watercolors inspired by "winter" animals

A lovely young girl had her eighth birthday party here at the studio a couple of weekends ago.

She loves watercolors and wanted to do something with animals that live in the snow. In past workshops and camps, she has gravitated towards penguins so I wasn't that surprised she chose to do an animal theme picture and winter animals to boot!

I pulled out reference for polar bears and penguins. I then had a couple of request for arctic foxes and snow bunnies. All easy request for me to fulfill.

I taped down large sheets of watercolor paper and gave the party guest time to work out their sketches on practice paper before transferring them onto the watercolor paper.

We discussed finding the shapes of the animals to begin a sketch and also how they could make artist choices to simplify their compositions from what they saw on the reference and even a bit about abstracting their animals and what that actually meant.

They then traced over their drawings with sharpie pen.

I gave a quick demonstration on some of the techniques they could utilize with the watercolors, wet on wet, scratching, salt, and blooming.

I then handed out a palette of primary colors and black.

Before they started I shared with them how they didn't have to paint their animals realistic colors, they could paint "crazy" colors that evoked feelings, temperature or was just their favorite color.

The birthday girl was using a diving polar bear for reference and she created an amazing sketch but was unhappy with her upside down polar bear, as she wasn't quite sure she wanted the bear diving underwater. Together we discussed and brainstormed all the different reasons her polar bear could be upside down.

birthday girl

And here is what she came up with, pretty fabulous.

grade 3

grade 3

These two friends used the same snow bunny for reference but I love the how interesting the compare/contrast is between the two artworks. Although the sketches are very similar the artist choices made afterwards are unique to each child. From choosing different directions for their paper, background and how they painted their rabbits.

grade 2

This arctic fox created by the youngest party goer was fun to watch. At the start, she used her watercolor paint as regular paint and had put it on thickly on one side and declared she needed more. I challenged her to see if by adding water she could get that blue paint to cover the entire paper and she was quite surprised to see that she actually could do it. She was then lost in adding more colors to the blue, trying her hand at using the water to bloom the color and of course, had a lot of fun adding salt. Her fox was a very solid blue at the end when she told me she was finished and so I handed her a bit of paper towel and asked her to find the highlights on the reference and blot them out with the papertowel. Love her use of brushstrokes around the fox to lead the viewer into her artwork.

grade 3

The simplicity of this diving penguin is in my opinion genius. I love that the young artist was brave enough to leave out the facial features even and look at the way she used her brushstrokes in the water to created a downward motion with the penguin!

grade 3

And this happy, leaping polar bear painted in pink! How sweet. Again we brainstormed a bit about what might be in the hand of that bear and she giggled at some of the ideas. No surprise this happy bear ended up holding a present while being created at a birthday party.

grade 3

grade3

And then there were these two penguins. I am so impressed at the restraint each used when using color and although these look simple, they took just as much time for the young artist to create.

At the end when it comes time to sign their names, I always give a little talk about making a mindful decision on how to add their names to the pictures. After spending an hour and half creating the pictures, we don't want the name that was written in less than thirty seconds to be the first thing the viewer notices in the artwork.  Children quickly catch onto this concept and I am always amazed at some of the creative ways they implement their names into the artwork afterwards.

Happy 8th Birthday Miss T!! Thank you for letting me share in your special day.

water based marker monoprints

These lovely monoprints were created during a warm up activity to an acrylic landscape painting project in the teen class.

A warm up exercise!

Created with the humblest of art supplies, Crayola markers and a piece of acetate.

Each teen had picked a reference photo they were considering using for the acrylic painting. They put this photograph under the acetate and then drew the elements they were thinking of including in their painting onto the acetate with the markers.

We had talked a lot about how artist are always making decisions about what to put in and take out of their paintings. What to simplify, what the focus should be and how to move things around to create an interesting composition.

This quick exercise gave each of them a chance to begin making some of those decisions without getting bogged down in getting things "just right" in a sketch.

As they were drawing with the markers onto the plastic, and any old plastic will do for this project, there was some concern that it wasn't working as the ink just kind of balled up on the surface. It was hard to convince the artist that it was OK the marker wasn't covering the surface as expected but since it was a warm up exercise there wasn't too much stressing and they continued forward.

I then gave them a piece of damp paper and they turned their ink drawing face down onto the paper and rubbed.

When they pulled the acetate up, they were all pleasantly surprised with the results.

I was too.

I thought they were so stunning that I matted all of them for the teens to take home.

Amedeo Modigliani inspired self portraits

A couple of weeks ago, Artsy.net reached out to me and asked if I would consider creating a Modigliani inspired art project.

