Winter Birds ages 9 to 12

Can you believe how awesome these images are?
Oil pastel on 18 x 24 Canson paper.

 

 

 

 

 

Poinsettia, ages 9 to 12

I do a poinsettia class with my adult students every year. As I was teaching them, I thought, my student class could to this too.  So we talked about point of view. Instead of drawing the plant from the side with the pot, like most of us would, we looked at it from the top, bottom... and chose to try from the top. Now this is a tough thing to do because you really have to look and separate the layers so that you can paint with a plan. We also talked about painting in the negative areas of the petals to show the lighter colored lines. Nice Job!

 

 

 

 

Slate Paintings ages 9 to 12

I had some slate and thought it would make a great holiday project. The students picked a subject and painted with acrylic and then sealed the slate. I will update this post as they finish more. They have some great ideas to try.

Tromp l'oeil envelopes, age 12

We set up some envelopes and trinkets and then copied them as realistically as possible using colored pencils on illustration board. I smeared out the addresses for this post, but you can still see what a great job they did.

 

 

Tea and Lemons, Ages 9 and 10

We set up a still life and the students took their time with their thumbnail drawings. 

Then they painted with acrylic on canvas board. 

We talked about the shapes of the objects, 

overlapping, shadows and highlights. 

It is great when they take their time to observe and paint what they see.

 

 

Geometric Animals, ages 8 and 9

This is a nice project that I use as a filler to give other students time to catch up with their projects.
The students pick an animal, break it into geometric shapes, pick a color theme and paint with tempera on 15x15 inch illustration board.

 

 

Picasso Music Shapes, ages 8 to 12

We looked at some Picasso music themed paintings/collages.

The students chose their subject, worked out thumbnails 

and used cut paper on 18 x 24 inch illustration board to finish.

 

 

 

 

 

More falling leaves, ages 8 to 12

The colors of turning leaves just speak "watercolor lesson " to me.  So the students took some leaves and drew them on 11x14 inch watercolor paper. We outlined the leaves with masking fluid and then used a wet on wet technique to color the leaves. Then painted the blue sky, also done on wet paper, removed the masking fluid and "voila".

  

 

  

 

Slices of Fall ages 8 to 10

The students learned a little about wet on wet technique with watercolor and did two fall images.

We cut the images into equal 1 inch sections and glued them on board to make patterns. We never know what will happen but they always are a pleasant surprise. I posted the before and after.

 

falling leaves ages 12

 

I just love falling leaves. We talked about the focal point in an image and one way to create one.

The same project, different voices, both successful.

Patterned Names

We talked about patterns, what they are and how to use them. 

Each student created a pattern using their names and thing they liked. 

Done with marker on 10 x 30 inch illustration board.

Pumpkins!

Some of the students worked on observation, value and color choices.

First they did value drawings using cross hatching marks.

Then they did contour drawings with solid values.

Then they did contour drawings (again, 4 times!) on watercolor paper.

The first one was a value painting. The second one was done only using two colors.

The last two we will finish in class this week.

Stay tuned!

Morgan

Alex

The last two on the bottom were done in watercolor again.

One was done using any colors to get a realistic effect. The last one was to use unexpected colors...

We then critiqued and talked about the different color options we have to choose from.

Stories and Patterns

Back for a new school year and for our first project the students chose a story/fairytale or rhyme and listed some key elements of the story. They used the elements in patterns to help tell the story.  Done in markers on 16 x 20 inch paper.