Behind the scenes of a masterpiece in the making

There are moments when you are working with children that just make your heart melt and turn your insides to mush.

Something they say,

or do,

or create

gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling that not even the latest Youtube kitten video on steroids can compete against.

Although I rarely show children's work in progress, I just cannot stop myself.  There have been so many melt your heart mushy moments over the past three days that I can't help but share a few with you.

Otherwise tomorrow night's post of the game complete would rival War and Peace I would have so much to share!!

If the work wasn't cute enough, there are moments the artist literally claps her hands together and gasp as she completes something because she is so pleased and excited with the work.  Oh be still my heart, there could be no greater reward for me than to see this reaction from the artist.

All this makes for unforgettable moments in the studio while creating what is sure to be a priceless work of art to the artist and her family for many years to come.

9 year old- "mice" pawns

The "teams" are white vs. orange.  

The theme, cats.  

White because the king happens to be her one year old cat, Violet, who is predominately white and orange for her mother's cat, Henrietta, that she had while growing up.  

Did you feel your heart melt a little?

9 year old- King and Queen awaiting paint

So I was thinking the queen would wear a robe similar to Violet, the king, but the artist decided a puffy skirt and sleeves were required along with a tiara. 

9 year old- "gold fish bowl" rooks in progress

Kim, the blogger of MimiCharmante fame, happens to be a friend of mine and decided to purge some of her hoard.  I happened to be the lucky recipient of some antique eye glass which came in handy for placing on top of the gold fish bowl to give the  look of water.  Inside the glass you see a bird's eye view of the goldfish swimming created in Fimo clay.

9 year old- finished Queen and King

The orange King and Queen set is finished and varnished.  I used a glaze varnish which gives them a great china look even though I do not own a kiln.  This was a great lesson in how to use tints and shades when working in one color.

9 year old, finished work

Above is the "bird" knight and the "scratching post" bishop.  The yarn ball on the scratching post is on a piece of copper wire so it actually bounces when you move it.

How cute is that?!

9 year old, finished "mice" pawns

9 year old, finished "Scratching post" bishops

Don't you love the scratch marks the artist put on the "bishop" piece?  I can't tell you how cute it is when the yarn ball bounces when the piece is moved on the board.

So tomorrow the artist needs to complete the other set of King and Queen and the four "goldfish" rooks.  Then while the varnish glaze is drying on those, she will work on painting the chess board. I will put a matte varnish on it so that it is long wearing also.  While we wait for the board to dry, I thought it would be fun to do a real life drawing of a couple of the game pieces, but we might just eat popcorn to celebrate the hard work completed during the week.

Then the Chess game will go home for her to challenge her dad to a game on the cutest board ever created.  She is so excited and I could not be more thrilled with her success.

a sneak peek.....

This week I am doing a camp at Kudzu Studio where artists create their own chess boards.  This artist is doing a cat theme board and the mice are the pawns.  I can't wait to see her finished piece on Friday!

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Breaking the rules with Picasso

This is the final project I am going to share from the "Art Yourself" camp at North Vancouver Community Arts Council.  Unfortunately I just did not get great photos of the clay head bust the kids did which is so disappointing because they were darling.

I find the last day of camp a bit challenging as I need a project that doesn't need time to dry since the kids need to be able to take it home at the end of the three hours.  While trying to decide what project to introduce, I remembered a project I did years ago when my children (who are now in University and their last year of high school) were in elementary school outside of Seattle, Washington.

I was the Art Docent Chairperson for our school and discovered this Picasso project in the handbook. I was not completely sold that it was great but I needed something quick for a teacher who needed me to come in at the last minute.  By the end of the 45 minutes, I was more than sold as the kids had a great time, learned a bit about Picasso's cubist work, and the teacher had an amazing display to show the parents at Open House.  Win, win, win.

I have always wanted to revisit it and with a camp focused on self portrait work, this seemed like the perfect time.

The kids were "all in" when it came to breaking the rules after the fun they had the day before with the Modigliani inspired portraits.  At first I think they might of been a bit disappointed we weren't working with the pastel chalks again, but I try hard to introduce the students to a wide variety of different mediums during the week and at this point had not done anything with the oil pastels.

So I showed them a few of Picasso's cubist portraits and asked them what they saw that made it different and interesting.  

Then they pulled out the photos their parents took of their side profile and the forward facing head shot.  I quickly showed them that the oils were much more interesting when you layered lots of color instead of just using them like a crayon.  I even showed them that when they layered lots of color, the pastel did all the blending work for them and they didn't even need to use their finger very much to rub things together.

Next I handed them a black piece of pastel paper and I asked them to draw the shape of their head on the paper with the black oil pastel.

Then using the blind contour drawing skills they learned earlier in the week, minus the paper plate, I asked them to add their profile through the middle of the face they had drawn.  Every. single. child. was eager to try, even the ones who had shed a few tears in frustration earlier in the week.  With a better understanding of the outcome, their fears had been alleviated.  

Hallelujah!

I then asked them to draw one eye face forward.  Then we discussed what looked different about their eye in the profile picture and I asked them to add this to the page too.  I told them it did not need to be in the same place nor the same size.  Whatever made them happy was great.

We talked about all the angles we saw in Picasso's work and they to draw a nose that pleased them.

After that, the lips.  Some did part of the lip in profile and the other face front, others just a front view.  Their choice.

Then they added color and WOW!

Look at the results!!

A great project years ago and a great project now.

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Modigliani self portraits

So after doing several traditional style portraits with the children at the North Vancouver Community Arts Council summer camp called "Art Yourself", it was time to let them break the rules.

