And The Schedule Is Still Full

I think that by the time I'm able to get caught up enough to post regularly it will be Winter Term end and Spring Break Camp. 

I apologise for the lack of posts while I try to get acclimated to the full schedule. I'll try to at least catch up with some finished art from the classes I've been teaching over the last few weeks. Below you can see a few. I've branched out into low relief and sculptural elements. 

Negative Space Take 2

My Preschool Art's Enrichment class also worked with the idea of negative space and Dots last week.

Here are their finished art.

Where's The Elephant, Cat Paintings and Pro D Camp work

It's really tempting to go in depth with each lesson I teach. Sometimes i's nice to just let the finished art speak for itself. 

Where's The Elephant? Art Sparks

Paint scraped over oil pastel cat drawings Arts Enrichment

Leaf Paintings Painting & Drawing

Patterns and Klimt

This term when I sat down to create my painting and Drawing lesson plan I thought a lot about what art elements I wanted to focus on. I wanted to pick an element and then combine each lesson with another element because no art element is an island or something similarly deep and arty...

Anyway, getting back to my point I chose a running art elemental theme to run through the terms lessons and the theme I landed on was Pattern. Pattern is the repetition of shape, form and texture to keep the eye moving around. Pattern creates balance, space, and helps to organise composition. 

With this in mind we took a look at Gustav Klimt this week. We took some time to look at some of Klimt's most popular paintings as well as some of his lesser works. We discussed the patterns that Klimt used most in the art that we were looking at and then we jumped tight into drawing a portrait. I don't often do guided drawings but sometimes a guided drawing with portraits and body proportions helps to get the idea of some of the basics cemented or at the very least gets the students thinking about what they are looking at. 

As you can see from these finished examples I had a pretty wide range of portrait styles with my young artists, With students aged 5 to 11 there is bound to be varying degrees of technique. I had my students dress their portrait with patterns and then create a background with even more repeating shapes using oil pastel. The final step in the lesson was to add a water colour wash over top of the oil pastel portraits and patterns. 

It's Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada. While most people have taken the less stress route when it comes to the Harvest feast I decided to take a different road this time around. I'll be making a lovely squash soup to take to a friends dinner party. I've committed to ham dinner with two sides and dessert on Sunday and another turkey dinner with stuffings and a few other sides on Monday. I'm going to be honest. I've got some lovely friends and family bringing dishes and important sides on both days but I will be focused on culinary creations for the next few days. I'd hoped to have a book review post about the two books I used in my lesson plans last week but those will have to wait until the thanksgiving food coma has passed or a lull in the cooking happens and or procrastination rears it's weird little head. If you are a South of the 49th you're big turkey day is coming... If you're a fellow north of the 49th parallel dweller Happy Thanksgiving. If you can go out and hit the early voting sometime in the next few days. I voted this afternoon and I couldn't express how awesome it was.

Dragons and Sunflower Finished Art

 I'm posting the finished dragon paintings from yesterday here.

Yesterday we used paint and painted paper for our finished art. Today with the older group and a little longer class time I added a preliminary step to the process. Students used oil pastels to draw their flower centers, stems and leaves. We applied our flower petals using the same technique but the oil pastel resisted the wet paint allowing our centers, stems and leaves to peek out from behind the petals. My older artists got very creative with their dragons. We had a low relief dragon created by folding and bending the paper to stand out against the painted background. We had dragon's the emerged outside of the traditional picture plain some subtly, others more so. I'd love to say that I have a favourite (I actually do, one of the finished artworks below was created by one of my own children, as a mom hers is my favourite. I think it's amazing.) but as an art instructor I see amazing things in each finished art work posted below, and also the other two paintings that were still too wet to hang up when I took these photos. Watching today's artwork unfold I was very excited to see all the different directions my young artists were going with their art.

Dragons and Sunflowers for Swords

Last year the Art Sparks and Arts Enrichment classes did a project based on Perfect Square; the book I read with my Art Exploration Students on Saturday.

I make an effort to keep lesson topics fresh and to revisit techniques instead of subjects so instead of continuing with the same book for today and tomorrow's lesson I introduced The Sunflower Sword by Mark Sperring and illustrated by  Miriam Latimer. I built a Dragon Themed birthday party around this book last year which was a big hit. Today I focused on the spread in the book that had the dragon flying over top of a giant field of blooming sunflowers.

In my garden I have a lovely patch of sunflowers this year. The bright yellow petals surrounding the smaller blossoms set out in a Fibonacci spiral are beautiful in and of themselves. Adding a dragon to the composition is a full on winner with my own little artists as well as the artists in my classes.

