Showing posts with label mixed media with children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mixed media with children. Show all posts

Friday, January 8, 2016

mixed media focusing on negative space

The Wednesday afternoon class has a large number of new students and so I wanted a project that would give me a chance to learn a little more about each child.

In my mind I call it their visually personalities.

Which child is shy, insecure, outgoing, cautious, exuberant, reckless, on and on it goes, when it comes to sharing themselves visually.

You get the idea.

So I wanted the project to not be threatening for anyone. A project where the end result was wide open and definitely did not need to look like something from real life as I observed how each child took on the task at hand.

It was also great for me to see the growth of the kids who have been coming to class for some time too! How they now tackle open ended projects differently from when they first started coming to the studio.

I'm quite excited about all I learned about the students in the class when going forward to create projects.

For this project, I first had the girls just experiment with watercolor. All I asked them to do was create a wet on wet blob of colors.

Mix them together, splatter water on top of color, add some white liquid acrylic, just watch what happens and have some fun.

This showed me a lot about each child in itself. Some kids filled the page immediately and then filled it some more. Others wanted to control each stroke of the brush.



As they finished, we dried the colors with a blow dryer so we could continue on with the next step.

Which was to find object shapes in the blobs of color.

Wait. What?

The idea they could do anything was frightening to all but one artist.

And so I asked them to find some flower shapes. They didn't have to be "normal" shapes, they could be funny circles, flowers shaped from side angles, how about some leaves, could they find a vase?

(and the one child who wanted to draw what she saw in her blobs asked for confirmation she could draw anything instead of flowers and so I assured her that she could in fact draw absolutely anything)




I gave each child a pencil to lightly traces these shapes and when done, a bit of white acrylic paint to paint the negative space around the shapes.

Wait. What?

So after showing them a few times what I meant, they began to paint the negative space.



Again some of the students were "all in" as others struggled with the idea of things not looking like they should.

As the white was completed, they again took the blow dryer to the paper to speed up the drying process.

Then I gave them fountain pens and colored ink and asked them to add details to their shapes.  Line, circles, whatever they wanted to create interest.  They could paint in additional flowers and stems if they wanted.



Everything was free game.

Now this was quite eye opening for me because those children who had embraced each step before were now unsure. Fountain pens do not always offer immediate gratification. They require patience. They require the artist to take their time.

They provided me with great insight when I began to replace fountain pens with black permanent markers as tolerance for the time consuming fountain pens began to hit critical mass.

In the end, I love the finished works. Not because they are pretty pictures but because they taught me a lot about the students.



And I absolutely love how each project captures the unique personality of the child. I'm looking forward to the upcoming weeks of working with these talented students.


Monday, July 27, 2015

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

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Leftover Mixed Media Project

This project was inspired by my HATE of throwing away leftover paint at the end of projects. And so as the week went by, the students took the leftovers in their palettes at the end of each project and put them onto a piece of acrylic paper.

They started by putting the leftover dye from the bird paintings on the paper. It was a lovely mix of beautiful colors when they were finished, but you will only see it on one of the works below. 

Then when they finished their animal acrylic painting, I envisioned them adding bits of the leftover colors in much the same manner as the dye, but the students had very different ideas. In the end, most of the papers were a color of mud in VERY THICK paint and I had to think very quickly on my feet.

I told them to take the back of their paint brushes and scratch into the work using a variety of scribbles and words.  My hope was that some of the pretty dye work they had would show back through. No such luck, for the most part the dye work was completely gone but we had a lot of stories and such now on the paper scratched into the paint.

Hmmmm, not what I had envisioned and what to do next?

I decided to have them each create a silhouette of an animal and this was easier said than done for some of the students.  To create a shape that was instantly recognizable and at the same time interesting proved to be a challenge, but in the end everyone got something to work.

Also remembering that bigger was better when creating the silhouette was hard for some too.

Once they had cut out an image, I put some white paint on the table and told them to dab it on around the image working out to the edges of their paper.  The goal was not to make the paper a solid white.

When finished, they removed the paper cut and revealed the paint underneath.

Something magical happened as the paint dried. All those scratches and words they had put into that thick, muddy color created the most interesting patterns and shapes. You couldn't read their stories outright, but certain words "whispered" in the background.

Perfect!

