Line Drawing Animals

For this project we talk about line quality, pattern, and design. The students were asked to choose an animal to create an online, then fill in the shape with interesting patterns and line work. I love color, but also love the challenge of creating something really interesting in black and white. Here are some of their pictures below.

Alyssa

Mikayla

Delaney

Watercolor Colors!

This assignment was an exercise in watercolor. My goal was to have the girls be more creative in their color choices. I also wanted the girls to get familiar with the brushes and behavior of the tube watercolors we were using. This exercise melded my two goals.

I challenged the girls to mix the paint colors and fill the entire grid. They were asked to try not to make the same color more than once! (And trust me, that is a challenge with all those squares.) I think we will do this exercise again, it is such great practice and really pushes an artist to stretch.

Here are are a couple examples below. How do you think they did?

Alyssa

Mikayla

One more flower!

Here is Delaney's finished piece. She often gets posted separately because she always makes sure to spend the time to make everything just right! She did a beautiful job on her Georgia O'Keeffe inspired painting.

O'Keeffe-Inspired Painting

Georgia O'Keeffe is an inspiring American modern artist. I thought the girls might be particularly interested in her because she is a woman and because she lived not so very long ago. We watched a short video of her flower paintings (very nicely matched to music - thank you youtube). We learned about how her paintings of flowers sometimes became abstractdepending on the point of view and cropping she used on her canvas.

I made little 2" square viewfinders for the girls and using those, they "zoomed in" on photographs of flowers until they came up with their favorite composition. They then painted on a 12" square stretched canvas with acrylic paints. They turned out gorgeous. I wish you could see the true vibrancy of their colors and their entire works of art (darn my little scanner).

Tenlee
Mikayla
Alyssa
Kadence
Elena
Olivia

Monogram Prints!

I was so excited about this project! This is the first time we have created prints in our classes. We first learned about illumination. I have always been fascinated with the beautiful illuminations of ancient religious manuscripts. We looked at both ancient illuminated letters and current day artwork it has inspired.

For our assignment I encouraged the girls to use their initial then use their creativity in decorating or illuminating their letter. We first completed drawings then imprinted our images into foam. The girls used a brayer to smooth the paint onto their foam prints and then smoothed paper over the paint. The fun part is carefully peeling back the paper to reveal your beautifully unique print! Check these out!

Alyssa
Delaney
Emma
Kadence
MadiMackenzie
Rachel
Tenley
Guest student - my 6 yr old - Olivia
I had to try it out too it was such fun!

Time Flies!

(First of all - it cannot have been this long since last I blogged. My how time flies. Such is the life of all busy women I'm sure.)

We have worked on many projects in the last several months. Here are just a couple examples of the assignments the girls have completed.

This is an example of "quilling" by Mikayla.

A line and shading exercise by Delaney.

A picture concentrating on pattern and design by Madi.

I try very hard to give my classes a variety of projects and challenges to work on. It is a fun challenge for me to come up with ideas that I hope they will enjoy and also be successful with.

Personalized Pens!

For this project we tapped into our crafty side and explored creating patterns with the use of clay. The girls twisted and molded the clay around the pens to get the effect they wanted and I baked their creations to make them permanently fabulous personalized pens. They were a ton of fun!