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...

Will She Be a Swan??

I'm busy getting everything ready for the First Friday Art Class tomorrow. So just a quick picture of a face I'm working on. This is actually a demo for class tomorrow. We are painting in a method I call the "Coloring Book Method"...more on that later.

Every painting or drawing goes through an ugly stage. I find that my people paintings look very strange and over-simplified until I start adding color. Maybe 'strange' isn't the right word because, let's be honest, my people paintings always look a bit strange. So I guess 'ugly' is the proper choice.

So right now she doesn't look like much, but once I get some color on her, she'll be down right purdy...or at least endearingly quirky.

IF - Farewell

Farewell April, hello May

Illustration Friday - The theme this week is farewell

Newest Name Signs

IF - Train

Hair like this doesn't just happen, you've got to tease it and train it and mousse it. But it's worth it because it's a hit with the ladies. :)

Illustration Friday - the theme this week is TRAIN

First Friday Art Class for April 2013 - Color Theory

Today was all about color. Before class I assigned the girls a color to wear so they could sit at the table in the color wheel. So perfect that we have exactly 6 girls. The table isn't round, but they still got the "wheel" idea. :)

As usual, these little sweeties took this idea and ran with it. At one point one of them said, "I sure hope Orange gets here soon!" From then on, they each were known as their color instead of their name. Then, when I asked what you got when you mixed yellow and blue, they answered "Tabitha!" (she was our green). Hilarious and so much fun.

I think it was good for them to physically see who was opposite them on the color wheel. It was a great way to talk about primary and secondary colors, complementary colors, and warm colors/cool colors, etc. Fun!

During our discussion, the girls worked on this worksheet. (The first thing they asked was, "Can we color Roy??" This made me happy.)

I asked them to color the rectangles starting with dark heavy pressure and then fading into a lighter tone of each color. Most of them were familiar with the "Roy G. Biv" memorization tool, but it was new to a few of them. Roy has 6 distinct hair segments to color in the order of the rainbow (skipping indigo as today we stuck with just the primary and secondary colors).

Here's a sample of a finished worksheet. (Several of them decided ol' Roy could use a sweet mustache. This one is quite French, non?)

We then moved onto a really great design and color project found HERE from Art With Mr. E. I began by letting them know that it took me a couple of tries before I really got the hang of it. Here are my examples as well as several of my first attempts that are headed for the recycling bin.

I showed them how to do it step by step really stressing that you need to make sure each line goes from dot to dot. They practiced with pencil on scrap paper first until they felt more comfortable. I made sure to let them know that even if you have a couple little sloppy spots or tiny mess ups, these still look oh so cool!

They did their finished drawing on a 4x6 card with a fine tip Sharpie. They chose any color scheme that appealed to them. And they turned out amazing!

This was a really great project that combines design and color and also light and highlight. (Thanks Mr. Edinger for sharing this great project!!) HERE is another variation on the Line Design project. It's the same concept but with some tweaks.

I had a lovely, colorful afternoon with these colorful, amazing, fun, sweet girls!

See you next month!

IF - Eye Glasses

Illustration Friday - the theme this week is eyeglasses.

Drawing for a Friend's Birthday

I spent a nice afternoon indoors today drawing this for a friend. It was windy and cold outside and I had a lovely drawing companion to keep me company. The perfect way to spend a Saturday afternoon!!

Here it is from inspiration photo (secretly taken from Facebook as this is a surprise for his birthday) to rough sketch to finished drawing.

This is the drawing my daughter did today while drawing with me.

I love that she loves to draw with me!!