We started with an application of yellow and orange paint with sponges and also foam shaped stamps. I then instructed my artists to add the brown centres of the flowers with a round brush. The opportunity to bled the brown paint provided with the still wet oranges and yellows was taken by a handful of artists in the lesson and the brush work they used added energy  and interest to their compositions. A few other artists were more interested in precise application of the brown and others were more interested in applying the yellow and orange and only a small amount or no brown was added at all. Our next step was to use scissors and painted paper scraps to cut out the shapes to build our own dragon. The dragon was glued onto our under painting and a final addition of a googly eye ( or three, or five or two) was added.

Regardless of what steps were taken or left out in the process each of my young artist friends learned a little bit about texture, pattern and shapes today. It is always really fascinating to see the ideas of children this age emerge onto paper.

Once the finished works are dry I will post some examples.

Perfect Square

This time last week I was steeling myself for the possibility of only one class on Saturdays and I am pleased to now have two sessions of Art Exploration classes for two age groups Saturday mornings. Art Exploration as the name suggests an exploration of art materials and elements for toddlers and a caregiver and for children aged three to five. Last week we explored oil pastels and paint on paper with leaves. This week we're looking at things from the shape of a square

A few years ago I was in the library looking for a picture book that had a focus on circles for my very first art class at Artspace. While looking for a circle book I saw sitting on the shelf a book about a square. I of course picked up this book and brought it home all the while wishing that my lesson was about squares (because back then I was a little more rigid with my lesson plans; I was a new teacher and very far out of my comfort zone so keeping within my plan was all about coping). This Saturday class will be based on the illustrations in that book and that book is called Perfect Square by Michael Hall.

In the past I've taught this lesson in two parts. Students would paint a rainbow onto mixed media paper and then in a second class the paper is transformed with scissors, folding and cutting into a picture that has it's inspiration from one of the pages in the book. This time around, because we have an abundance of pre painted paper at Artspace we'll be creating our art from the stock of painted paper. Focus was on choosing papers that appeal to the artists, composing an image onto paper and practicing scissor and glue skills.

The purple pieces were done by my toddler artists. Each one of the artists was fully engaged in the process of the art today. During the lesson I was talking abut how focus in the  lesson is getting engagement from our artists and not looking for anything specific within a composition, I went on to say that often allowing the freedom to engage with the materials brings out some very amazing finished artworks. Today's lesson illustrated that point to a T. Each of the artists in the toddler class was allowed to compose their image with very little involvement from their caregiver. My favourite parts of the lesson was watching the thinking process in where things were placed on the page. In all cases the artists made very specific and engaged choices for their work and it shows.

The Blue backed art was done in the Preschool class. In this class we had the same focus and engagement. Each artist approached the project in very different ways. From the deconstruction of the backing paper into a new shape (which referenced our inspiration book) to the minimalist compositions and the compositions that used multiple layers and or broke out of the image frame. I was very pleased by the outcome of each class and love that I get to share the work here with you.

Still Life

My Tuesday afternoon Painting and Drawing class has student's aged 5 and older. This means that the style and skill of the artists in that class varies all along the spectrum of art skills for children. 

I should preface this post with an apology for not getting a photograph of the still life set up I had for this class. The time between set up and beginning of class is a bit of a crunch and Time got away from me. I set up boxes of varying height covered in draped fabric, Two glass jars with cut flowers, a pair of beautifully embroidered and beaded purple shoes and an assortment of fossils, minerals and crystals. I am really kicking myself for not thinking to document it until after getting home last night, it looked fabulous. 

To start with, we talked about lights and shadow and how they form shapes on the objects that we draw. We looked at examples of still life drawings and discussed how using light and shadow to create form inside a drawing also creates space within the drawing adding dimension. We also talked about looking at our subject and our drawing at the same time as we draw so that our eyes and our hands work together. 

Each student, dependant on time drew with charcoal on white paper focusing on shadows. They then drew with white chalk on black paper focusing on highlights and then finished on coloured paper using both the chalk and charcoal incorporating both highlights and shadows.

As you can see from the drawings I chose to display from the lesson, each artist's style is completely different; as is the way that they chose to look at and draw the subject. The older of the artists in the class focused on more detail, really looking at the still life and how the light and shadows worked within the composition. Some artists chose to interpret the still life into their own style of drawing and the younger artists were still able to capture the idea of what was in front of them with their emerging skill set. 

I chose my favourites from the finished drawings to display. 

More Flowers and Balloons

Just like last week I kept Monday and Tuesday lessons pretty similar. Since our Tuesday students are a little older and have a longer lesson than Monday, I added a few changes to extend the lesson. We started the lesson with a reading of the picture book Rose's Garden by Peter H Reynolds. I decided on a different book for this group because it was a little more involved than yesterdays while still keeping within the same theme.

