Elementary Studio Lesson
Fender
Benders
Miranda Nelken
Do you want to be behind
the wheel of a turbo-charged sports car gliding
along smooth asphalt, or
feel 400 pounds of torque peeling out
on an empty desert road, or sit in the
lap of luxury in a leather upholstered
Cadillac? There are no bad answers to
those questions for third and fourth
graders as they talked about the cars
they would repoussé.
Repoussé, the art of applying pressure to metal with a wooden point,
was the logical choice for forging the
steel bodies of automobiles, which
were the focus of this lesson. Each car
was paired with a landscape, making
the road trip an adventure in drawing.
Both parts of the lesson challenged
students’ knowledge of perspective.
Perspective Drawing Practice
Students began this simple perspective exercise by drawing straight lines
from the curves and corners of geometric shapes to a vanishing point on
a horizon line. The shapes were cut
off with drawn lines to become forms
such as cylinders and cubes.
Organic shapes
were added, as
well as bubble
letters, to challenge students
who wanted to
go further.
I also had students practice drawing roads. A straight road can be
drawn like a triangle, wide at the
bottom, and disappearing at the vanishing point. A road that swerves gets
smaller as it goes away. Small touches
like streetlights and lines also created
the illusion of space.
Drawing Cars
Each student chose a photograph of
a car from a magazine, newspaper,
or library book.
Since a car is
basically two
different-sized
metal boxes
stacked on top
of each other,
students were
encouraged to imagine the car as
two rectangles. On 3 x 5" ( 8 x 13 cm)
sketch paper, they sketched similar
rectangles and then drew the negative
space the car did not occupy within
the rectangles.
Repoussé, the art of applying
pressure to metal with a
wooden point, was the logical
choice for forging the steel
bodies of automobiles.