This made one of the little six year old girls and her friends giggle.  She was very excited when I told her we were going to be rule breakers.  And she really embraced the concept of this project, laughing at each new aspect that I introduced.

So rewarding for me to see a reaction such as hers, worth more than all the money in the world.

So I put out several art works of Amedeo Modigliani for the students to observe and of course, just like when I did the Modigliani inspired "princesses" at my studio,  they all immediately jumped on the elongated necks.

But then a very interesting thing happened, after listening to me harp that the eyes are halfway down the face, the nose halfway between the eyes and the chin, and the mouth halfway between the nose and the chin, they also clicked in right away that the nose was way too long and the eyes way too high.

Unlike my own children, they listened when I spoke!! And they now understood the given proportions of portrait work well enough to understand how to break them.

And so they started sketching their own self portraits inspired by Modigliani and when they were happy with them, I handed out chalk pastel on black pastel paper.  They put some white chalk on the back of their sketches and then placed their final sketches on top of the black paper and traced them.  When complete, I handed them a black oil pastel to trace over the white lines and they were off to the races with the chalks.

They LOVED the chalks.

While working with them, several of the campers asked if we could do all the rest of our projects in chalk.  By the time they were finished, there were beautiful works of art and also children covered in a rainbow of color!

blue noses

orange chins

and a multitude of color on their hands.

My assistant volunteers extraordinaire, Jessica and Becca, and myself did not fair any better but it didn't matter when you see kids having that much fun.

So much fun that when given the opportunity on the last day to draw whatever they wanted, we had someone once again inspired by Modigliani's work and do yet another portrait in this style.

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Mixed Media self portraits

This is a mixed media project inspired by another blogger/artist named Jeanne Oliver.

A few years ago she ran her first online art course and I took it on a whim and one of the projects was a mixed media assignment that I have since used as inspiration in several children's projects.   They all seem to really enjoy the process of building many layers of different materials into a painting and the results are always very interesting.

The kids worked on this project over a couple of days, finishing it on the third day of camp.

We started with canvas squares and a whole bunch of paper scraps I have in my own studio.  Once they finished, they added paint, stamp marks, oil and chalk pastel.  Then they got down to work creating their self portraits and painting them in acrylic. Some of them chose to do their portraits with a 3/4 view and others wanted to stick with what they had learned from the previous days.  I was supportive of either one.  

Once finished, they added either self affirmation statements, their dreams of what they'd like to accomplish as grown ups, or simple sentences of what they find important or love in their life at this moment.

Whatever they decided, I know as they grow they will cherish this small part of the work the most when they look at the final painting.

Each and every one of the art pieces truly reflects the child who created it.  

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Warhol inspired printed self portraits

I love introducing children to Warhol, discussing what pop culture use to be in comparison to what it is today and being hit over the head with how out of touch and OLD you really are when they look back at you like you grew another head.

yes. I love that.

But I do love how well kids respond to Andy Warhol's work and it is a great source of inspiration when introducing printmaking.  In the past I have done straight relief prints with the kids but I decided to try something new this time and I think the kids really got sick of me saying how much I loved everything by the end of the project,  but I could not be happier with how this project turned out for each and every kid.

I was worried.  It was far more complicated than what I have done in the past and I wasn't completely confident the younger students would be able to handle it, but things went off without a hitch and each and every child was able rise to the challenge.

We did reduction printing.  And instead of explaining the entire project at once, I did one step at a time and did not share the next step until we were ready to embark on it.  I think this went a long way in keeping the kids from finding it overwhelming.

First the students did a line drawing of themselves on their "working paper".  I traced the size of the styrofoam square on the paper so they didn't do their drawing too large.  Once they were happy with their drawing, I taped the styrofoam to the table and then just the top part of their "working paper" so they were able to lift it up and see if they had all their lines without having to worry about getting it back into the right place.  They then traced over the lines as instructed with a blunt pencil.  We then lifted the paper off the foam and I had them go over the indented lines one more time to make sure they were deep.

For the first print, I only had them to their outside lines.  The hair line and the outside face and neck lines.  I then let them pick between pink or orange ink and had each child pull three prints in the color of their choice.

I then had them put them in order from their most favorite to their least favorite.

Once every student had three prints.  We started the next step which started with them cutting their heads out of the styrofoam.  They then could cut their "working paper" heads out of the paper also to place over the foam.  Some did them and others decided to just wing it and not rely so heavily on their working sketch.  At this point, I had them add in the facial features and hair with the blunt pencil, either by tracing over with their working paper or just looking at it and putting the features in freehand.  They then went back to the ink station and put turquoise ink on their styrofoam plates.

Here's the tricky part, getting it on register.  When we looked at Warhol's work, I emphasized how he put things off register.  How that added an energy to the work and how "boring" it might look if it had been perfectly registered.  I did this knowing that their work would probably not be perfectly on register and I wanted them to embrace that aspect rather than think of it as a mistake.

I also had them start with their least favorite first pull so there wouldn't be so much pressure to "get it right".  They had two practice go's to get confident with the process before placing the second pull on the final paper.

But to be truthful, they didn't really have any problems from the start, even the six year olds.  Having cut the head out of the styrofoam made it quite easy for them to place it darn near perfect on register.

When they did the second step on all three pulls, I then told them I wanted them to pick one part of their drawing to highlight with a third color.  Most chose their hair, but some picked a necklace or the flower on their headband.  They then went back to the ink station and used a royal blue for their final color.

I think the results are fantastic and would encourage anyone to try this project with children.

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