Architectural Drawing - The Pink Ladies Row Houses

THE PINK LADIES: VICTORIAN ROW HOUSES in SAN FRANCISCO

art terms: architecture, victorian

materials: paper, pencils & erasers, sharpie fine tips, geometric cardboard templates (IN ART CABINET), colored pencils or markers

(original lesson found here at deep space sparkle)

Meet the Artist: These are the "Painted Ladies" Victorian Row Houses, in San Francisco. (Do you remember watching "Full House" in the 80's? They showed these in the beginning credits :). ) These row houses are designed in a style of architecture that is known as Victorian, because that is how many buildings in England were built during the reign of Queen Victoria (1839 - 1901) and the popularity of the style caused architects all over the world to imitate it. There was an explosion of people who wanted to live in San Francisco from 1850 - 1901, and during that time there were around 50,000 Victorian homes built in the city. Unfortunately many of them were destroyed during the big 1906 earthquake and fire, but if you drive around the city in the Upper Haight, Fillmore, and Pacific Heights neighborhoods you can still see some really pretty examples. This particular street of houses (Steiner Street) is a great example of the cookie-cutter trim and fancy details that typify this style.

Discussion: Pink Ladies Slideshow here. This lesson focuses on architecture. Architecture is the designing and building of structures, which is a combination of science and art. Every building that you enter into has been designed by an architect. What kind of things do you think an architect must think about before designing a building? (Ideas may include what a building is for, how the shape of it will help people use it effectively, how the way the building looks fits into the the buildings or landscape). Ask the kids to think for a minute about the buildings they regularly use (home, school, church, stores). Are there features of these buildings that make them attractive? Especially useful? Why do you think our school has a blue corrugated steel roof? (I don't know, btw, but am sure there is a reason!) 

You can tell Victorian architecture because the following elements are often included in the design: turrets (those fancy little towers), large windows (some of them are paned with stained glass), decorative brackets, arches and curves, balconies, bright paint colors, and lots of trim.

Ask the students to point out some of these features in the pictures you show.

Additional points of discussion may include:

What do houses like this make you think about the person who designed them?

What were the designers of these homes trying to say?

Activity: Have the students use the large rectangular cardboard templates to draw basic shapes for their own Victorian creation. Once they have maybe two or three tall rectangles drawn, have them add other elements using the other templates: windows, doors, roofs, etc. After they have the core of their drawing done, pass out the sharpies and have them trace over their pencil drawings. Then they can put aside the templates and add their own fanciful details using their imaginations: turrets, shingles, scrollwork, etc. If time allows, they can add color with markers. (Practical tip: once the basic shapes for the drawing are down and traced in sharpie - i.e., the rectangle building shapes, make the kids put their pencils away and use just the sharpies for the remainder of the drawing. If they draw the entire picture in pencil and then try and trace it, it will take them forever and they will not finish in one lesson.)

Student Work:

"Painted Ladies" drawing by a seventh grader

"Painted Ladies" drawing, seventh grader

"Painted Ladies" drawing, third grade

"Painted Ladies" drawing, third grader

St. Basil's Cathedral Drawings

ST. BASIL'S CATHEDRAL, 1561

Moscow, Russia

Pronounced: St. Ba-zil

Art Style: Byzantine

Activity: Drawing and a bit of Painting

Materials: Watercolor paper, drawing paper, scissors, glue sticks, sharpies, watercolor pastels, brushes and cups for water

I bought this lesson from Patty's site (it comes with two other excellent lessons). Totally worth the $5, especially since I have used so many of the lessons she posts online for free over the last few years. If you'd like to do this lesson I would encourage you to buy her line drawing packet. You will not regret it! She lays out the process very thoroughly, makes it easy to teach, and passes along some great drawing tips. The purpose of this post is to provide supplemental background and discussion questions.

Meet the Artist: St. Basil's Cathedral is in Moscow's Red Square, and was begun in 1555, during the reign and by order of Ivan the Terrible. (Ivan was actually very terrible - he was mentally unstable and prone to violent rages. Also his henchmen were brutal in their use of assassination and physical punishment). Anyway, the cathedral is designed to look (see if you can guess by looking at the slideshow pictures!) like a bonfire, flaming into the sky (this is inspired by a passage in the book of Revelations, which describes the Kingdom of God and the vivid colors therein). There is no precedent for such a building - it is an example of wild and bold creativity by the architects, and inspired many buildings that were built after in Russia and the countries around it. Note the vivid colors on each tower, and the different patterns on the exterior of the building.

Discussion: Here is a slideshow I made to go along with the lesson. Looking at the domes, ask the discussion questions: (1) What do you see? (2) What makes you say that? (3) What more can you find?

To deepen the discussion, you might have a discussion about how art is able to communicate ideas without words. In this case, the architects told about their religious feelings through the shape of a building. And whenever anyone sees this building, even now 450 years after its completion, they can see what those architects believed even without stepping foot inside of it. Art can be a powerful tool.

