tropical fish using french dyes

These beautiful fish were created by the Wednesday elementary age class using french dyes.

6 year old

The class picked a tropical fish from the reference folder that caught their fancy and then worked out a sketch of just the fish using copy paper. I encouraged them to draw large.

I find that by letting kids work out their drawings on "throw away" paper improves their drawings significantly since it removes the fear of "ruining" the good paper. It also gets rid of the need of erasers since kids can use a window or light box to retrace all the great things about a drawing and then focus on just the few things they feel are not working in the sketch. Once the girls liked their contour line drawing, they used carbon paper to trace it onto the very large watercolor paper and then went over the lines with permanent black pen.

8 year old

Some of the girls repeated their single fish drawing several times when creating their final composition.

6 year old

Each girl started with three colors of their choosing for the background. They applied the dye with a wet on wet technique, carefully making sure not to get water on the fish. This helped keep the dye from moving onto the fish. Some of the girls tried a blotting technique while the background was wet to add coral or seaweed, others added salt for interest, and some did both.

10 year old

The paper was so large that by the time they completed the background it was dry enough to start the fish. Then once the fist were completed, the girls could go back into the background on the areas they blotted to add coral or seaweed.

9 year old

I am amazed at the final work produced by the girls. It's so impressive. The tropical fish were a perfect choice for the girls to use for exploring french dyes on paper. They seemed to love the process and exploring what the dyes would do on their works and in the end were so pleased with what they had created from a simple contour drawing.

Dye Paintings and Chalk Pastel Drawings

I have realized if I don't start combining some of the projects from the camps and workshops I'm running, I might be writing, "What I did this summer" post well into November!!

So here are the last two projects completed in the "I Love Vancouver" camp held through the North Vancouver Community Arts Council.

First, dye paintings.

For this project, I decided to have the kids focus on some of the Vancouver residents who live under the water.

(I might of told them under the sea, just so we could break out in an impromptu "Little Mermaid" sing-a-long)

And once they took their fingers out of their ears due to my inability to carry a tune, we brainstormed the different water animals found either in our bays or at our beautiful Aquarium in Stanley Park that could be interesting subject matter to draw.

There were some darling results and I have never met a child who doesn't like to use the dyes, so fun was had by all.

7 year old

9 year old

9 year old

6 year old

Note to self, never leave a six year old to their own devices too long with dye. The process is so interesting to watch when dye hits paper that it's just plain hard to not want to use every.single. color over and over until things begin to turn to mud. In this case, mud was good so that the salmon would once again stand out in all the multitude of colors being put on the page. 

7 year old

I love this waving seal. I love more that the child was able to look at a reference picture of hundreds of seals on a beach and zero in on this one particular seal who was balancing on one flipper and waving. 

11 year old

12 year old

9 year old

The two yellow fish were created by "besties" who all week wanted to create the exact same pictures. The artist above had a mild heart attack when the red dye didn't behave as planned. Things calmed down a bit when we talked about fan coral and how the viewer would assume it was an intentional choice to create it.

9 year old

7 year old

Then on the last day of camp, I wanted to make sure the kids all had a chance to use the chalk pastels. I brought out a lot of city landscape reference for them to be inspired by for their work. I gave them black pastel paper because I think it is much easier for them to be successful with the pastel when they can see all the black space they need to cover which always is missed when working on white paper. Plus it just looks darn cool too.

City Hall, 6 year old

City Hall, 9 year old

City Hall, 9 year old

Above is the artwork from two brothers and their best friend. They too like to mostly work on the same subject matter and I always find it interesting that although it is the same reference, the artwork looks different due to their unique personalities.

11 year old

12 year old

I immediately had to grab my phone and google Rothko's artwork for these two students to see as their works of a sunset over English Bay reminded me so much of his paintings.

9 year old, English Bay Inukshuk at Sunset

9 year old, English Bay Inukshuk at Sunset

7 year old, Dr. Sun-Yet Sen Garden

7 year old, Stanley Park

And with that my friend, the artwork from "I Love Vancouver" camp is finished. Great group of kids that I was sad to say goodbye too and hope to see again one day soon. I certainly hope they had as much fun as I did during the week.

