Art Journal Challenge #1

Are you looking for art "homework" or at least a little sketchbook inspiration? Each week I will be posting an art journal challenge that you can complete at home. It's purely optional, but a lot of fun! You can bring your work to class to share, or have your parents post it on the Vista Oaks Parent's Facebook page. Of course, you can just keep it to yourself; the choice is yours!

This week your challenge is to find something in nature that has changed since the last time you viewed it, OR has a color that appealed to you immediately. Use an old gift card or index card and trace around it in your sketchbook to create a frame. Inside the frame, draw your object with pen. Make a contour drawing, where your eye and pen move at about the same speed. Go slowly, and look more at the object than your paper. Draw what you actually SEE, not the shapes you expect see or associate with that object. You can color your drawing with watercolors (make sure you used waterproof ink first!), colored pencils, crayons - whatever you have available. Here is what I drew in my journal this week:

Last week, these scrub oak acorns were all green. Now the tree was alive with acorns turning yellow. You can see more entries from my art journal on my personal blog.

What did you find to sketch this week?