Christmas & Composition!

A Student's work in "composing" a Christmas scene.

The class began as usual with a session of the simple joy of drawing something. I grabbed my "home toolbox" from the house that morning, and threw it into my van. When I set up my class I selected several of these tools and placed them on the tables for them to draw. Here are two samples of the results.

The next part of the class was about making a Christmas picture, but with a twist. My goal was to engage the class in the actual process of "composing" a picture. To decide not only on which objects to include in the picture but where they should be placed to make it balanced and pleasing to the eye of the beholder. 

I found some old Christmas cards from way back and cut out the front cover pages of each one. I also included some decorative Christmas wrap and laid these items all out on the tables letting them chose the things they wanted for their pictures. What a fun time the students had as they shuffled through the stuff, choosing and cutting out the items they wanted. Lot's of conversation and laughter discovering the options available. Even "negotiation" came into play. They then cut these items out and began to think about how they would arrange them and glue them into place. 

You can see that in the picture at the top some meaningful items were chosen and placed, but then there was the problem of the sky. The picture did not look complete as it was. After some discussion about options represented with the stuff on the table she decided to draw in the sky herself. This picture then had the balanced composition she was happy with. 

Here are two more examples, all of them are amazing?

We are judged by what we finish, 
not by what we start.
 – Anonymous