First Friday Art Class for May 2013 - Introduction to Painting

I want to start by showing you two pictures...

Can you tell that we had some serious fun??

Today we painted. But maybe not in the way that one would call normal or typical. Normal and typical are so boring.

First, we painted on wood. I chose wood for several reasons...canvases are a bit intimidating and expensive, and paper can break down and tear using this painting method. Wood is sturdy and inexpensive...especially when you use scrap wood from your garage. In this case we are using 1/2" MDF.

Secondly, we actually did not use any paint. We used watercolor crayons, pastels and gesso. So in a sense, we made out own paint directly on the surface of our painting.

Thirdly, we used black outlines. I really find that this can be much less intimidating for children and beginning painters. I call it The Coloring Book Method.

Here were our steps: (I'm planning to do a full length tutorial on this painting method HERE)

I'll save most of my commentary for the tutorial and just show you lots of pictures of these wonderful young artists at work.

Here they are working on their thumbnails to see what exactly they'd like to paint today. I suggested flowers or people as they work really well with this method and we've worked a lot on them in past lessons, but I also told them they could paint anything they want. My motto is always It's Your Drawing/Painting So You Can Do Whatever You Want.

 I put a claw hook on the back of each girl's painting so they could take them right home and hang them up.

And here they are with their finished paintings: (we had one who had to leave a bit early...I'll post her finished painting soon)

These girls have been so much fun! We've had a great time the past two years. I love each of them dearly! 

I'm trying to figure out a way to continue even though several of them will be in middle school next year. We'll have to see how that goes...