Then I put out oil pastel, chalk pastel, graphite sticks and whatever else they wanted on the table and let them get to work.

Below are the students mixed media results inspired by all the leftovers from the week.



                           
8 year old


8 year old

6 year old

6 year old
I need to add a little story to the below picture. Remember when I mentioned that I encouraged the students to create large silhouettes? Well sometimes we learn best by making mistakes. This student decided to cut out a very small snake. OK by me, since I tell them that in the end they are the artist and part of being an artist is to decide which suggestions of mine to use and which to ignore, but once the very small paper snake was peeled off the paper, there was not much of an image.  At best it looked like a small worm.
So this became one of those great moments where a "yikes" becomes a "wow".  Using her imagination, this student turned her snake into a branch and then began again with a paper silhouette, this time a bird.  She then did the same process the other students did with the white paint using a black oil pastel.

8 year old

You might think this artist used paint to create the gecko image at the top of the paper, but that is just the underlying dyes and acrylic she had originally put on the paper. Kind of amazing how that worked out, yes?

                           
10 year old

7 year old

All in all, some pretty stunning work created with nothing more than the leftovers of other projects. I have a feeling I'll be doing much more of this in the future.






















Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Leftovers

One of the things I have learned over the years when working with kids is that building upon a project is a good way to keep interest high for extended periods of time.  It is especially good for nipping in the bud those kids who love to holler out ten minutes after a project has started, "I'm done!"

This project started out with some Plaster of Paris circles left over from another project earlier in the year.  Since all these students had created on plaster before with paint or pastel, I decided to do something a bit different and have them use graphite only.

Once done, I let them put in some pastel color over it if they wanted too.

Then I got out some leftover Fimo clay I had from summer camp and had them create a few sculpture  "charm" pieces that related to their plaster drawing.  I told them to make sure they put a hole in it so it could hang from their artwork.

Then while the Fimo was in the oven, I pulled out some cardboard I had salvaged from the many different paper packages I buy for class projects and had them paint with acrylic just the environment their graphite sketch would live in.

Finally on more salvaged cardboard, we glued down some leftover burlap I had used to create plaster pieces for other projects.

Then we assembled all the pieces created from the leftover bits into a finished artwork.

10 year old, deer

She used a deer reference that had a baby hiding in a yellow flower field.  You can see she picked up this reference in her charms and in the painted background.

13 year old, stag

Another deer, this time wading through grasses.  I love the way she picked up the same motion in the painted work also.

8 year old, crazy chicken

He wanted to create an image out of his imagination.  How cute is this chicken and the story that goes along with it?  In case you are interested, he likes to eat doughnuts and pizza. He also likes to bowl. And he enjoys dreaming of flying in the sky.  I love the whimsy of this sketch and funny enough all the other classes who were looking at the works during the next week were also drawn to the funny nature of this sketch.

It was fun working with just leftover bits and pieces in the studio and seeing what we could make out of it.  I thought these were quite interesting when completed and not once did I have to wrestle with "I'm done" 10 minutes out of the gate.



Sunday, January 25, 2015

mixed media cat

At the moment, I have a nine year old student who is working on creating her own personal deck of cards made out of some stylized princess drawings she had done in her sketchbook. When she brought her sketchbook to the studio to show me her drawings, I suggested maybe using them in a deck of cards. She was quite excited but reality has set in that it means creating 52 cards.  52!!

That can be overwhelming and so what has begun to happen is that she works on her cards at the beginning of class until she's had enough and then we work on something completely different.

Over a period of two half class periods, she created the mixed media cat below.

The first week, she completed the base of the canvas so that it was ready to put her painting on the following week.

The second week, she painted on her cat using high flow acrylic paints.

I was so proud of her because she finally has become confident enough to allow her work to really loosen up and embrace what different paints do on different surfaces. Because of this new found confidence, I think this is probably one of her best paintings yet.

Once she finished her cat, I gave her some stencils to choose from and a couple of paper punches I had that she could place a few more layers on top of the painting.

The end result is breathtaking.

9 year old, Tuxedo Cat

Sunday, November 30, 2014

unplanned paintings

13 year old, mixed media

The above student was working on a self portrait in acrylic in the high school class and was at that point of frustration every artist feels now and again where you just have to put it away and go back to it at a later date.

