E.H. Shepard inspired pen and ink drawings

I brought the camp full circle in the last hour of the Storybook Wonders art camp.

Earlier in the week, we had created Sophie Blackall inspired watercolors after looking at the children's book she illustrated called, "Finding Winnie". A true story of the little bear that inspired A.A. Milne's classic children's book, "Winnie the Pooh".

So knowing how much children enjoy creating artwork with the fountain pens and ink, I knew the perfect way to end a week of camp was allowing them to create an artwork inspired by E.H. Shepard's illustrations for Winnie the Pooh.

E.H. Shepard illustration

For this project, I told the kids to think back on all the different illustrations they had created during the week. Especially the many different characters they had drawn from their imaginations! I asked them to create a pen and ink picture of their very favorite past piece inspired by the style of E.H. Shepard.

They each seemed to enjoy relooking at all the art they had created during the week and picking out their favorite character to redraw in a new situation with a new technique and medium.

I had created a zine book for each of them if they wanted to create a story or they could create a picture that I then mounted to frame to remember their week at camp.

Unfortunately I do not have pictures of everything since these were being finished as parents were picking up on the last day of camp. 

However you can get a sense of how endearing these final works of art were by the few samples I did manage to capture on film before they walked out the studio door.

This ten year old created both a book and a drawing for framing. She was very happy with both and was very adamant that I photograph both together. 

10 year old

She chose to focus on her flying leopard who chases away rain clouds. Isn't the illustration charming when framed? 

I did have colored inks available for the kids to hand color with also, which they loved.

8 year old

Although there is something quite lovely about the artworks where children make the decision to stick just with black ink too.

7 year old

I encouraged them to add typography to their artworks as part of the art. It seems to me they find it very freeing to be able to express themselves with writing without having to worry about the rules, strictly using letters as another design tool in their compositions. I have a personal affection for the charming way children spell when left to their own accord. I mean, how absolutely heart melting is "ones a pon time"?! In a million years I could not capture the absolute essence of childhood innocence if I tried in my own artwork.

7 year old

All week long this young artist explored bird drawings. I am so impressed with her decisions in this piece. The graphic nature of the bird shape, the decisive use of color and then again with the spelling! Be still my heart.

5 year old

And finally there is this picture. As if the artist did not capture my heart earlier in the week with a flying snowman in outer space wearing a flashlight helmet on his way to visit one of the moons on Mars, he then created this charming piece. Here we have the flying snowman with a couple of outer space friends. Can you believe the composition of this from a child so young? That both secondary characters are peeking into the artwork just makes me fall in love with the picture. Is this not a perfect picture to be hanging in a child's bedroom? 

OK, I'll stop now. Suffice to say, I fell head over heels with this finished work. Those characters peeking into the work just slay me.

I wish I had the rest of the artworks to share with you. They were all equally as charming as the ones I had a chance to record.

This was the perfect way to end a really lovely week of camp.

The studio is now closed for the month of September. Classes will start up again in the fall and I'm looking forward to getting back into the groove of after school art classes. If you are interested in having your child join in the fun, you can check out the schedule at KudzuStudio.com. I will also be teaching two workshops through the North Vancouver Community Arts Council, one for adults and one for children creating silk painted scarves.

I'll begin posting projects again once the fall classes start. 

Hope y'all enjoy your fall until then!

Book Sculptures

On a display shelf in the studio I have some past projects, including a book sculpture I created inspired by Gaudi's architecture.

I have one particular little boy in the Monday's class who is fascinated by the book sculpture and is always asking me when we are going to make them

And so after several months of asking me the same question,  I thought it was high time we had fun creating deconstructed book sculptures.

I have a large quantity of old books I have gathered from church sales and the thrift stores and for this project gave each child a small encyclopedia from the early 1900's. (I paid two dollars for the incomplete set)

Any hardcover book will do that is past it's prime.

8 year old

The kids first need to find the middle of the book. The easiest way for them to do this is to find the last page number and divide in half. We did this as a group, the older kids helping the younger kids, to make it easier.

Then I stressed just two rules for the project.

Whatever you do to one side, you must do to the other and fold away from the center into the gutter.

Then I put out some scissors and glue and told them to have some fun.

Instead of trying to explain how to do some basic folds, this is a great video to get you started. In fact, I had each child start with the basic ten folds in this video in order to get them started on their way to an original creation.

10 year old

Once the students got the hang of the project, the sky was the limit. It was fun to see them get lost in their creations and try out a variety of things as they built the sculptures.

10 year old

Buildings, fighter jets, and oceans became inspiration for these sculptures. As their confidence grew, the build became more and more elaborate.

7 year old (wave)

By the end of the hour and a half class, the floor was covered in bits of paper as the kids proudly showed their parents what they had created.

