Middle School

The Essential Question
How can students combine drawing from life with exploring the use of lines?

Objective
Students will create a contour drawing of their shoe and fill the space with a variety of lines.

Materials
shoes, pencils, paper, black fine-point marker (.05 to .08), examples of various lines or teacher-made line reference sheet

Procedures

1. Demonstrate for students how to draw a shoe using semi-blind contour.
2. Students draw their own shoe using a pencil.
3. Students divide the shoe in an odd number of sections or use the natural sections of the shoe.
4. After the shoe and sections are drawn, students go over the lines using a black fine-point marker.
5. Distribute a line reference sheet or show examples of various types of lines. Ask students to use these lines or their own created lines to fill in the shoe spaces with fine-point marker designs.

Melody Weintraub is a retired classroom art teacher and adjunct art education instructor for the
University of Tennessee, Knoxville.