This unit began with a visit to the NGV with Years 4 & 5 students from Strathcona Baptist Girls’ Grammar School to view the Degas Exhibition and to participate in a workshop.

They used a tutorial on the internet which in Years 2, 3, 4 & 5, stop starting throughout the video enabled students to record each step. The skills the students learnt are the relationship between maths and art and the blending of oil pastels.

It began with pencil, recording the bar, breaking the page into quarters, the bar begins at the top quarter and diagonally drops to the half way mark. Where the wall meets the floor begins at the half way mark and drops down to the bottom quarter. The ballerinas are broken into geometric shapes of ovals, rectangles and triangles with particular emphasis on direction of shapes and proportions.

The drawings were then coloured with oil pastel. The background was filled in first, quite roughly, as is the floor and bar. The tutu was then coloured with particular attention given to direction of lines to follow the way the fabric flows. The rest of the dancers were then coloured focussing on blending techniques. Finally, highlights were added sparingly with black outlines.

MATERIALS

Cartridge – white, grey or light brown (a good way to use grey and brown cover paper)

Blacklead HB pencils

Oil pastels

TUTORIAL

Edgar Degas Oli Pastel Reproduction Tutorial – Mr Otter Studio 

Published May 26, 2016

Artwork provided by
Susan Clarke
Strathcona Baptist Girls Grammar School