Aquarium one-point perspective drawings

Before we went to the Aquarium, we combined all our new fish and ocean animal knowledge with the one-point perspective drawing Sam taught us. We drew pictures of those clear shark tunnels you always see in aquariums (aquaria?), as shown in this post. It was fun to see how the kids interpreted this project. Some of them took the line-drawing very seriously and used rulers and measured everything meticulously. Others (Junie) threw out the assignment altogether and did something new!

Sea Monsters by Ziggy!

Gus drew the cutest little creatures, and a happy person watching them! That last little guy is a squid.

Teddy's aquarium tunnel

This is what Junie drew instead…a lovely ocean scene

Goldie's aquarium tunnel (so many good and varied animals in this picture!)

Daisy's tunnel (note the Gulper Eel…and I love the underside view of the shark)

Architects and One-Point Perspective Drawings

We learned about some of the things architects do, and talked about famous architects. We watched an artsy and beautifully-filmed documentary on Norman Foster (fascinating), and we watched the Ken Burns documentary about Frank Lloyd Wright. He had kind of a sad, but very interesting, life. It sparked some serious discussions with the older boys, and both movies, with their retrospective nature, made me do a lot of thinking about what patterns can be seen in my own life, and what they mean.

We talked about the difference between elevations, floor plans, and renderings, and then I asked Sam if he would teach a class on perspective drawing. (We drew floor plans on another day.) He showed us how to do one-point perspective. The boys got the idea pretty well, though getting all the lines right (even with a ruler) can be hard---especially when you're trying to do circles, etc.! Still, it was a useful art lesson and a good introduction to drafting and rendering.

I liked how Seb's looked with the added color. I love the leafy, Art-Nouveau-style stained-glass window by the door on that far wall!