clay and paper collage assemblage

When the curator and I were first walking through the Ben Lim exhibit a couple of weeks prior to the Seymour Art Gallery summer art camp, one of the artworks I gravitated to quickly were Lim's clay and paper pieces.

I love them so much I had recently purchased one to give my daughter for her 19th birthday.

A panda, her favorite animal since she was in preschool.

(obviously not the panda artwork) Ben Lim

During the tour with the children, they discussed his subtle use of paper color to suggest the background along with other nuances they observed in the work- including using the clay to cut shapes out and layer to create the animals.....almost like paper.

These artworks are truly magnificent and were one of the first projects I conceptualized for the camp. The process seemed like such a natural draw for children.

Each child started off with a rectangular piece of wood that I picked up for under a dollar at the local craft store.

8 year old

Using matte medium, (Modge Podge or a glue/water mixture would work well too), the kids cut and began to layer tissue paper onto the wood surface to create a background. The only thing I really needed to stress during this part of the project was keeping the tissue paper contained within the board, easy to do since wrinkles were a great addition to the texture of the artworks and tissue is so light it is very easy for kids to manipulate with the glue.

9 year old

They quickly realized layering the same color added value and really seemed to understand and were inspired by the processes Ben had used in the pieces they observed during the tour.

8 year old

They really loved and got lost in cutting the papers, adhering them to the wood, watching how each layer added to the nuance of their background, and throughly enjoyed "painting with paper".

9 year old

It was a pure joy to see them enjoying this project as much as they did! I gave each child a small amount of oven baked clay in white. They rolled out the clay and began to cut shapes out to create their animals. They took time to add textures and seemed to really catch on and enjoy the abstract nature of Ben Lim's animals in the artwork they had spent time enjoying during the tour.

6 year old

Once it was baked and hardened, they kids lightly painted the clay with acrylic paint and we used some strong glue to place them on the wood boards with their tissue pictures.

7 year old

The kids were quite excited to see the artworks finally come together and were quite pleased with the final outcome.

8 year old

The curator, myself, the artist working with me and the gallery assistant were all quite excited about them too after camp finished when we looked at them as a group.

8 year old

This was a great project for a wide range of ages, very engaging and a great way to build their artistic confidence. There was not one child in this group of 12 who did not fall in love with this process.

12 year old

Each and every one of the kids were fully engaged in each step of this project and it is one I have already decided to do again this fall with a lunchbox program I am running at a local school. I felt it was that successful from beginning to end.

12 year old

But the part the kids were most excited about? Putting on those chops! They could not wait until everything was complete and it was time to stamp their artworks with their signatures.

The perfect end to a perfect project.

Audubon inspired birds

We are finished with all things pumpkin and skeletons in the studio. (except for the 10 year old birthday party this coming weekend on Sugar Skulls!)

But for the rest of the students we are moving on from Halloween inspired artwork.

That does not mean I am still not secretly focusing on the wonders of line.

Most of the classes are working on bird pieces of one kind or another since feathers are a great opportunity to explore different line qualities and interpretations. I started by showing the kids a small book I have of John James Audubon's entire collection of works. I shared with them how he went about recording the birds and the importance of his work then, as it gave people a chance to see birds they otherwise would of never seen, and historically, as we now have visual recordings of birds that are now extinct. (Dodo bird, I talking about you)

What I didn't expect was for the conversation to take a sharp left turn when I mentioned the after studying the birds in the wild, Audubon would then kill one, stuff it and take it back to the studio to put into different positions to do more detail artwork.....which led to a lot of questions as to why they would have to shoot the birds, which lead to a discussion on photography in this time period, which somehow led to the dead bird I have in the studio freezer to use for reference. 

And no, I would not be bringing it out since I did not have each child's parent consent to do so and some, like myself when young, might find it upsetting to see a dead bird even if it does look to just be sleeping.

Lord have mercy, one day I will learn to expect the unexpected with kids.

