Colorful Animal Portraits, ages 7-11

The students picked a favorite animal photo and we drew the portrait in pencil. They looked for simple shapes and then filled in the detail. Then they took black crayon and shaded in the dark areas and showed the fur textures. They chose their favorite color and used water color washes to finish.

Artist Portraits, teen class

So the challenge to the students was to choose an artist and use some of the artists work to support the artist portrait they would paint. Again, wow! Lots of thought and great ideas. Some used traditional artists, animators and an artistic friend. More to follow as the rest of the class finishes!

Paper Flower Wreaths, ages 7 - 12

The students used scrapbook paper and card stock to create layered flowers and then glued onto cardboard cake disks with the center cut out. These made wonderful Mothers Day gifts this year!!!

Look closely and you will see that some of the flowers have some great 3-d effects.

Museum Self Portraits, ages 10-14

Wow! These are fabulous! The students chose a famous painting from a stack of books that I have. We also looked at some examples of some current artists that have done similar paintings of people viewing art in museums. We talked about frames, flooring, shadows, how we stand, posture... and then put themselves viewing the painting as if they were in the museum. Note the great observation used to copy the paintings, the wonderful frames, lighting direction and their posture.

 used opposite colors!

Cherry Blossoms-ages 7-9

This multi media project is perfect for springtime. The students used card stock to cut their vases out. Then used marker to create patterns on the vases and then glued on the 17x22 inch sheet. I brought out sumi brushes and india ink and we practiced making branches with twists and turns. Looking at branches outside we could see that they do not always grow in straight lines. Then we cut out cherry blossoms and glued onto the dried branches.