Tribute to Piet Mondrian

For this assignment, we first talked about Dutch artist Piet Mondrian. His non-representational paintings are composed of lines and primary colors. We studied and imitated his designs using straight lines and bold blocks of color. They are completed in acrillic paint. The girls worked on two compositions, concentrating on the aspect of creating color schemes. The first using complimentary colors, and the second using tertiary colors. The girls used their color wheels which were previously completed to choose the colors for their pictures. They definitely are getting their practice in mixing colors and painting. Here are their finished pieces:
Alyssa


Arika

Delaney

Color Wheels

January 21, 2010

Oooh La La!


This month I want to help my students focus on color. To help them brush up on their color knowlege, as well as painting and paint mixing skills, we each created our own 12 step color wheel. We will refer to this as we work on future projects.



I think the girls did a great job, they did a great job mixing and painting. We talked about primary, secondary, tertiary colors and how to mix each of them. There was only three tubes of paint on the table and look what came out!


Alyssa



Arika

Delaney

Kylee
Erin

I miss snow!

These snowflakes were a couple that the girls did before the break, but I hadn't posted them. I thought they deserved a little peek! I didn't get a chance to scan in one for each of the girls, but here are examples of the little project. The first flake with the gold and purples was done by Delaney, the red/pink/green by Arika.


We painted these as a quick, fun last class together before Christmas break. They are inspired by a snowflake illustration that a college illustrator friend, Shawna J. C. Tenney did a few years ago for a fundraising event called Robert's Snow.

We're Back!

January 14, 2010
Study in shape and form

Our first day of class after the holidays. I missed my girls! To get us warmed up after the long break we had, we started with a common exercise that artists practice again and again. We worked with a single light source and sketched with pencil these three-dimensional shapes. Some of the challenges include: dimensional perspective, scale, light, reflective light, shadow ... you get the idea. They did a great job.

Here are the girls' drawings.

Delaney.

Kylee.

Arika. (Check out the wood grain!)

Alyssa.

Watercolor and Pastel Mixed-media Artwork

Thursday, December 3 -
We talked about the French impressionist painter Claude Monet and looked at images of his work. We observed his free and open style, thick brushstrokes and use of color. Then the girls each chose a photograph of a landscape and created these Monet-inspired pictures. The background was completed using watercolor paints and the details were created with oil-pastels over the watercolor painting. It was both messy and fun!


Kylee.


Delaney.


Arika.

Alyssa.

Mine.

More Pretty Paintings

The girls finished with their paintings last week. (As for mine, I have a little more work to do on it, but I will post my painting once it is finished too!) The girls did a great job and I think they had a blast mixing and painting.


Painting by Delaney. She did a great job using different brushes to create many textures.


Painting by Kylee. Check out those colors!

Paintings fit for a museum!

I love my little artists. They worked hard last week, mixing and painting. We talked about pattern, how to mix colors and about brush strokes (and brush care!) I think for most of them this was their first acrillic painting on canvas.

As we continue with other projects, there are so many more aspects of painting and technique we will concentrate on. But, it is truely a lifelong learning!

Here are a couple of their finished paintings. Again, the girls each worked in acrillic artists paint on 16" x 20" stretched canvas. They turned out beautifully. I hope the girls enjoyed creating and experimenting with this painting. (As for my painting and the other girls' paintings, we will be continuing to work on them this week in class.)

Artist: Arika. Here is her finished painting and a detail from her painting. I absolutely love her colors and free brushstrokes. I want to steal this painting and hang it in my kids playroom. Talk about concentration and discipline from a 7 year old!

Artist: Alyssa. The finished painting and a detail. I like to show the detail, because it is so hard to see the paint quality and all the little textures on the screen. I wish you could all see their pictures right up close to get a true sense of the color and texture. Her painting is so bright and cheery. It turned out organized, bright, and friendly ... just like Alyssa.

Here is a snapshot of Alyssa with work in progress.