letting preschoolers paint big

This May I have had two preschool classes running in the mornings and one of the first projects I introduced was watercolor. I use liquid watercolor with this age group as I find it is far more inviting- easy for them to use and vibrant color.

I always present them with just the primary colors so they can explore mixing them together and observing the new colors they make when blended. I also make sure there is salt, paper towels, and water on hand to manipulate the watercolors by diluting, blotting, and absorbing the color.

I also decided to give the children paper almost the same size as them! It is not often very young children get the opportunity to draw very large and it is a great way to help develop their motor skills.

For the Monday class, we created self portraits. Do I really believe they will retain any of the information regarding the rules of the face? Absolutely not.

However I also believe that young children are quite capable and enjoy adults recognizing their ability to grasp big concepts. What I do love about introducing the rules of the face is that it is an invitation for the children to really study themselves in a mirror and an opportunity to build up a positive self image about themselves.

What do you notice about your eyes?

You have such lovely almond shape eyes.

Look at the beautiful blue of your eyes.

It is always a joy to watch them literally bloom under the compliments as they see the features that are unique to only them and take pride in those differences.

Each child first created a drawing with a permanent black marker. There were several additions each young artist decided to make when creating their drawings such as tongues sticking out and crowns. 

It was quite cute how excited they all got when they realized there were not steadfast rules as to what they could and couldn't do on their papers. Each time they would ask if they could add a bow, a crown, or whatever else, I would simply respond, "You're the artist. Do what pleases you."

I got a huge kick out of the above artwork with the tongue sticking out. She giggled as she added the tongue to her portrait but somewhere along the way the self portrait became a portrait of her grandmother. I asked her if her grandmother stuck her tongue out a lot and was assured that in fact, she did not. 

Once they were happy with their portrait drawings, they began to play with the primary watercolors and created the most incredible palettes. They had fun exploring what happened when they "bathed" their paper first, added salt, put lots of bright color on but then blotted it away with a paper towel. 

In the end, their self portraits are charming. If only as adults we could paint with such abandon and create such whimsy.

Since the other group of preschoolers had done self portraits in the past, I put a vase with a large yellow daisy in front of each child.

Using the same steps as the self portraits, I asked the children to notice what they saw in the middle of the flower. Then the shape of the petals and how many petals they saw. 

Again my expectation is not that they create a replica of the flower or even that what they observe ends up being recorded on the paper, but respecting their ability in not only observing their visual world but their capability of recording it on paper in their own unique way.

And unique way they did!

There was one yellow flower in front of them and after several questions of "can I add more flowers?" and me responding "you're the artist, whatever you decide" this is what was finished in the class.

Again I gave the children primary colors so they could explore and observe how they blended and what new colors emerged. This is always so much fun to watch because there is still such surprise as yellow and blue merge to create green. And each new discovery is shared excitedly with me as if it's Christmas morning. 

Really there is no better job in the world in these moments.

This little one spent the entire class just putting one color at the top of a petal and another at the bottom, then adding plain water in the middle to coax the colors to come together on a "play date" and watching what happened. 

And this sweet child, who asked for black paint from the moment we started. If you look carefully you can see some very small petals, which I love as they were created from her original observations of the flower on the table. Surrounding the middle was a fringe of small petals and I love that she added them to her final drawing. 

As they finished their colorful flowers, I brought out the black paint as promised. 

One mixed the black with color to see what happened but the little girl who wanted black from moment one added it with pure abandon to her background, from time to time adding a little salt or water. She talked happily as she added the black and was beyond thrilled with her results.

As you can see, each child left the studio with a painting almost the same size as themselves and although each and every one of them was adorable, they were in no way near as adorable as the children who created them.

William Morris inspired watercolors and tiles

Last week was the start of spring break here and I ran two camps, one at the studio and another through the North Vancouver Community Arts Council.

I thought I would alternate each day this week with a post from the camps and am starting with the studio camp called, "An Artist a Day"

We started the week by looking at the art of William Morris. Each student had the opportunity to look at William Morris's work and discover just how he created his beautiful designs. I showed them textiles, wallpapers, tiles, and his watercolors.

I believed they were hooked the minute they heard the title, "Strawberry Thief".

william morris, strawberry thief

I had the students divide their sketch paper into fourths and we discussed symmetry. By dividing the paper into fourths, they could clearly see a center point and then work out trying to mirror their drawings on both sides.

Some of the sketches are stunning finished artworks no less.

8 year old

8 year old

11 year old

You can see from the sketches, the girls fully embraced the strawberry. They also took some great notes on how William Morris created some of his natural elements and figured out ways to incorporate them into their own original designs.

