Gifts from the heart, part two

I find more and more, the students in the classes are leading the direction of projects.  I try really hard to honor their ideas when they come to class and since my class sizes are small, I find it is not difficult to have different projects going on at the same time.

One student's father was pretty clear with his hints, he would like a winter scene painting for Christmas from his daughter.  She also figured he would want the project "big", so the following acrylic painting was done on a 16x20 canvas.

12 year old

I decided to take the opportunity to work with the student on how to use her brush as a tool instead of just a means to hold paint.  We focused on the use of brush strokes.  She started by laying in a background using tints of green and blue, then put in her tree with two different shades of green.

Once that was almost dry, I gave her some molding paste and a palette knife.  She placed "clumps of snow" on her tree and on the snowy foreground, focusing mainly on right around the tree.  Since the paint wasn't completely dry on the tree, the paste picked up some green also.

We dried the molding paste with a hair dryer and then she went back over the paste with some white acrylic paint.

Now the scary part.

I gave her a glazing product to mix with white paint to put over the entire project.

What?  You want me to paint over everything in white?!??

I gave her a paper towel so she could wipe away any glaze she thought was covering up too much green, just to give her a bit more confidence in the product and also showed her how she could control how transparent or opaque the final glaze would be by changing the ratio of paint to glaze.

Once finished, I think the work is breathtaking and I have no doubt her father loved it when he opened the present for Christmas.

And then that inspired one of the other students in the class, who while working on another project (the flower painting for her grandmother in the nursing home), was watching what this student was creating and wanted to create a winter scene for her father.

13 year old

Same large canvas, but what a different result.  Again, getting her to focus on using the brush strokes as a design element in her work she first finished the background trees and painted in a foreground.

The following week, she first wanted to put the glazing product over what was already finished.  Once that was done and she had a very subtle and soft background, she announced she wanted to do a "really bright tree in yellows and reds" as the focal.

Now it was my turn to feel a bit frightened.

With a palette knife, she began to throw in bright yellow and red paint and also some burnt sienna.  I placed some raw umber on her palette in hopes she would pick it up a bit to anchor the colors.  As she finished the trunk, it was clear she was unhappy with it but I encouraged her to keep going.

With a brush she started adding in the green but was still unhappy.

I knew it was because it was so arresting against the current background and pointed out that she might like to add some snow on the tree to pull the painting together and she might consider using the molding paste also.

So she threw some molding paste on the green and the snow in the foreground and then put some acrylic paint on top of that and since she had seen the results of the glazing product was quite confident with again applying it over the entire project to pull it together.

I think her original idea of the "bright tree" is quite brilliant in the end.  The work is very different from the subtle work of the first piece but just as arresting once finished.  Again, there is going to be a very happy daddy on Christmas morning.

And finally the first artist then wanted to do one more painting, this time for her mother.  She wanted to paint some roses for her mom on an 8x8 canvas.

12 year old

A very different style than the first work she did for her father, but I love how it turned out.  She sketched out her work with charcoal and then used some gesso over it to create her values before adding color.  I like how she used the other side of the paintbrush to create line work in the urn.  Once finished, she went back over the work with some charcoal before finishing.

I know her mother loved it.

I have one more day of projects to show you tomorrow.  I'm so proud of the work these students are creating and the confidence they have now developed that they can give their work to others as gifts.