MIDDLE SCHOOL

John N.

Jane Brumfield Montero

There’s something mystical, intriguing, and overwhelmingly loved by my sixth-grade students: dragons! Students adore depicting dragons, whether I ask them to draw entire dragons or focus on drawing their detailed faces. When COVID-19 safety protocols continued to have an impact on the sharing of art supplies, it was an easy transition from using oil pastels to Chromebooks to create these dramatic gradient dragon eyes.

Preparation
I began with a slideshow presentation that featured intense images of dragon eyes. Before I introduced this lesson, I made sure students were familiar with all of the Google Drawing tools, including gradient, drop shadow, and reflection. They already knew how to use the curved line tool to create rounded shapes for the scales around the dragonʼs eyes. Their prior knowledge made the new task of creating radial or linear gradients easier for me to teach.

It was an easy transition from using oil pastels to Chromebooks to create these dramatic gradient dragon eyes.

Procedures

1. Have students search for a dragon eye photo online. Students upload the selected photo to Google Drawings. Have students crop around the eye to make this the focal point of their drawing.
2. Students use the curved line tool to create the shape of the eye and the pupil. The polyline tool may be helpful for creating the center of the eye.
3. Review how to create radial and linear gradients. To find these tools, students need to open the format options tool on the right side of the screen.
4. Instruct students to zoom in 200% to see the value changes in the dragon scales.
5. Students add drop shadows to the polyline shapes. I show them how to copy and paste the shapes they make so they don’t have to keep making the same shapes for the scales. This helps students move through filling the background faster. I remind them to look closely at how the different-size shapes create perspective.
6. Students remove their original reference photo from the image and create a radial gradient background.

Eva K.

Sharing Results
My students love seeing the results of their hard work. I use Jamboard to create whole-class displays. Students also download their finished projects as a JPEG or PNG file and upload it to our online classroom board for assessment. I use a five-point rubric that includes the following items: two points for demonstrating use of the gradient tool, drop shadow, and reflection tool for the dragon eye; two points for creating curved-line shapes of different sizes; one point for removing the reference photo and creating a radial gradient background.

This gradient dragon eye lesson continues to excite and engage students. The results are always unique and students love sharing the finished eyes. This project is a true winner and a great example of an effective digital design lesson that inspires students.

Jane Brumfield Montero is an art teacher at Creekside Intermediate School in Dexter, Michigan. monteroj@dexterschools.org