6 year old

However it was not necessary.

I quite like the way this very young artist grasped the idea of symmetry in her artwork, not quite the same but the same subjects.

8 year old

When the students were happy with their sketch, they transferred it onto watercolor paper using a piece of carbon. Then went over their marks with permanent black marker.

8 year old

Then the real fun began as they began to add the watercolors. I stressed starting light with the washes and building up their colors as they progressed.

8 year old

This not only made a huge difference to their finished work but also added to their enjoyment of  discovery as they observed what happened when layering color over color.

6 year old

The above artist absolutely LOVES mixing color and was so excited with each new combination she made.

11 year old

Because each student mixed everything themselves from just the primary colors.

9 year old

Just marvel at the line work in those trees. This artist spent so. much. time. working on those trees. I am quite honestly amazed that she wasn't still working on them at the end of the week. The patience and focus she had while working was quite impressive.

Once they had finished their watercolors, I brought out some air dry clay. 

I encouraged each girl to look at their drawings and pick some of the elements out they liked the most to create a tile to hang on their walls inspired by the tiles William Morris had created among his artworks.

strawberries

If we had done nothing else to them, they would of been quite beautiful finished pieces.

They were lovely all laid out together while drying.

There were lots of strawberries on tiles

A sweet little red bird.

And some much needed sunshine! Have I mentioned we have not seen the sun here in quite some time?! 

William Morris was a great way to kick off the first day of camp. I think each camper truly enjoyed the opportunity to create their own work inspired by him. I would not mind having some wallpaper and tiles to put up in my home created by the artwork made in the studio to be truthful.

I'm so looking forward to warm spring days and fresh strawberries to pick off the vine. Until then I'll just have to enjoy looking at them with these sweet little tiles.

articulated imaginary animals

This past Friday the kids in our school district had a ProD day, which means they were not in school while the teachers had a full day of planning, so I offered a morning two hour art workshop.

I have been admiring the work of Emma Kidd on Instagram for quite some time. I knew her art would be full heartedly embraced by students and have had the idea of creating a project inspired by her work for awhile. She has a lovely Etsy site where you can see lots of her work and here's a video of her talking about her artwork.

I was not wrong, the kids had a ball and created some wonderful articulated imaginary animals.

We started by playing the game Exquisite Corpse in order to get the ideas flowing.

The students changed seats to draw on each portion of the paper without being able to see what the student before had drawn. I gave open ended directions at each turn. 

Draw the head of your favorite animal.

Draw the body of something that likes the water.

Draw the legs of an animal that lives in Africa.

Lots of giggles as they returned to their seats and revealed the full drawings. The kids all shared the imaginary beings created in the game and then began to put together their own ideas for their articulated animals.

dragon, 5 year old

I gave each student a piece of watercolor paper and some copy paper to sketch out ideas along with 6 brass fasteners. The only instruction was their animal could not have more than six moving parts and to keep the joints large enough that it would hide the back of the fastener and not break when moving the part.

owl, 7 year old

Very quickly they figured out they could sketch the parts on the watercolor paper like a puzzle and not in order. This allowed them to make an animal much larger than the size of their paper. 

flying horse, 9 year old

Once they had their drawing on the final paper, they used watercolors to paint the parts and then cut them out.

solar panel flying lizard, 10 year old

By the time they finished cutting the parts, the paper was pretty dry and together we punched the holes where they wanted to put the brass fasteners. 

9 year old

Then they had the chance to use quill pens or sharpie pens to add lots of details using line and pattern.

10 year old

10 year old

By the time they were finished, parents were arriving and it was time to go home. There was something very magical about creating an artwork with moving parts for the students. I think there were all quite happy with themselves at the end.

unicorn mermaid, 9 year old

I think they would look absolutely wonderful mounted on paper and framed for display. I know if my grown children had brought one of these home when they were young it would definitely been on the wall in a hot minute.

10 year old

The icing on the cake was Emma Kidd seeing the students creations on the studio's Instagram page and being as thrilled as the students with the work. I hope the kids have as much fun playing with these at home as they did making them.

endangered species watercolors

During the Scales, Tails, Feathers and Fins art camp, in other words an animal themed art camp, I discussed with the kids how artist create images to make the viewer aware of social causes.

And that they could create art to make people aware of issues important to them.

I then introduced a series of animals currently on the critical endangered species list and told them if they wanted, they could pick one to highlight in their artwork and make others aware of the animals' plight.

I also gave them the option to just do an animal of their choice but almost all the kids were quite interested in not only learning about the different animals I had shared with them but also wanting to use them to create artwork.

