Do Art Make Stuff

messy art!

Chrissy and Julia paint together. This piece went from printmaking to every color mixed to mud in a matter of 5 minutes. Although I was sad to see the original printed piece gone the girls were in their process and in touch with creative energy and experimentation. My philosophy is to lightly guide and then let them go. The final piece came out beautiful and is a rich shade of brown.

Kora age 6 is a quiet whirlwind with a true artist's soul. Here she has gone from printing to paint to crayons to markers. She is in constant creation in the class.

Love this collage by Sadie age 6. Sadie is bold and definitive with her work, never a hesitation. There's something about a table covered with a frenzy of collage material that excites me.

 

art in a series - drawing and collage

artwork by chloe age 7. chloe's graphics in this are amazing. line weight and mark variation make this an interesting and sophisticated drawing.

This week was all about art in a series. I used a series of eucalyptus by artist Jim Morgan as the point of departure and brought in real eucalyptus for them to work from. I was amazed at all the different ways the kids came up with for drawing the simple plant. Click here to see more eucalyptus drawings.

 

artwork by Sadie age 5 - where most kids used a totally different way (style, colors, line weight, idea) of drawing each time sadie changed only the design of her pictures. very interesting designer we have in sadie!

collage

For this project I showed the kids the many different ways art can be produced in a series. I gave them tri fold papers, collage and drawing materials.

artwork by Christiana age 8

Below is one example I showed the kids of work in a series by artist Blanca Gomez. Along with tradition work I always like to include some fun and quirky current art and illustration. You can see how it influenced Christina - then she gave it her own touch. The kids always respond well to work with a sense of humor.

Paintings by Blanca Gomez

artwork by Sadie age 5 - the designer at work!

 

odds n ends: open studio time

artwork by jacques anthony age 9

artwork by izzy age 9 - izzy made this in anticipation of 3-d work next week.

artwork by jake age 9 - just a small glimpse into the wonderful world of jake's drawing.

 

inspiration notebooks

At the beginning of the semester I give each kid their own inspiration notebook. They are used as a storehouse for collections, experiments and ideas. The kids collect, draw, scribble, glue, mark and make art that can later be used to inspire more art work. It's a source of self excitement. Everyone should have one!

Along with working in notebooks as a class activity, they are great to work in while we are waiting for everyone to arrive or if someone finishes a project early. The kids always know they can work in their notebooks. Last year Mikey used his for a page by page  illustrated story. Other kids have used them for thumbnails for murals.

Camilla is new to the class so I had Mary and Marisa describe the idea behind making the notebook and wow! did she get it! "This is why art inspires me..."

artwork by camilla age 7, inspiration notebook
I love how she is talking about texture and feeling, how the silver is expesle (special). I was amazed! She came up with doing it this way completely on her own. She is so clear with what she is doing and thinking.

collage a few ways

This class was devoted to collage 3 different ways: we drew and cut out leaves for large scale trees we will start next week, made limited material collage on black or white paper and went all out on inspiration notebook collage.

I saw some interesting leaf art on the web and thought this particular art looked like fun to make. I wondered how we could take them a step further and decided to cut them out for large scale 'tree of life' trees which we will do on kraft paper 3 or 4 kids to a tree. Last week I found a giant tree branch which will become a sculptural addition to the tree of life idea. Here is Ethan's leaf. I love the detail and patterns. It reminds me of an Islamic hand icon and henna patterns.

You can check out the artist Jenny Bowers who inspired us on her website.

  artwork by Jake age 9, collage

For the next collage project I limited the material to odd shaped scraps of painted paper saved over the years (literally the scraps have been hanging around, waiting for this day since the very first class three years ago). Limiting the materials makes the kids deal solely with shape. The range of approach on this project was remarkable.

Today was Jake's second class. Although he would much rather draw characters and stories in his notebook he took time out to do this collage. I can see from this he has a strong sense of design. It will be interesting to see how it comes out in future projects. He really loves his world of characters and stories so next week I am going to give him a very big piece of paper and an accordion book to expand on what he loves to do.

 

Next we worked in our inspiration notebooks. As you can see the materials are not limited. I put out postcards, tissue paper, envellopes, letters, printed papers, art postcards and craypas. I think it all makes a glorious mess! more...

hermit crabs, watercolor and mosaics

chloe age 7,  draws turtles hermit crabs and their coconut shell home

Sometimes I get a class of kids who really love to draw. After two classes I get the feeling that this group would rather move onto the 'good stuff' sooner. As a last ditch effort I hired some 'models' - 5 hermit crabs and two turtles. I put the models in a large box and sat the kids on the floor with drawing boards.

 artwork by mikey age 7 - still wet watercolor

After drawing the animals I gave the kids watercolors, aqua pastels, inks and spray bottles (gave them a demo of the materials first) with the intention of making water paintings of the sea life.

This didn't happen. Instead they wanted to experiment with the new materials. Being all for experimentation I let them go. They did some great work!

artwork by marisa age 9 - mosaic

After painting we moved up to the tables where they were presented with mosaic materials. Tiny squares of paper I had cut painted in previous classes, tin and corrugated cardboard (cut from Starbucks coffee) sleeves.

I also had set up three other projects that the children could do at any time - tag art, inspiration notebooks and eyes. I will explain these in a later post. to continue click here!