The Tate Modern will be opening a comprehensive retrospect of Modigliani's work on November 27th, (one of my favorite places to visit) and Artsy is looking to highlight the opening while also highlighting was a great source of educational material it offers on it's website.

I personally love Artsy.net. Not only when I'm looking for comprehensive information on an artist like Modigliani but the site has also been a great resource in introducing me to an array of historical and contemporary artist to introduce to the children at my studio.

Not going to lie, it is one of the first emails I open in my inbox over coffee in the morning.

I have introduced Amedeo Modigliani in the past, once creating Modigliani inspired princesses and also Modigliani inspired self portraits.

It's been a long time since I explored this artist with children and so I was quite excited to bring him to the attention of the Kindergarten through Grade 3 afterschool class.

We spent some time debriefing his art. The children were quick to point out how long the necks were and that sometimes the eyes were left blank or even colored in.

Amedeo Modigliani. Woman with Red Hair, 1917

Amedeo Modigliani. Chaim Soutine, 1917

Amedeo Modigliani. Girl in a Green Blouse, 1917

I found all the artwork reference at Artsy.net and since I had a class of boys and girls found some subject matter of both.

As a group we went over the basic "rules" of the face and then looked at how Modigliani broke the rules. Kids love a rebel and they were quick to embrace the artwork of Modigliani.

I then brought out the mirrors and began to have the children study their own facial features. I love doing this with children as it is such a great opportunity to bolster their self confidence in complimenting each of their unique features that make them, well, them.

How the lines of their eyes and eyelids are each unique, along with the shapes of their face, the fullness of their lips, and the tips of their noses. They giggle as I take a moment to talk about how wonderful each of their own unique features are and at the same time there is great satisfaction for me as I watch each of them quietly begin to sit up a little taller as they proudly acknowledge their own interesting traits that make them special.

As they were looking at themselves, they began to use black oil pastel on grey paper to record what they saw in the mirror. They also channeled their inner "rebel" inspired by Modigliani's work and exaggerated whatever features they felt inclined to enhance.

Once finished I then handed out chalk pastels for them to use for coloring.

grade 2.

I encouraged them to create colors as unique as they are by blending two colors together. This bright and sunny artwork truly captures the sunny disposition of the child who created it. Along with the serious gaze I have seen more than once as she listens intently in class as I share artist and techniques with her.

grade 2

This little boy is a sponge. He not only listens intently to what is said in the studio, he keeps it stored away and brings it back out at the most unexpected times. Here he has not only processed what we talked about with Modigliani's art but also brought back information from a prior project studying the Fauves using color to evoke emotion. He is a very calm and laid back child and creating his self portrait using greens certainly captures his personality.

grade 1

The collar! This young girl really focused on getting it just right, along with the right shade of pink. And please note her placement of light source!! Done all on her own no less. This art teacher was duly impressed as it also extends to how she added white to the green in the background, heavier on the light source side. A choice she made after asking me what the complimentary color would be to the pink and red she chose in her shirt.

May I remind you she is grade one!

These children really enjoyed looking at Amedeo Modigliani. And I am grateful for the email Artsy.net sent me as a gentle reminder of what a great project his artwork is for inspiration with young children. Now I just need to convince my husband we need to make a quick trip across the pond to London before the retrospect closes in April......

elephants from india watercolor and pastel

This past spring my husband and I did a month long safari vacation through India. It was one of the most exciting and memorable vacations we have ever done and I really wanted to share some of it with the children in the studio and so I created an India Jungle Safari summer art camp.

My thought was that I would use some of the hundreds of animal photos we captured to inspire campers artwork and one of the first projects did not disappoint.

We happened to be in Jaipur during a festival and all the domesticated elephants were elaborately painted. It was stunning and I had a couple of photos to share with the kids. I also referenced google images to show them others as their interest was peaked.

9 year old

We then got down to creating.

First, the campers sketched an elephant head onto watercolor paper. I kept stressing for them to draw it BIG so they would have lots of space to later decorate.

6 year old

10 year old

I then put out liquid watercolors in primary colors for them to create a background using a wet on wet technique. The paper was so large that by the time they finished, it was dry enough to begin working on the elephants.

12 year old

I did put out some black liquid watercolor but I find it is a bit blue, so warned them upfront. We also discussed that since there is no white in watercolor, to create a grey they would need to dilute the color with water.

8 year old

Once they were finished, we put the paintings away for the day to dry.

The next morning the campers were given chalk pastels and sketched out a design to decorate on their elephant heads. When they were happy with their design, they dipped the chalk pastel into water to create a "paste" and began drawing.

