scratch board animals

Another project the kids did during the art camp at Seymour Art Gallery, focused on the Ben Lim exhibit, was scratch board.

Working off of one of Ben Lim's beautiful sketches from his sketchbook the gallery had used for promotional materials, it seemed like a really good match to have the kids focus on creating an animal using line.

The idea for the project is actually a combination from two different exhibits at the gallery.

In the spring, the gallery has an art exhibit strictly for children. It's my favorite yearly show and the artist who participate sell their work only to children sixteen and under. One of the artist this year whose work really stood out to me was a Vancouver artist named Andrea Hooge. I had filed away in my head the idea of creating an art history project influenced by her scratchboard work because I knew it would resonate with the kids.

But while looking at the promotional material for Ben Lim's exhibit with the gallery curator, I was struck that the project idea I had been thinking about inspired by Andrea Hooge married quite well with Ben's sketches. We both agreed it would be a nice match.

The stars aligned when I saw that our local art store, Opus Art Supplies, was having a workshop put on by none other than Andrea Hooge where she was presenting her method for creating the scratchboards. It seemed to me the stars (or Ben) was trying to tell me something and that I should indeed make sure I included this project in the camp.

Andrea was most gracious with sharing with me her techniques and spent time answering questions on ways I could create a clay board knock off that would allow the kids to experience the method without breaking the piggy bank.

So using small wooden boards I bought at the craft store, I covered each with three layers of white gesso- sanding between each layer. Then I covered the gessoed board with india ink.

That's it.

A bit of time and elbow grease on my part, but I now had a clay board knock off that would allow the children to experience a new technique and medium.

Each child created a sketch on copy paper. Other than the shape of the animal and key points (eyes, mouth, nose, wings, legs, or paws) there was not a lot of detail. That would happen when they began to scratch into the boards.

They transferred their sketches onto the boards by rubbing a bit of white charcoal on the backside of the drawing and then laying it over the board and retracing their sketch.

Once they had a carbon copy on the board, I gave each of them a scratch pen for drawing. (If you can't access scratch pens, a thumbtack would work just as well.)

I suggested they not outline their tracing but just start adding fur, feathers, or scales to the piece. I have no doubt I sounded like a broken record as I kept repeating to pay attention to the different direction of lines on their reference material...the same way I do at home when I continue to repeat over and over and over for my kids to put their laundry away! Only difference is these artist listened.

They all caught on quickly and really enjoyed scraping into the board.

The works were quite arresting when finished. I was especially thrilled to see that the initial scrapes they made were a grey and that the kids needed to go over a scrapes more than once to get a true white- which created some nice tones on the piece I had not seen kids be able to achieve just using scratch paper.

Could I have better photographs? yes. 

However this was the project I had saved for Friday morning while the children's art show was being set up. There was just not a lot of time to get great photos before these were on display in the show and then carried home. But the project had been so successful, I figure the blogging world will forgive me for the opportunity to learn about a project the kids found exciting.

It was great to see such a wide age range of children enjoy this medium. And I am eternally grateful and forever humbled by the graciousness of artists who not only share their talents with me, in this case Andrea, but also create art that inspires me, (Ben), which helps me hopefully create projects that ultimately inspire kids. 

If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an entire art community to inspire and raise a lover of the arts. A fact proven in spades with this lovely little project.

Thank you Andrea Hooge and Ben Lim.

Scratch Art birds

8 year old

I've decided that birds and Scratch Art are a great way to teach students about line. This discovery was quickly made during the "Birds of a Feather" spring break camp at North Vancouver Community Arts Council when I had the kids create these beautiful birds.

To be truthful, I figured this would be a project the kids flew through based on their age. It was a very young camp, over half the class was 7 and under years of age.

7 year old

I could not of been more wrong. They LOVED the scratch art and asked to do more once they finished the first. This project ended up keeping the kids engrossed for almost two hours! It probably helped that there was a hidden surprise that I didn't even know about at first. The papers revealed a variety of different color underneath.

7 year old

I used one package of paper containing ten sheets for a class of twelve students. I cut each paper in fourths, thinking the smaller size would be less intimidating to fill with line and also result in a finished work. (when thinking they would probably not spend much time creating the art)

7 year old

9 year old

9 year old

Although they surprised me with the level of engagement they had with this project, I'm still glad I had cut the paper into fourths so I had plenty for each child to create several birds.

Each child had access to a lot of reference material on birds. I asked them to pick one that caught their fancy and really study the many directions of the birds' feathers and then record that on their paper using a bamboo skewer.

7 year old

6 year old

6 year old

I also highlighted the different shape of line that they could utilize to create texture and direction. Then really my only job became to make sure each child got a new sheet of paper when needed and that they put their names on the finished pieces.

As you can see I did not always succeed at my one and only job, getting their names on the paper, as I have no idea who created the beautiful green bird.......

6 year old

5 year old

How sweet are the wings created by this five year old? I love the way he interpreted line to create his bird.

7 year old

One thing we did learn however was greasy hands from snack time did not mix well with the paper. A few of the kids had to go and give their hands another washing and start with a new piece of paper as dirty finger marks seemed to hinder getting the scratch marks to reveal the underneath color.

6 year old

I love when projects pleasantly surprise me. I love when the kids get so involved in a project that you can just sit back and watch them excitedly share what they are learning with one another. 

9 year old

The kids were so proud of their works that I promptly took them back to my studio and spent the evening mounting each one for them to take home. It seemed only appropriate that the works look their best after the artists had such a wonderful time creating them.

8 year old

At the end of this project, I was so pleased with the entire process that I promptly went out and filled my own studio with packages of this paper for future projects.

8 year old

Who could blame me?

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.

Line and Texture with Scratch Art

I was teaching a week long course called, "Experimenting with Art" and one of the projects I started with was Scratch Art.  It is a great way to introduce the many ways to use line to create interest in work.

I gave each child an orange.  I cut the orange in half and then took one half and cut it into quarters.  I then placed each child's cut orange on a paper towel and allowed them to arrange the orange any way they pleased.

Then they created a Scratch Art from real life drawing.

The oranges have lots of different textures to start with, the bumpy skin, the lines in the flesh, so I knew that if the younger students only focused on that aspect of the drawing they would have lots to focus on for their work.

As it turned out, the students all got lost in scratching away on their artwork and really enjoyed learning how to create shadows and lots of interesting line work and texture into their art.

7 year old

7 year old

7 year old

8 year old

11 year old