Abstract word paintings

Today kicks off six weeks of camps and workshops.

In the mornings this week, I am doing a camp for the North Vancouver Community Arts Council called, "I Love Vancouver"

All the projects will be inspired by our city.

They created relief tiles and afterwards I introduced an abstract watercolor project.

When I was explaining the concept to the kids, one student who had done a prior camp focusing on famous artist, immediately exclaimed "Oh like Jasper Johns!"

Well it was inspired by a little bit of Jasper John and also Paul Klee.

I started by asking them what city they lived in and of course they all answered, "Vancouver".

I then started asking more detailed questions.

What part of Vancouver?

What neighborhood?

What street?

What street number?

Then I showed them how to make a grid on their paper and then  use it to place the name of their choice onto the paper with sharpie pen.

I gave each student a ruler and a paper plate, but some were more interested in just doing it freehand.

I loved that I was able to talk a bit about typography with the kids- skinny letters, fat letters, short letters and tall letters- and how to combine them to make an interesting composition.

Once they had all the letters on the watercolor paper in sharpie, they erased their pencil grid lines and then I gave them liquid watercolors in the primary colors only.

I showed them a couple of ways they could blend colors and some interesting ideas on what they could do with watercolor before asking them to pick either a cool or warm palette.

Some did this and some decided to use a variety of color.  If they did decide to not stay in either the warm or cool colors, I did ask them to pay attention to the important part white space can play in a composition.

They then placed a different color in each shape that was created by the intersecting lines of the letters.

I'm quite impressed with their results.

And equally surprised at the variety of ways each child interpreted the instructions given.

Children and their imaginations never cease to amaze me.

I am so excited to see what else they create during this week.

age 7

age 6

age 12

age 7

above two same student, age 9

age 7

age 9

age 9

age 9

age12