10 year old

They LOVED this part of the process and got lost in creating. In fact, they began to cover surfaces on the elephants outside of their original plans because they just did not want to stop.

10 year old

The final results are stunning.

small acrylic paintings

I have been admiring the work of Australian artist Tamsin Ainslie. In particular her Instagram project,  A Pencil a Day where she creates one small painting for auction each day of cute little pencil stubs.

Tamsin Ainslie

As the after school art classes were coming to an end, I asked the Preteen class what they would like to do in the last few classes. I find when I give something that open ended, it causes the kids to draw a bland so I then showed them a couple of artist I was admiring of recent and they all fell in love!! with these cute little pencil paintings.

We discussed the different elements of the paintings and then they went through my enormous pencil box and found some of the more "well loved" pencils and took them down to stubs with a pencil sharpener.

I happened to have some very small canvases on hand, so they created their very own little pencil paintings. I did give them the option of using any of the art supplies available for their paintings, like a watercolor tube, but each and every one of them wanted to make a pencil.

They were thrilled with their results. 

I put them on little easels at the end for them to display at home which was a very big hit.

The preteen class had so much fun that I decided to do a similar project with the Elementary class. This time I let them pick whatever subject matter they wanted for their acrylic painting.

"Mr. Fox" 6 year old

One young boy wanted to paint a fox. He had a lovely sketch on the canvas and the next time I walked by, the fox was wearing a very distinguished jacket. I was totally smitten and wonder what wonderful story could be created around this sweet little painting.

Dancing Bear, 6 year old

This is a new student who I found out after she created this artwork is quite shy to draw. I'm not sure why when you look at all the personality she created in this wonderful work!

7 year old

This beautiful bird was also created. I love to watch the focus this artist puts into his pieces. He always creates work that takes my breath away. And while there was a lot of interest in painting birds, there was a loud request for me to have the studio bird, Parakeet the Parapete, in for modeling.

I can't tell you how happy I am that I listened to the kids.

Parapete the Parakeet, 9 year old

Within the week, Parapete escaped in the most bizarre of circumstances. We searched endlessly for him for a week and have been absolutely devastated by his disappearance.

Parapete, 7 year old

We have finally had to come to terms with saying goodbye to this sweet little bird. Our family will miss his catcall whistles as we came down each morning, it was so good for the ego. Not quite as big as his ego as he constantly let us know what a pretty bird, a very pretty bird, a pretty, pretty, pretty bird he was as he finally capped his litany of pretties with a Parapete is a pretty bird.

I will truly cherish all the pictures in my records of the artworks he inspired in the children over the past year and I know not only our family but the studio artist will miss this little guy.

Love you Parapete.

abstracted acrylic flower paintings from real life

A few weeks ago I bought a small arrangement of flowers from our neighborhood mom and pop store on my way home from Vancouver Art Gallery. I unceremoniously plopped them into a vase and stuck them in the middle of the studio tables just prior to the preteen class arriving that night.

After they arrived we began to talk about abstraction. We discussed the broad range of different ways artist abstract their work and the definition of abstraction and then I challenged them to find a way to change the shape, color or line (or do all three) to create a painting of the vase of flowers on the table.

To help them along I put on the palettes some orange/red paint and asked them to first just block in the shapes of their composition with only that color

no detail

just simple shapes of circles, rectangles, squares, and triangles.

Once finished I handed each of them a palette of primary colored acrylic paint along with black and white to begin painting.

Although I usually always have the students start with painting the backgrounds, in this case I asked them to wait until the very end. I also told them they did not have to paint their flowers and such to the edge of the shapes if they didn't want too. They were more than able to change their minds and adjust their original compositions.

In fact this artist had her vase originally bleeding off the bottom of her paper. She was quite unhappy and I told her she certainly could still change it drastically by just painting the negative space of the background. I don't think she quite believed me at first but was thrilled when she discovered sometimes I might know what I'm talking about.

The other interesting thing both the above artist discovered was that because they had painted these shapes in orange first, they could go back into the wet acrylic paint with the wrong side of their paint brushes and scratch in line work. You'll notice in both paintings how the artist used this technique to abstract their lines in the flowers and leaves.

What I was most excited about at the end of class when I looked at the final artworks is the wide variety of final compositions. I always stress that as artist the students have an open invitation to make whatever artistic choices that please them. This means they can edit or add to their artwork as they see fit. 

The students were looking at a simple blue vase of flowers that included a lily, one stem of daisies, three small pink roses, and a variety of leaf stems. Look at everything else these artists began to add!

