Colorful Kitty Portraits

Beginning this month, the TCS Art Program will highlight the collaborative work of our talented students each month.  The featured exhibit for October comes from Mrs. Dodgion’s Transitional Kindergarten class.

For this project, titled Colorful Kitty Portraits, the students looked at photographs of cats. After deciding which shapes would be best to use for each feature, the students began to compose their portraits. They learned that a traditional portrait only includes the subject from the shoulders up.

To draw their projects, the students used both observational drawing skills as well as a guided lesson from Mrs. Smith, TCS art teacher. Observational drawing uses the artist’s powers of observation by looking at an image and drawing what the artists sees. This skill will continue to develop throughout an artist’s lifetime.

After composing a sketch in pencil, the students retraced the lines they wanted to keep in permanent marker. After a discussion of warm and cool colors, each artist colored their kitty in a color scheme of warm and cool colors. This project was composed of pencil, permanent markers and crayons.

Completed portraits were signed by each artist and mounted together on one canvas to show the collaborative skills of the entire class. We hope you enjoy looking at these adorable portraits as much as the students enjoyed creating them!