The domes - the bubbly things at the top of each tower - are called "onion domes" because they do in fact look quite like onions. This shape (in addition to the whole candle thing) was actually a really practical design innovation for a building in a place like Russia, that gets so much snow: the snow can't stick to the onion-y shape but rather slides right off.

Activity: See Patty's lesson, which discusses how to draw the domes with different patterns and lines.

Student Work:

Rose Windows with Paper Snowflake Tracery

ROSE WINDOW, STRASBOURG CATHEDRAL, AUSTRIA, 1290
(rebuilt in 1845 following damage from a storm)
Art Style: Gothic
Art Terms: Stained Glass, Rose Window
Activity: Watercolor, Paper Cutting
Materials: coffee filters, markers (ones that are water-soluble, so anything in our closet OTHER than the colored sharpies), black construction paper, scissors, glue stick, and a spray bottle filled with water

This is a nice project to do in December as it is festive and wintery, yet you can still have a substantive discussion about an important bit of architectural art history, rose windows.

Meet the Artist: This slide show has a picture of 2 rose windows. The first is a picture of the rose window in the Strasbourg Cathedral in Austria and is better suited for this lesson since it has more complicated metal work which is more like the effect the kids will create with the black construction paper & scissors. (We have another stained glass lesson which uses the Matisse window, the second slide, as its visual and I just stuck them in the same slide show for convenience). The Strasbourg Cathedral is one of the finest examples of Gothic Architecture in a Cathedral (here's a quick article from wikipedia).

Discussion: 1. What do you see? 2. What makes you say that? 3. What more can you find?

To deepen the discussion, other ideas you could bring in: (1) the idea of symbols. What do you think the designer of the window was trying to say? Do you think that the context of this piece of art, a church, has anything to do with that? (2) Pattern and design: do you see repetition in the design? Why do you think the artist might repeat the design over and over? (3) How do the artist's choice of materials (glass, metal), affect the final product of the art? (How is a window different than a painting, for example? A window requires light in order to see it…How could that be a symbol inside of a church?)

Activity: Have the kids make a pattern on the coffee filter with the markers, and then spray the decorated filter with the spray bottle to see the colors blend together. (*You might want to warn them that when you spray, their design will become blurred. The spraying helps the coffee filter to eventually be more transparent but for some kids, this was traumatic!)  OR you can spray first and the kids can decorate the filters wet. It's totally up to you. The difference is that they can make a more precise drawing with it dried but it doesn't really matter because either way it will end up kind of blurry and abstract.

While that dries, have the kids trace the coffee filter on the black construction paper, making a circle of an identical size. Have them cut out the circle, then fold in half, then in half again (it will look like a piece of pie). Demonstrate how to cut into the sides to make a snowflake. Unfold, glue the coffee filter to it. Voila!

Variation for younger grades: We pre-cut the circles, folded them in half, and drew very simple cutting lines on the circles (if you fold the circle more than once, the kids don't really have the hand strength to cut through that many layers of paper).

Student Work:

(sorry for the blurry pic!)

Stained Glass

HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954)

Rose Window, 1954

Pronounced: Mah-Tees

Art Style: Modern, but influenced by Gothic

Art Terms: stained glass, symbols

Activity: Collage

Medium: tissue paper on transparency

Materials: transparency paper (cut in half), tissue paper, elmer's glue (watered down by half), sponge brushes, scissors

Meet the Artist: (We have a Matisse Smart About Art book in the closet that you may want to read to the class, if time provides). Other great information to prepare yourself - this brief article here; also this link here is neat, with photographs of him, etc. Also this is an interesting blog post about the chapel where this window is found.

Discussion Ideas: Using this slideshow, pass the first slide and focus on the second, which is an image of a Rose Window designed by Matisse for a small chapel in NY (the other windows in the church are designed by Chagall - check it out! It's gorgeous). Use the discussion questions to open your discussion - (1) What do you see? (2) What makes you say that? (3) What more can you find? 

Depending on the kids ages, you could deepen the discussion by asking about: pattern and design - is there repetition? What does that contribute to the piece? Color - how does that affect the piece? What are symbols? (an object that stands for an idea) What do you think Matisse was trying to say? Materials - how does Matisse's use of glass affect the way this piece feels? Does light coming through the window change the way this piece of art might feel throughout the day?

Activity: Have the kids think of a shape that has meaning to them - like a personal symbol - and have them cut it out using a piece of tissue paper. Set aside. Have the kids then cut smaller pieces for their backgrounds (if the kids are in the younger grades, I'd pre-cut these for sure). Cover the transparency with watered-down glue using the sponge brush and then have the kids go to town laying in their designs. If you have time for their pieces to dry you could have them trace over the edges with sharpie to simulate metal tracery like in the windows but that might be tricky, time-wise (I'll probably skip that when I do it).