In this case, that might be six months later, but the work is not nearly as disastrous as she believes it is and given enough time away from the painting, I believe she will see that herself and finish it.

But for now, I was either going to find my paintbrushes broken in half or give her a new canvas to start something completely different.

I had a half finished painting that I was working on and she has always been fascinated with the dripping paint effect on the canvas. She asked if I would show her how to do that and so that is how this piece started.

After choosing a color palette, she began blocking in a background and spritzing the canvas with water and letting the paint drip as it may.  She then decided to paint a crow, but she wanted to paint it white.

I wasn't quite following the vision, but OK.  Her work, her vision, her joy.  She then spritzed it a bit more and created this really interesting result. I then gave her some stencils to choose from, some modeling paste which she mixed with black and she added it to the painting. Class finished and she was quite pleased with how the work was coming together. I was thrilled with the piece and quite excited for her also.

I figured the following week she would come back, maybe add some charcoal or pastel and call the work good.  However that is not what happened.

She had been on Pinterest and had seen some pins with melted crayon.   She asked me if I had seen this too and I told her that yes, I had seen some different things done with dripping crayons but in my head, I was thinking, "oh no. please don't want to do dripping crayon"

But she brought some old crayons she had at her house, all within the color palette she had already set, and asked if I would show her how to do it in the painting.

Well since I hate most of the work I have seen on Pinterest with dripping crayon and loved her artwork, I started trying to come to terms with how she could add this without it looking like a lot of that hokey stuff I had seen online.

I gave her a hot air dryer and set her up on an easel and she began to drip.  Thankfully she also didn't like the original effect but started manipulating and experimenting with the technique on her own that ended up being quite beautiful.

As the crayon dripped and melted, she would add heat where she thought it was too thick or "drippy" and wipe it away with a paper towel.  This left a transparent residue on the canvas that is quite stunning.  I got quite excited at what she was discovering and how she was finishing the piece.

In the end, I think this is a beautiful artwork. I think it is one of her best to date.  I love the emotion it conveys.  The crow would not of been near as impactful in black, the white adds such a ethereal feeling to the piece.  From beginning to end, this artist made great choices.  She was so happy when she finished and it was so obvious how much she loved this work.

It is a completely different style for her.  I was quite proud that she was able to let go and just see where the process took her, instead of having an end result in mind at the start.

Completely unplanned and utterly beautiful.

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Mixed Media Owls

With no end in sight in regards to the school closure in British Columbia and owls symbolizing education and intelligence, it seemed appropriate to share some children's mixed media artwork created around owls!!

In lieu of the first day of school.....sigh.

I have had great success with mixed media projects with kids.  I find that because there are several steps in creating this type of artwork, it keeps children engaged for exceptionally long periods of time.  They seem to throughly enjoy watching their artwork change and evolve with each new addition.

This time we started with newspaper and the students were so particular about what they wanted to cut out and place on the paper.  So much so I had to keep reminding them that most of it would be covered by paint, oil pastels, chalk pastel and charcoal in the end.

I told them to pick one or two of their favorite things they found in the paper that they could leave uncovered but they needed to start considering where to place it on the paper so it did not get covered by their final owl drawing, basically getting those gears turning in their head to start thinking about their composition!

4 year old

The students used glue sticks to stick down all their newsprint and then it became a process of learning how to make sure ALL the edges were securely glued down before moving onto the next step.

This is quite a learning process for many children.  Loose edges are a child's worse enemy!

7 year old


Then I had each of them pick a color to add acrylic paint over their newsprint.  They chose between the primary colors.

8 year old

9 year old

(sorry about the lighting on some of these, user error....)  Then once they were done with the acrylic, they went over some of the seams with black oil pastel. 

6 year old

I kept harping on covering the newsprint and then to wipe away the wet paint from anything they wanted to show through...but not have it glaringly stand out but as you can see, this student listened to my instructions and then made the artistic choice to ignore them.  And this is a great lesson for me because my instinct was that this artwork would not work due to the refusal to "blend" in the monkey found in the newspaper at all.  Yet in the end, it came out great!  As if this owl has a monkey on his mind.  Lesson learned for me to trust in each and every student choice, even when it is the choice to ignore my advice and instruction.