So after a somewhat lengthy discussion, we began to work.  Using a 12X15 piece of watercolor paper taped to the back of an even larger pad of paper, I had each child choose a bird reference and handed them a pencil stuck through a paper plate.

I then introduced blind contour drawing and asked them to not lift their pencil up from the paper. I also asked them to draw their bird very large.  I assured them that by the time we were done, this drawing would not be very visible and the pencil lines would just become interesting marks.

I did this step because it is impossible for the kids to get to caught up in doing finicky sketches and each and every one of them had a shape on the paper that allowed them to create their bird very easy.

I then gave each child a water-soluble graphite. The graphite was much softer than the pencil and so it created a much darker line.  I asked them to start putting in some of the dark areas they saw on their reference.  Then using water and a paintbrush, they got to work softening those lines.  At this point, they also put their work on a small easel so that the paint could drip and do interesting, uncontrollable things.

7 year old, in process

As you can see, if we had stopped right there they would have had a very lovely take home piece of work. However I really wanted the kids to explore lots of different materials for line making.

8 year old, in process

So I handed them some vine charcoal and told them to add more details to their birds.  And when they finished that I brought out some india ink, a paintbrush, and their all time favorite tool, old fashion fountain pens.  

Finally for those that wanted it, I brought out white chalk and black and white oil pastels.

They explored the different values they could attain with the india ink using the paintbrush and then got to work using the fountain pen to add small detail feather work.  Each time I gave them a new material, I asked them to focus a little more on adding in all the details of the birds.

8 year old, grey African parrot

Because they had to figure out a new detail to add with each material, the end results are quite amazing for their ages.  

I have made some tonal viewfinders out of cardboard and duct tape that I brought out to help them see the different values to add into their works.  This helped them immensely while working only in black and white.

7 year old, flying Macaw

The ever changing materials kept the project very interesting.  

"What was next?!"  

And then it was quite exciting to figure out how to use the new material into the artwork. I truly did not hear an "I'm done" until they were really quite done. They were totally into this project and the exploration of materials.  I left everything out so they could go back at anytime and add more of something they felt their work needed.

I loved how the artist below surprised himself with this work. He was so proud of his bird and I don't blame him. 

8 year old, African parakeet

The two oldest students in the class chose to create their birds using scratch art.  I asked them to start at the eye and work out from there, paying attention to how the feather lines changed as they moved further away from the eye. 

After working on the skeleton etchings, http://doodlebugdabblings.blogspot.ca/2015/11/spooky-etchings-without-press.html, they had a great understanding on how to create value using this medium and got some great pieces.

10 year old

The below student was so pleased with the head of her bird, she did not want to continue any further out of fear she might ruin it. I think it is a lovely piece where she chose to finish it and think the entire bird might of lost something in the composition.  

10 year old

As much as the girls enjoyed creating their work in scratch art, watching the other kids do an exploration of materials for their birds looked like lots of fun and so now they are also working on the above project.  They will finish it next week and it is interesting to see how different their works are even though they are both doing Toucans.  

I can't wait to share it with you then.

Mixed Media jungle animals

I really enjoy having students explore mixed media at the camps I teach and it was no different in the Jungle Jive camp for North Vancouver Community Arts Council.

These works are done on mixed media paper and include watercolor, white acrylic paint, paper cutting, oil and chalk pastel. I also offered up graphite and charcoal for anyone who wanted to add it into the mix.

This project was done in bits over several days.

First I had them put whatever leftover liquid watercolor they had from another project we just completed.

The next day, I had them cut out paper shapes to build an animal of their choice.

They placed these on top of the dried watercolor and dabbed white acrylic paint over the entire paper.

Then they pulled up the cut paper stencil they had made and viola! They had a negative image of their favorite animal.

Then the following day I put out oil and chalk pastel, charcoal and graphite for them to draw in the details of the animal of their choice.

7 year old

6 year old

7 year old

6 year old

9 year old

9 year old

6 year old

9 year old

8 year old