In Carol Bowen’s Drawing 2 Class, high schoolers tried their hand at composing Medieval Bestiaries, a collection of images and decorative elements depicting animals, both real and imagined.
In their assignment, sophomores and juniors chose a letter of the alphabet for their Bestiary drawing and an endangered animal whose name correlates to that letter. Medieval bestiaries typically feature a border, decorative letters, and a hand-drawn animal.
To convey a sense of weight and movement for their animal, students started with a gesture drawing, a method to convey the action, form, and pose of a subject. After establishing the gesture, students used geometric shapes to build a scaffolding for the form and finally used contour lines and shading to give their animal a sense of volume.
Story submitted by Middle and High School Visual Arts Teacher Carol Bowen