Kids Art Week Day 3

Hopefully you will all get a laugh at my vulnerability on this one. We were supposed to use a masking technique on watercolor paper. My tape tore up all of my paper. I also had big plans for the disembodied cat legs but thought it was kind of funny, so I left it here. Tim jumped in on this one too. Mine is the cat (with "bear ears" Tim said). Tim did the seahorse and David did the fish.

 

      I don't know if we'll get to do the next 2 lessons because we'll be away, but the boys were pretty excited about tomorrow so we may do them when we get back. I love seeing what they come up with.

Kids Art Week 2018

     Back in 2016, I participated in Carla Sondheim's Kids Art Week. I blogged about it towards the beginning of the week but seemed to get busy at the end of the week. Here were my two posts in 2016. Kids Art Week 2016: Day 2   We had so much fun participating last time that we decided to try it again this year. (I'm not sure what happened last year.)
      Today David and I did a project called "Put a Beak On It" where you created birds out of blobs of watercolor paint, markers and colored pencils. Other than getting our blobs to dry quickly in this incredibly humid weather, the project was pretty easy. (If you struggle with being creative, "finding the birds" was a little hard for me.) David thought it was really fun to make. Here are our projects:

 I like David's bird with the pink stomach and how creative he was with the bodies. I loved watching him create. If you're interested in jumping in, please join us! Sign up here. You don't have to be an artist; it's a lot of fun.

Kids Art Week Day 2: Dubuffet figures

     Had another fun time doing an art lesson for kids, offered by Carla Sonheim. Jean Dubuffet was a French painter, printmaker and sculptor.  He lived between 1901-1985. He wasn't able to really work as an artist until about 1942. Like Klee, he was not impressed with "scholarly" art, but was inspired by "outsider art" of alienated groups such as prisoners, mentally ill and children too. He coined the term "Art Brut," meaning raw art. I read that he was influenced by Klee (in style and subject matter) and he was also a musician. Some of the ways he added texture to his paintings were interesting. Here are a few of his famous works:

 

 

 

   Our goal today was to create a figure in the style of Dubuffet. We could create a face or a whole body. Timmy and David did this with me. We started with a treated watercolor base. I did the project separately with each boy. I was surprised that they each chose almost the exact same colors (and that they were the colors I had originally chosen to use. Grrr..), but their backgrounds came out very different. The top one is David's. The middle one is Timmy's. Mine is at the bottom.

   

   After our background dried, we made our "figure."  The way we all interpreted these and worked through our own styles of creating was pretty varied.  Here is David's (Sorry he is sideways):

 

  David had a meltdown over how to draw arms. We originally had them leading off the page and then he decided he wanted them raised up. When he saw that his figure was "weird shaped," he was a little disappointed. Then I showed him what Dubuffet did and he felt much better. Once he added the black, he was very happy with his work. He especially liked the nose he drew.

Timothy's (Which might be my favorite):

 

Tim knew exactly what he wanted right away. He liked that his face was a bit lopsided. He drew the eyes close together, like Dubuffet would have. Those things on top "could be horns. Actually, I like that they are ears, kind of like animal ears." I love the eyelashes.

     It should be no surprise that the person who struggled the most with this was me. (Though I didn't cry like David.. lol)  I picked colors that were different from the boys to make something different. I found that working with colors that might not appeal to me as much was a challenge, but I liked the results. What I found really hard was to let this guy come out "uneven" without "fixing" him. I also wanted to make it look more aesthetically appealing to me, but exercises like this are wonderful since you're imitating someone else's art. Some people made their examples more personalized, but I'm a bit of a rule follower.He looks like a mix between Squidward and Gumby.  I sure have come a long way since the first time I posted art and was nervous that people wouldn't like it!

Tomorrow I will be introduced to Robert Motherwell, also new to me! Before I forget, there's still time to play along. If you'd like to catch up on the classes, join here

Kids Art Week- Carla Sonheim

   I forget how I originally heard about Carla Sonheim, but I think it had to do with the Index Card a Day Challenge a few years ago (ICAD). I started looking into art journaling, other artists, drawing, etc. Anyway, I signed up for an e-mail list from Carla a long time ago and this week she is offering free online art classes for kids. David loves arts and crafts so I thought he might enjoy doing these projects with me. I signed up for the classes and we completed day 1.
     Today's project was based on the grid paintings of Paul Klee. He was a Swiss-German artist who lived between 1879-1940.  It seems that Klee cannot really be categorized into a certain "school" or art. He seemed to be influenced by many different artists and places that he visited. His dad was a music teacher and music was also really important to him. (Sorry this is not as informative as it could be. I didn't know anything about Klee before today... and I just wanted to show you what David and I worked on.)  Klee had many grids in his paintings. One such painting is called Static-Dynamic Gradation:

   As I looked through his art, I realized that I have done some art in a style similar to another painting of his, Rocks at Night:

 

   Today's paintings used a grid. We first made a grid and printed our name in it. Then we painted it with watercolor and did a few more steps. (If you are interested in Carla Sondheim's Kids Art Week, you can sign up here.  I think it was so generous of her to put this together!)

    Here is David's. I love his colors that he chose.

     This was mine. We did a color wash to see how the watercolors reacted with the second color. It really made some of my colors pop and changed a few others. I'm thinking I might make a few of these as small gifts for friends. (Let me know if you want one :) ) 

     Tomorrow's lessonis a Dubuffet figure. I have never heard of Dubuffet, so it will all be new to me. More crayon and watercolor.  If you join us, post a picture here to show your work. the name painting was a fun, easy lesson. Carla, if you end up reading this, thanks for your lesson!