Dancing With Two - First Edition

Today Renee and I, her dad, started a new animation video with clay figures she and I made especially for her video.  Renee's previous animations, such as Dancing with the Characters, used clay figures Renee already had from previous art projects.  So she could only move the characters across the table like chess pieces.  But now Renee and I can move our new clay figures' body parts for more interesting actions.

We chose to start a dance video with our new figures.  Renee showed a lot of creativity choreographing the dance moves.  The video is not finished yet, but here's the beginning sequence Renee came up with.  Stay tuned for more dance moves and of course a music sound track!

Sketching Breakthrough!

When Renee sketches, her first instinct is to approach sketching like writing numbers and letters in which she knows from the start exactly what the letters and numbers need to look like.  So it makes sense to press hard on the paper to write legible letters and numbers.  But you rarely know exactly what a sketch should look like from the start, so it  makes more sense to sketch lightly and then darken in the lines as the sketch evolves.

A good sketcher should actually not need to erase his or her lines and can use a pen to sketch.  This a real challenge for Renee, who is accustomed to sketching with a pencil and erasing her lines because she usually presses hard on her paper from the start.  So today I was very gratified to see this short series of sketches Renee did with pen!  You can clearly see she began with sketching light lines and then darkened in the final lines!

Cartoon Family Sketch

Here's Renee's new cartoon sketch of our family.  Again, she is doing a good job applying the cartoon sketch style from her cartoon sketch book, and I'm glad she did not draw me with a bowl haircut this time!  Next I want to encourage her to develop her own sketching style.

"Tug-a-War" sketch

Renee sketched this "tug-a-war" scene, and she did a nice job applying the cartoon character expressions she learned from her cartoon sketch books.

Cartoon Body Sketch Practice

This past Monday Renee studied her cartoon bodies sketch book, and she was on a roll cranking out these EIGHT pages of sketches.  She is a good student and gets very motivated with subjects she likes.  So I was glad to see Renee embrace the basic hand and arm sketching exercises.  Her book teaches to start sketching with simple lines and basic shapes like circles and ovals, which is a good way for Renee to improve her sketch technique.  I also want her pay attention to the body part proportions.  Renee finished her sketching with our cartoon family portrait.  I like the sketch except for my haircut.  I must remind Renee that Dad does NOT have a bowl haircut!

Cartoon Face Sketching Practice

Today Renee and I practiced sketching cartoon faces from a book her mom bought her.  She had a lot of fun with this practice and finished with her cartoon self portrait at the end.

Renee's cartoon self portrait!

Seattle Vacation Sketches

On the return flight from our Seattle vacation, I showed Renee my sketch of her and her little brother Russell to get her motivated to draw, and I think it worked.  In about half hour, Renee cranked out these three sketches from our vacation.  She initially drew them very lightly in pencil, like the sketches in her previous post.  But this time she retraced her sketch with darker lines.

This first sketch shows our family posing in front of a sculpture in Volunteer Park in Seattle.

This is Renee's sketch of me trying to do the photographic sight gag in which people in a photo hold their hands close together in just the right way to make large objects appear small.

This is Renee's sketch of Ele in Volunteer Park.

Animal Control Lady Sketches

Renee did some sketch exercises, and pretty quickly made these sketches of a character from the Madagascar 3 movie.  The character is an animal control officer who chases the main characters.  Renee did these sketches all from her memory.  The last picture below is of course not Renee's work, but it shows she sketched a pretty good likeness of the movie character!

 Dad especially likes the second picture below, which shows some imagination with body poses and character expressions.

Dinosaur Puppet

Renee has been going to an arts and crafts summer camp these past few weeks, and she made this really cool puppet!