8 year old

8 year old

6 year old

And finally after all the paint, oil and chalk pastel, it was time to draw the owls.  I did do a teacher instructed follow-along "how to" with this project and we all drew our owls together.  I find it fascinating that although all the students followed along when drawing the owl with me, they all came out completely different!  It is always interesting to me to see how each child uniquely interprets the same instruction.

I had a bunch of different sizes of vine charcoal for them to pick from when drawing the owl, thick to thin, and they each made a choice as to which they would prefer.  When finished they all had the opportunity to pick from any of the media we had used to make final touches on their artwork.

And what great artwork it turned out to be!  But most important, the kids had a hoot. (sorry, couldn't resist.)
5 year old

5 year old

7 year old

And for those of you who are local, I will be holding all day art camps until the school closure ends from 9am-4pm at my studio in Lynn Valley.  I will be sharing all sorts of different things with the kids - clay, wet felting, printmaking, drawing, painting, and we will even hit the trail at Lynn Valley Canyon (two block walk)  to sketch and collect things to inspire our artwork in the studio.  Each week will run $250.00 but siblings get a 20% discount and the fee includes all materials and taxes.  Of course if school opens during the middle of the week, refunds for days not used will be reimbursed.  I keep my studio classes small in order to give lots of one on one attention, so space is limited.  You can find more information about the studio at Kudzustudio.com  This camp is appropriate for all ages.





Friday, July 25, 2014

Mixed Media self portraits

This is a mixed media project inspired by another blogger/artist named Jeanne Oliver.

A few years ago she ran her first online art course and I took it on a whim and one of the projects was a mixed media assignment that I have since used as inspiration in several children's projects.   They all seem to really enjoy the process of building many layers of different materials into a painting and the results are always very interesting.

The kids worked on this project over a couple of days, finishing it on the third day of camp.

We started with canvas squares and a whole bunch of paper scraps I have in my own studio.  Once they finished, they added paint, stamp marks, oil and chalk pastel.  Then they got down to work creating their self portraits and painting them in acrylic. Some of them chose to do their portraits with a 3/4 view and others wanted to stick with what they had learned from the previous days.  I was supportive of either one.  

Once finished, they added either self affirmation statements, their dreams of what they'd like to accomplish as grown ups, or simple sentences of what they find important or love in their life at this moment.

Whatever they decided, I know as they grow they will cherish this small part of the work the most when they look at the final painting.

Each and every one of the art pieces truly reflects the child who created it.  

6 year old

6 year old
7 year old

7 year old
6 year old

8 year old

6 year old

8 year old

10 year old
10 year old


Wednesday, June 25, 2014

When stars align or in this case, polka dotted birds

A while back, I introduced a mixed media project to the students at Kudzu Studio.  I like for them to see that they can use a variety of materials and mediums to create an artwork and that EVERYTHING is fair game when creating.

When one particular student was just about finished with all the under layers of her canvas, I asked her what she thought she might want to paint as her subject matter.

Without hesitation she said, "a polka dotted bird"

Why not?

I thought it sounded quite wonderful and when the artwork was complete, it was in fact, wonderful.


10 year old

I simply love this piece.  Isn't the shape of the bird awesome?!


Fast forward a week or two later and I introduced a bird sculpture piece based off a verse from a Dr. Seuss book.  (you can read more about it under the post Tizzled Topped Tufted Mazurkas).  And when she began to shape her work in clay, the artwork took on an uncanny resemblance to the picture she had created of the polka dotted bird.  So much so she actually remarked that it looked like her drawing.

Although I hadn't planned it, what a great idea to have a student take a drawing they completed and turn it into a 3 dimensional work!  And so I encouraged her to pursue the sculpture inspired by her original artwork she completed previously.

11yr old (she had a birthday between projects)

Not exactly the same, but a nice interpretation of the original painting. Her mom mentioned the two works are displayed together in the house.  Don't you know that just looks great?!

Although not planned on my part, what a great idea for future projects to have students create a painting first and then interpret it in clay.  I just love it when the stars align when I least expect it.

Or in this case, polka dotted birds.




Thursday, June 12, 2014

Proud moment!



My students are my surrogate children and I could not be more proud (or excited) when I see good things happen to them.

The above 12 year old student just found out she won the Paradise Valley Art Scholarship with this mixed media artwork she created in class.

She was so sure she had not won and I'm so thrilled she found out otherwise!

Congratulations Ms. J!  You have a bright future in front of you.