I tried to pick a variety of species of animals that children usually gravitate too when creating art in the studio.....tigers, turtles, elephants, porpoises...and I tried to pick at least one animal containing scales, tails, feathers and fins like the mouthful of a title I gave this art camp.

What was I thinking when I came up with that????

I brought out the liquid watercolors and some larger than normal paper and let the kids have fun. After a quick demonstration of some of the different techniques they could try with the watercolors, they began to sketch and create a pen drawing on their papers.

Vaquita 7 year old

Several of the children felt a connection to the Vaquita and chose it to highlight in their artwork. Maybe because it is close to home? Or maybe because it is so very close to extinction as the world's rarest marine mammal, with half it's population lost in the last three years due to illegal gillnet fishing in protected areas within Mexico's Gulf of California.

Vaquita. 7 year old

Or probably because it is so darn cute and it's plight truly touched the heart of these young children.

Needless to say if you are like me and before now have never heard of this sweet porpoise, thanks to these artworks you are now aware of the imminent loss forever of these beautiful creatures if something doesn't drastically change immediately.

Sumatran Tiger.

Another popular choice was the Sumatran Tiger, the last of Indonesia's tigers due to deforestation and poaching. There are as few as 400 left in the world now.

Sumatran Tiger.

And as always, there were those children who truly felt moved to create awareness to save the turtles.

Giant Tortoise

Whether it be the vulnerable state of the Giant Tortoise,

Leatherback Turtle

or the critical endangered Leatherback turtle. There was no surprise that a couple of the children gravitated to this animal for their artwork.

falcon

I did have one child who just wanted to focus on his love of birds of prey. He absolutely loves using them in his artwork and I wasn't surprised when he requested I pull the Falcon and Eagle reference files for him to use.

I was surprised however that only one child gravitated to the elephant. 

I would of expected more kids wanting to make sure the world knew of their endangered status, but the lone preschooler in the camp made sure you don't forget about the elephant's plight. She loved the process of mixing the primary colors and seeing what new color she could make. 

We had drawn the elephant together, side by side, while sketching. I asked her to find the different shapes that made up the elephant and then we drew them onto our papers. Afterwards, I had her connect the shapes with line and then go over it with an ink pen. 

However during her process of mixing color, the elephant was long forgotten so at the end I gave her some black and asked her to fill in the elephant shape. I then retraced HER LINES with a black oil pastel to bring the elephant back to the forefront in the end. 

At the end of the day, I think the kids learned a valuable lesson in the power of art in terms of relaying a message of importance to them. Hopefully this proves to them that they have a powerful tool in order to make their voices heard in the future. 

I mean here they are reminding the worldwide web that we need to take care of the animals on our planet as stewards of the earth, paying special attention to these beautiful creatures we are about to lose forever, through their artwork.

Proving you are never too young to make a difference, to use your voice, or in this case a mighty paintbrush in order to try to change the world for the better.

cottingley inspired fairies

This has to be one of the cutest projects I have ever done with children. It took on a life of it's own that only children can bring to the table.

One of the summer camp themes was focused on fairies and other folklore surrounding magical creatures. While researching project ideas, I decided to create one around the Cottingley Fairies, some photographs that have intrigued me since I was young.

I figured the children would enjoy the story surrounding these very famous pictures created by some mischievous girls who just wanted to play in the creek, much to their mothers' chagrin.

The children started by creating their own fairies using a heavy watercolor paper and liquid watercolor. I kept reminding them that it was important they keep arms, hair, and wands close to the body or not make them too thin in order to make sure things wouldn't break off once cut out.

We then took the fairies and a lone gnome to the woods to create our own fairy pictures. And this is when something magical happened with the children, like only kids can do, their imaginations took over and the fairies and little gnome seemed to really come to life as they composed and then sat for their pictures.

Fairies were fluttering amongst the tree branches as a little girl said hello. A young girl I might add who took composing this photo very seriously in hopes her picture would become just as famous as those of the young girls in Cottingley a hundred years ago.

A boy stopped to have a conversation with a gnome that happened to be walking by.

He had such a good time setting up several other photos of the gnome we had happenstance upon in the woods.

Fairies were hiding in the ferns.

And sneaking up on children to sprinkle a bit of magic dust on them.

The fairies were even sharing huckleberries with the kids.

Fairies became best friends with girls who were best friends and posed for one last requested photo together before it was time to leave the woods.

And they seemed sad to see it was time for us to leave and go back to the studio at the end of the morning, following us out of the woods. 

What a special morning we spent in the woods.

What a really humbling morning it was for me to get to be apart of the imaginative and magical world  only children can create. An amazing reminder of just how lucky I am to get to do this job for a living.