Spring Session 2011- Week Nine

Pierced Paper Drawings & Signs of Summer Artwork

This weeks project has a funny title Pierced Paper Drawings. I came across this really amazing woman that created these and thought it could be a fun project for the kids. What we did was had the children draw a picture using pencil on white paper. White paper seemed to work best, but other colors could certainly be used, but the contrast between black and white shows up best. We encourage them to do simple line drawings without too much detail. Once they finished up with their drawings we gave them each a push pin with a pony bead hot glued on it, and a piece of cardboard. The bead is glued onto the push pin so it doesn't hit the table and dull the point. We also use a piece of cardboard so the pin has a "cushion" to go into. They just followed their drawing by poking holes along it to create their drawing. We then flipped it over and attached it to a black background. It is a really interesting way to create a drawing that is simply beautiful. The first two photos are by an artist Heather Smith Jones where the idea stemmed from.







Our second project for the day was our signs of summer. We talked about all of the signs or symbols that represent summer. We used a textured paper and had them create anywhere from 4 to 8 boxes on their paper. In each box using oil pastels drew a sign that represented summer for them. Living in California it tends to get a little bit fuzzy sometimes where summer starts and ends, but we came up with a large master list of signs/symbols. It was a fun project that turned out quite well. Oil pastels are a great medium that the kids tend to like using and have a wonderful richness to them.

Spring Session 2011- Week Six

Monoprints & Cute Animal Drawing tips

I know I say "I love blah blah blah" in almost every post, but I love monoprints. Monoprint technique for me is very open, freeing, random, abstract, relaxing, and satisfying. The history of printmaking is so old, and the machinery that they used to use, and some still do is antiquated and beautiful. One of my goals is to be able to have the children experience many different kinds of art techniques. Everyone has their own response to different mediums. Some kids enjoy just being creative with anything you throw in front of them, and others have specific callings. Printing to me seems magical. When you pull your print it suddenly transforms from ink on a blot to artwork on a piece of paper. I'm simplifying, but it is still an element of surprise. We did two types of monoprints with the kids this week. We did a one color subtractive color print, and a multi-colored painted print. The one color print is where you take one color of printing ink, and roll it out on a plate (a flat surface such as plexiglass, we used old laminate flooring) with a brayer to an even consistency. You then use a piece of cardstock, stiff brush, fork, or almost anything that will take away ink. Use the piece of cardstock and wipe away ink off of the plate. Once they were done we then take the paper and carefully lay it over the top of the plate and using your hand press and wipe it all over so the paint can transfer onto the paper. Then carefully pull it off of the plate and enjoy your beautiful print.

Then we let the kids paint the printing ink on their plate with different colors, and then carefully placed the paper on top, and then rubbed the paper onto the plate. After that the kids pulled up the paper carefully to reveal their hand painted print.






After printing we did a small lesson on hoe to draw simple cute animals. Often in class we have the kids draw things, and often the kids say they don't know how to draw this or that. So we thought it would be a good idea to show them some simple tricks to draw some easy animals. We provided simple instructions and a basic shape to begin with that was a keyhole. From there we showed the children how to create many different animals from that same shape. After we went through many options we asked them to try and create their own animal using the same keyhole shape.

Winter Session Week Eight

Mardi Gras- Jumping Jacks & Splatter Friends

Break out the crowns, beads, gawdy costumes, and king cakes Fat Tuesday is here!! So our projects for this inspiration is all based on the craziness, colorfulness, dancing, and myths that surround Mardi Gras.

Our first projects is what we like to call Splatter Friends. We had the kids pick two colors of paint and they applied it to the paper by blowing the paint around on the paper with a straw. This created a random, mysterious, organic shape. After the paint dried we had the children draw with a black marker or pen using the shape created by the paint some sort of animal, creature, fairy or monster. I love these sort of projects because it allows the kids to be super imaginative, and push their creativity. Not to mention so completely abstract which is so cool.








Jumping Jacks/Pantins

I love these crazy characters. They can dance like nobody's business. These fun toys are called jumping jacks, in French it's a pantin. I was originally trying to find a different type of toy, but still the same idea of self created movement. These characters reminded me of the fanciful nature of Mardi Gras. The kids picked out the pantin they wanted to create and cut out all of the parts. We them had them put together all of the joints with brads, and then we helped them tie all of the strings to make their jumping jack go crazy. These are super fun, and with the basic structure anyone could create there own jumping jacks. I suggested to some kids that they may want to create their own at home, and a robot could be a natural pantin.

Winter Session Week six

Van Gogh Starry Night Challenge & Charcoal Shading and Shadows

Nothing is better than giving kids materials that are from the get go messy. Charcoal is certainly no exception. There is no way possible that one can avoid getting it all over your hands, and mysteriously also on your face somehow. As you should if you are really getting into it you'll end up with it all over your clothes as well. Oh yes, did I mention vine charcoal is also rather brittle? So with all of those pluses going for us we thought let's give it to little kiddies and let them have a hand at it and see how clean they can stay with it. I love seeing kids getting all sorts of messy when they are doing art because they are so into it they don't realize it, as opposed to the ones that are smudging it all over themselves because they decide they are the canvas instead. It's all good fun. So this week we thought it might be good to talk about shading and shadows with our classes. We have so many that love to draw though so few have yet brought in any dimension to their drawings yet, as is expected for a kids ages 5-8 years old. There is certainly nothing wrong with a fabulous good old 2D drawing, but when they start getting the idea of 3D a whole new world opens up to them. I love expressive mediums like charcoal. It is forgiving, yet bold. We took the children through the process of a simple circle and transforming into a sphere, and what that all means. The discussion went into the difference between a flat circle and sphere is, what a light source is and how that effects the subject, and where the shadows and shading fall. First we walked them all through us drawing our sphere step by step and explaining what we were doing and why. Then we had them each do a couple practice drawings of a sphere with shadow. For the final drawing we discussed still life and what that was, and set out for the children some fruit and a coffee mug to draw. It was great to see how some children totally expanded on what they saw by adding additional items. For some the charcoal was almost too messy, but the good thing is it is easy to clean up.

On to our next project with oil pastels, another rather expressive medium, and one of my favorite. Since we looked at Picasso last week why not take a step back and look at Vincent Van Gogh? Van Gogh has such a great story. A sad and depressing story, but nonetheless, a wonderful persistent one. So, we gave a brief history of the artist, Vincent Van Gogh, and how he died at a young age of 37, was supported by his brother Theo for the majority of his life, and how he loved to create art. It was almost as if he had no choice, he certainly made no money from it while he was alive, and with very little encouragement by barely anyone except his brother he still found it in him to press on. Thank goodness he did. The whole impressionist style pre-, post-, and neo- I love it all. I personally find the impressionist movement very emotional and expressive. Anyway back to the class we study Van Gogh's "Starry Night" landscape. Through the study of his picture we talked about foreground, middle ground, and background. We also discussed the brushstroke and how the color is created by using multiple colors in an area to create the subject. It's like layering color onto itself, and it creates a very rich, deep, interesting appearance. We had them with a pencil create an outline/guideline of where to place the color, and then they began layering the color into their picture with the oil pastels. The children's interpretations of "Starry Night" came out beautiful.