall craftsmanship of sketch. (Complete, fills the paper, no smears, wrinkles, time and effort shows in work, work looks clean and finished.)
  • Correctly captured position, proportion, and flow of contour lines.
  • Accurately created shapes of shadow.
  • Accurately captured texture of the object.
  • Correctly grounded the object by adding a horizon line and shadow cast by the light source.
  • Indication of light source.
  • Accurately captured values:

Art I- 4 values. White, Light Gray, Dark Gray, and Black.

Art II- 5 values. White, Light Gray, Medium Gray, Dark Gray, and Black.

Art III- 6 values. Same as Art II plus Medium Light or Medium Dark Gray.

Art IV- 7 values. Same as Art II plus Medium Light AND Medium Dark Gray.

  • Art II-IV only- Created implied lines.