Happy 5th Birthday to Miss C!

Today there was a Princess birthday party for a little girl who was turning five. Her and seven of her good friends came to celebrate and create a princess picture at the studio.

Except for the one boy, who was happy to skip the princess picture and make a self portrait instead.

I presented the work of Amedeo Modigliani and together we talked about what we noticed in his art.

Giraffe necks.

Long faces.

And then we got to work. 

Who is your favorite princess?

Can you guess which one was the most popular?

None other than the singer of "Let it go", Elsa.

Tied for second place was Snow White and Merida. 

Starting with copy paper, each child created a long circle for the head. Some of them were happy on the first try and others were happy on the third or fourth try. 

We repeated this process with the neck.

Once they were happy with the neck, we went over hair. 

Does your princess have curly or straight hair? How can we draw shape to create the hair?

Then again using the same process, they added hair, the eyes, the nose, and mouth.

By the time they had a final sketch they liked, I'm guessing each child had probably worked on five or six sketches. Then we did a pencil rubbing on the back of the sketch, placed it on the grey pastel paper I had taped to the table, and traced their final sketch. 

Finally, I brought out the oil pastels.

I showed them how to overlap the colors. I gave them an "artist secret" and convinced them to start coloring the background first instead of their faces.  

Then we smeared.

And smeared. 

And smeared some more until their backgrounds were a fabulous combination of colors.

After that, they began coloring in their skin tones and all the other details.

Finally, I had them go back over their pencil lines with the black pastel.

Then just for fun, I gave each child a skewer so they could go back into the work and scratch in their signature.  They also were told they could add in pattern and whatever else they desired into the work.

It was pretty precious when the birthday girl stood back from her work and announced, "I really like this picture"

Happy 5th Birthday Miss C!!  It was fun meeting you and all your friends.

Snow White created by the birthday girl

self portrait

Snow White

Elsa

Merida

Merida

Elsa

Elsa

Opus Kids' Art Exhibition

Today I got a chance to stop by Opus Art Supply in North Vancouver to have a look at the children's art exhibit they are running through the first part of August.  I was pleased to see that some of the students from Kudzu Studio put their work in the exhibition.

Modigliani inspired acrylic portrait

gelatin print with alcohol markers on acetate

Chuck Close inspired finger stamped project

Awesome to see the two of my students who have become friends in class ended up right nest to each other in the show!  The boards were purchased through Opus by donation and all proceeds go to support our local children's hospital.   What a wonderful opportunity for everyone.

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.

6 year old

8 year old

10 year old

6 year old

10 year old

7 year old

8 year old

6 year old

8 year old

6  year old

6 year old

Modigliani Princesses

Opus Art Supplies, our local art store, is having a children's exhibit at the beginning of August.   For the month of July, you can go in and for a donation to Children's Hospital sign up and pick up a board to paint and return it by July 31st and pick it back up when the show ends.  I think this is a great experience for children to have the opportunity to participate in an art exhibit and so went in and signed out boards in each of their names.

For the first two girls, I introduced them to Amedeo Modigliani.  I asked them what they noticed about the work and of course, THE NECKS!, were the first thing they both remarked on together.  We went on to discuss other aspects of his work and then set off to work on creating their favorite fairy tale princess in Modigliani's style.

One picked Ariel and the other picked Rapunzel. 

They giggled as they started making long necks and in the end, neither of them could really embrace the extra length that Modigliani was famous for as they thought it made their subjects look like giraffes.

We used acrylic paints and I gave them each a black oil pastel to go back over with once the paint was dry.

I think both girls ended up with darling works and I hope they both decide to take them back to Opus for exhibition.  I know people would truly enjoy viewing them.

We giggled that Ariel's expression looks like her dad just told her she was on restriction from bringing home anymore 'thingamagigs'.  I think the artist nailed the "you've got to be kidding me" look, don't you?

And here is Rapunzel with a look that says, "seriously?  you want to climb my hair?"  She is definitely so over Prince Charming!

It was fun to have the kids explore creating a traditional Princess in an unusual painting style you usually don't associate with creating their portraits.  I think the girls had fun too and maybe next time will really go for those giraffe necks.