9 year old

This is a fun way to up-cycle books that are past their prime. The project takes just the simplest of supplies to create, some scissors, glue, and if you want even a hole puncher. Add a little imagination and the sky's the limit on what you can do with an old book.

8 year old (how cool are the paper flames coming out of this fighter jet?)

Fighter jets, buildings, and whatever else one can imagine. I'm pretty sure these kids will be giving this project another try at home in the future.

preschool pumpkins

This is the first year I have offered a preschool art class and although I am now trying to not run a class without at least four students, for preschool I made an exception.

How can one resist the charm of three year olds?

I have two absolutely darling little girls in the class. 

I decided to do the first project with paint and focus on color mixing.

Since it is October, it seemed only natural to make the subject matter Jack o'Lanterns.

First I gave the girls a black oil pastel to draw a 'big' circle and a horizon line.  I had a real pumpkin on the table for them to look at too.

I then gave them yellow and red paint.  We painted yellow in the 'sky' and red on the 'ground'.

OK in hindsight, I should of done this the opposite way.  The class starts at 10am, so I can't even blame it on a lack of coffee! I'm just going to blame it on being smitten with all the cuteness that came with having charming three year olds in the room. 

Once they painted the sky yellow and the ground red, I asked them to take red and yellow and mix it together in their circle. Then I asked them what color they got and they answered, "RED!"

sigh. 

It was a very red orange, not going to lie. So I asked them to add a little more yellow to the circle and tried again and I wish I could say there was an exclamation of "ORANGE" but alas there was not, except on my part in hopes of getting them to see they had created a new color.

I know they realized it, but to be honest, they were far more interested in just putting paint on the picture. Who can blame them, painting is fun.

I then put out some blue and they added it to the sky and ground. Again I asked them with varying degrees of success what colors they were discovering. Green was much more recognizable than the purple they were creating on the paper.

With white, I had them add a line for the stem. Then I quickly dried the work with a blowdryer while they washed the paint off their hands. To finish the work up, I gave them the black oil pastel again and let them outline things.

This was helpful to differentiate the pumpkin from the background and also a chance for them to add faces to their pumpkins.  I showed them how after making their lines and faces they could smear the black color.

They were not impressed that their clean hands were once again dirty with black oil pastel but it did help bring the work together.

When finished I asked them what color red and yellow made when mixed together and was met by the sound of crickets.  We'll do some more projects with color mixing in the future and I know over time it will click.

I am told by the mothers they had a good time, which is the point of the entire thing.  And I could not imagine two cuter little Jack 0'Lanterns than these ones.

There are two more spots available in this Monday morning class.  Contact me through KudzuStudio.com if you are interested in registering your little one.  We meet every Monday at 10am. Parents are welcome to stay or can leave for much needed "mommy time" for the 45 minutes.  

A Butterfly Birthday Party

I closed the studio for the month of September which is why I haven't posted for so long.  My husband and I went to Europe, rural France, Madrid, Barcelona, and Amsterdam. I am quite excited to share the many projects inspired by the amazing art and beauty I saw while on this trip.

Meanwhile, I have some catching up to do on the blog.  Although the studio was closed, I have had quite a few birthday parties and I have lots of great artwork to share from them.

The party below was for a 10 year old girl. The original plan had been to go hiking in the mountains, but all that beautiful weather we had during the summer was suddenly replaced with a horrific wind and rain storm. 

Isn't that always the way?  The minute you plan an outdoor party, the weather is guaranteed to be uncooperative. It's the same when you wash your car, guaranteed rain the next day.

Anyway the mother called me in a bit of a panic and luckily the studio was open. I was quite thrilled to share in this young girls birthday, as she and her sister had taken a summer camp with me and I quite enjoyed working with them.

I figured this butterfly project would be perfect for what was suppose to be a day spent outdoors in nature.

The girls first created the body with white oven baked clay.  I put out wire that they could attach for antennae and legs if they desired. It's a light weight, so easy for them to cut with scissors.

Then while the bodies were baking in the oven, I gave each girl a piece of watercolor paper with a palette of liquid watercolor in the primary colors.  I also put out some salt, water, and paper towels and quickly went over some different techniques they could try on the paper.

Before they started painting, they cut the wings out of the paper and then they had a great time adding color.  By the time they were finished, the bodies were out of the oven and ready for some black paint. Once finished they had some cake and snacks, giving the paint a chance to dry and me a chance to hot blue the wings onto the back of the body and mount the butterfly onto the frame.  The girls can choose to hang their butterflies on the wall by the bit of burlap string or just cut that off and place on a shelf.  The girls were quite proud of their work when finished, not the nature hike first intended but the girls stayed dried while creating beautiful nature inspired butterflies.

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