Underwater dye paintings

This is a take off of the dye bird painting I have done several times in the past.

I needed to mix it up a bit for my own interest sake and since this class is only an hour, I thought fish might be easier to complete in the timeframe.

This time I did have the boys work their sketches out on copy paper so I could show them how easy it is to transfer a final drawing they are happy with onto their watercolor paper.

I like to do this because I can show them how they can work out their sketches, using a window as a light box, to trace the marks they do like onto a new paper and then fix what they didn't like until they have a drawing they love.

Then transfer that onto the final so that there is no need for erasers or fear of making a mistake.

Once most of the boys had a drawing they likes, I quickly went over some of the fun things they could do with the dyes.

Then sent them off to start working.

To say it gets a little crazy busy in the studio when working with the dyes would be an understatement.

It's a lot of fun, but I definitely get a workout.

Here are their final works.

As you can see, some moved away from colorful fish and there was one reference for a shark that was quite popular.

They all seemed quite happy at the end of class as they left the studio with their artwork.

8 year old

6 year old

7 year old

8 year old

6 year old

7 year old

10 year old

7 year old

7 year old

More Dye and Ink birds

Needless to say, I love this project.  And it is evident that kids love this project too as each group truly enjoys creating birds with dyes.  The kids love watching what it does on paper, along with blotting and adding salt. Below are the beautiful pictures created this week in the Art and Animal Spring Break camp here at Kudzu Studio.

stellar blue jay, 8 year old

red bird, 8 year old

turkey vulture, 6 year old

eagle, 6 year old

yellow bird, 8 year old

7 year old

hybrid bird (peacock and song bird) 10 year old

Happy Birthday to Miss Ruby!

Yesterday I had the distinct pleasure of returning a favor to a woman who helped me so much when my three children were young.  I will never be able to truly pay her back for all she did for me so many years ago, but it was so great to be able to do something for her, even if it was small.

Three little ones under four meant I could use all the help I could get back in the day and I could not be more grateful for the time, energy and love given selflessly by this amazing woman to our family.  Although my three children are adults now, they still remember her as a loving and important part of their very early childhood.  She will always be considered family in our home.

And so when she asked me to come out to her home and do an art lesson for her youngest daughters' birthday party, I could not of been more thrilled for the opportunity to hopefully help create the smallest happy memory for her kids.

Ruby wanted a bird theme party and the bird dye painting project I have done several times before seemed perfect.

There were eight very sweet little girls and we started by letting them rummage through the reference material I brought of birds to help them along.  At first we talked about finding all the shapes that make up the birds to help make the process of drawing them a little less challenging and then using copy paper, they began to work out their sketches.

Once they were happy with them, I showed them how to shade the paper on the back so they could just lay their final sketch over the watercolor paper and trace.  The best part of working out a drawing this way is that they can now take their working sketch home and transfer it onto any paper, to do as many different artworks as they like, using whatever medium they choose.

Once they had the pencil image on the watercolor paper, they went over the lines with a sharpie pen and then we brought out the dye paints.

I showed them several techniques they could use with the dyes.  Wet on wet, lifting, salt, and blooming.  More exciting was watching them make their own discoveries with the dyes.

This little girl in particular came up with a beautiful way to interpret the dyes all on her own. Below is the final artwork.

An

Here are the other lovely creations made during the party.

The owl is Ruby's big sister, Summer.  She chose such a challenging idea and I loved the way she decided to interpret it.  I think she was quite proud of herself in the end, I know I was proud of her!

And then there is the birthday girl, Ruby, who loves peacocks.  Her enthusiasm was catching as both girls sitting next to her decided to do peacocks too.  It is interesting to see how each girl creatively rose to the visual challenge of interpreting the reference material.  Each one is unique and beautiful.

the birthday girl!

What was suppose to be an hour and a half project turned into more like two and a bit hours as the girls all got lost in the process of creating their artwork.  It was such a privilege to be able to be part of such a special day for the little girl of a very special woman in our lives.

Happy Birthday Miss Ruby!