My little artist's started their project by learning how to hold and cut with scissors; this is a skill we will revisit again and again with this age group. It's always a tricky lesson for me to teach and for the little ones to learn but it's very important for later when the same grip is used for holding a pencil. each child was given a piece of construction paper with a teapot shape pre-drawn on it. Following the instructions for holding and using their scissors each child cut out their own teapot. Every teapot is unique to the artist who cut it out. Some were given a little help by myself or my co-teacher, howeverthat number was considerably less than I anticipated. Given that the class size is quite big we did quite well with our cutting. We decorated our teapots with white glue and fine glitter and set them aside to dry.

We used balloons to create our flowers again filling our whole page with balloon impressions. Once our pages were covered in flowers we glued our teapot on top referencing the final illustration in Rose's Garden where the heroine's giant teapot sits as if floating on a sea of colourful flowers.

Week Two: Zinnia's and Balloons

It's week two and I'm anticipating the joys of balloon painting with my young artists. The cold I caught from one of my preschoolers has left me with a drippy nose and a scratchy voice. I didn't help this when I stayed out a little later than usual yesterday to see the lunar eclipse but it was worth it.

The technique I taught today and tomorrow is one I found on Pinterest and immediately tweaked. It has a big "wow" factor with the young ones and lends itself really well to certain subjects; flowers for instance. The Pin I first saw this technique used in was a take on Eric Carle's Hungry Caterpillar.  I love Eric Carle, some of my favourite projects are created with painted paper and collage. I think his paper collages are very distinctive and wanted to try something different in my own classes so I came up with a theme that I thought suited the technique even better and allowed for a little discussion about colour theory and of course the use of a varied and interesting colour palette.

Last week we collaged and painted leaves; very suitable for autumn. This week I'm bringing in some of the zinnia blossoms from my garden and blowing up balloons for the students to paint with. This lesson works best with a contrasty selection of paint in each tray and I do find that I have to impress the importance of not squeezing the balloons while painting to the students (otherwise: POP). I also find that it's a good idea to have a few extra balloons ready just in case. I have a hand pump to blow them up before the lesson begins. While we are on the subject I also try to blow the balloons up at most about 1/2 the capacity. This makes them easier for small hands to grasp, easier for transport inside the studio and also makes them less likely to pop. I have in the past used water balloons for this lesson with good success but the smaller balloons are also thinner and more likely to pop unexpectedly.

My co-teacher for the Artsparks class read the book Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehert to our young artists and their caregivers and then once a short break had been taken and snacks consumed my class joined me in the art studio. Gree paint was used for grass and stems and then I had my young artists stamp their balloons into the marbled paint and then onto the paper. the wow factor happens when they see the colours transferred from the balloon onto the paper. The excitement from the ballon painting was felt throughout Artspace. As a final step white glue was applied to pre-drawn styrofoam stamps and a dusting of fine glitter was added to the tacky butterflies, caterpillars and bees wchich got this lesson a super double wow ovation.

When I left after clean up the art was still drying. Once it's hung I will follow up with images of the student's art.

The Really wonderful thing about this class is that all the caregivers are very open to letting their children, grandchildren and friends explore the materials in their own way. Of course there are small nudges here and there to remind our small artists what was said in the demonstration but the final work is always very much the work of our little artists.

 I use balloons for paper mache projects at Artspace as well a painting tool. Usually I save paper mache for week long camp lessons so that there is enough time to add a good number of layers. If you use balloons in your lessons let me know how they work out; if you have tried something different please share.

A Leaf Can Be Follow up and Pro D Camp Plans

I've got a Professional Development camp today. I'll be teaching a total of 23 artists today, using the artist Magaly Ohika as our inspiration. 

I love her work. I've been cyber stalking her distinctive art for years. Today I'll be sharing some of it with the campers and we'll be putting our own spin on it with some recycled electronic circuit boards. My plan is to shoot grouping of the artist's creations to share here. 

As promised here are the finished art pieces from my Arts Enrichment group. With a combination of oil pastel rubbings and painted applied to the leaves and stamped onto the paper I couldn't have been more pleased with the finished work. Since this age group has a focus on exploring and making art I was pleased to hear one of my favourite questions during the process:

Teacher, How do I make brown?

What followed was an experimentation of how many different shades of brown could be made using only yellow, green, red and orange. As you can see from the posted art here each of my students has a unique style to their art making already. The first picture in this set has a wonderful example of positive and negative space where the artist used the leaves to mask the paper while painting. Some of my other artists were more precise with their paint applications and rubbings. 

What ways do you use the autumn leaves in your art practice?