Abstracting the flowers was not an easy challenge for these students and I was so impressed with their willingness to not only embrace something that was surprisingly difficult for them in the beginning, but work through it and find their own personal way to conquer the challenge.

Just look at this artwork! She was not so sure of the challenge I set forth in the beginning but charged forward with a confidence most practice artist can only dream about.

And finally there was this piece. In a million years I would of never thought to lose the vase entirely and take the flowers and put them in a completely different environment. And I love the red leaves she left from when she originally blocked out the shapes.

When the artwork was finished, the students had left, and I was hanging the paintings up on the walls for the week to dry, I was struck at just how uniquely each young artist resolved the challenge I set forth for them inspired by a very simple vase of flowers.

I was beyond impressed with each of the final artworks they created and very proud of each of them for being open minded, trying something new, and not giving up as they navigated their way through the process.

Their efforts were certainly rewarded in the end.

letting preschoolers paint big

This May I have had two preschool classes running in the mornings and one of the first projects I introduced was watercolor. I use liquid watercolor with this age group as I find it is far more inviting- easy for them to use and vibrant color.

I always present them with just the primary colors so they can explore mixing them together and observing the new colors they make when blended. I also make sure there is salt, paper towels, and water on hand to manipulate the watercolors by diluting, blotting, and absorbing the color.

I also decided to give the children paper almost the same size as them! It is not often very young children get the opportunity to draw very large and it is a great way to help develop their motor skills.

For the Monday class, we created self portraits. Do I really believe they will retain any of the information regarding the rules of the face? Absolutely not.

However I also believe that young children are quite capable and enjoy adults recognizing their ability to grasp big concepts. What I do love about introducing the rules of the face is that it is an invitation for the children to really study themselves in a mirror and an opportunity to build up a positive self image about themselves.

What do you notice about your eyes?

You have such lovely almond shape eyes.

Look at the beautiful blue of your eyes.

It is always a joy to watch them literally bloom under the compliments as they see the features that are unique to only them and take pride in those differences.

Each child first created a drawing with a permanent black marker. There were several additions each young artist decided to make when creating their drawings such as tongues sticking out and crowns. 

It was quite cute how excited they all got when they realized there were not steadfast rules as to what they could and couldn't do on their papers. Each time they would ask if they could add a bow, a crown, or whatever else, I would simply respond, "You're the artist. Do what pleases you."

I got a huge kick out of the above artwork with the tongue sticking out. She giggled as she added the tongue to her portrait but somewhere along the way the self portrait became a portrait of her grandmother. I asked her if her grandmother stuck her tongue out a lot and was assured that in fact, she did not. 

Once they were happy with their portrait drawings, they began to play with the primary watercolors and created the most incredible palettes. They had fun exploring what happened when they "bathed" their paper first, added salt, put lots of bright color on but then blotted it away with a paper towel. 

In the end, their self portraits are charming. If only as adults we could paint with such abandon and create such whimsy.

Since the other group of preschoolers had done self portraits in the past, I put a vase with a large yellow daisy in front of each child.

Using the same steps as the self portraits, I asked the children to notice what they saw in the middle of the flower. Then the shape of the petals and how many petals they saw. 

Again my expectation is not that they create a replica of the flower or even that what they observe ends up being recorded on the paper, but respecting their ability in not only observing their visual world but their capability of recording it on paper in their own unique way.

And unique way they did!

There was one yellow flower in front of them and after several questions of "can I add more flowers?" and me responding "you're the artist, whatever you decide" this is what was finished in the class.

Again I gave the children primary colors so they could explore and observe how they blended and what new colors emerged. This is always so much fun to watch because there is still such surprise as yellow and blue merge to create green. And each new discovery is shared excitedly with me as if it's Christmas morning. 

Really there is no better job in the world in these moments.

This little one spent the entire class just putting one color at the top of a petal and another at the bottom, then adding plain water in the middle to coax the colors to come together on a "play date" and watching what happened. 

And this sweet child, who asked for black paint from the moment we started. If you look carefully you can see some very small petals, which I love as they were created from her original observations of the flower on the table. Surrounding the middle was a fringe of small petals and I love that she added them to her final drawing. 

As they finished their colorful flowers, I brought out the black paint as promised. 

One mixed the black with color to see what happened but the little girl who wanted black from moment one added it with pure abandon to her background, from time to time adding a little salt or water. She talked happily as she added the black and was beyond thrilled with her results.

As you can see, each child left the studio with a painting almost the same size as themselves and although each and every one of them was adorable, they were in no way near as adorable as the children who created them.