Painting with Paper - Follow the values!

When my project students at South Shore Charter Public School arrived the other day, I handed each of them a small color copy of a painting.  I told them they could trade with each other if they wanted.  (Surprisingly, very little trading). Then they had to make a rectangle proportional to the small painting in their sketchbooks.  I then revealed several containers of colored paper, with and without pattern, lots of color, wide range of values, and told them they were going to "paint with paper".  I showed them an example from my blog from a while back when I recreated one of my own paintings in paper. 

 Initially, my kids were a bit stymied that we didn't have exactly the right colors, but then we talked about how value was more important than color, and magic started to happen..  I chose paintings by Matisse, Picasso, Fairfield Porter, Gaugin, and Carol Marine all for their accessibility, masses of color, and strong light to dark pattern.  Here are their results so far. 

I am so excited by what they are seeing, and how they are constructing their "paintings".. not to mention how well they are cooperating with one another.  Splendid day!

Apples and a Mouse - a lesson on cropping and neutrals

This week, I set up a lesson using a painting by terrific artist, Carol Marine (See her work at the link here)  Carol's work is strong and very accessible to my middle-school students.  I chose this painting by Carol for its color scheme, whimsy, and cropped subject matter. The students needed to make a thumbnail sketch, then paint it in watercolor, using no black nor brown.  On a couple of the paint sets, I had to use "caution tape" to cover the black and brown just in case they "forgot."  We talked about black, brown, tan, gray, etc, and how they need to make those tones using complements after naming the black, brown, tan, gray, etc, by using one of the primary or secondary colors as adjective.  "Green gray", "orange brown", "reddish tan".  They got the hang of it.  We'll finish this week. 

 

Thanks for looking!

Drawing Aerobics - pencil, a stopwatch, and some fun

Sometimes my students at South Shore Charter Public School can be self-conscious about drawing, and feel intimidated around their peers or when facing challenging subject.  Today I introduced them to "drawing aerobics", an exercise I came up with a few years ago to break the ice, break the surface tension, get their juices flowing.  I added a couple of suspenseful twists today, and got great results.  This exercise works with adults and child students alike.

As they arrived in class, I told them to get their sketch books and to make 4 rectangles on each of three pages, all different shapes and sizes.  As they did so, I placed 5" x 8" pieces of card stock on the tables in front of each student and then doled out a variety of objects onto the card stock; mini-still life setups.  There was a piggy bank, a jar with dice in it, binder clips, a cream pitcher, some building blocks, a ceramic chicken, jar with brushes in it, a miniature trophy, etc. 

I explained to the students that I would roll a die, which would tell how many minutes they would draw, (maximum time allotted was 3 minutes) then we drew a card from a deck.  If it was black, they could draw anyway they wanted.  If it was red, they needed to crop the drawing.  Then.. drum roll, if they pulled a face card, it would be a no eraser round!  They gasped.  

We had a ball, and they took risks, pushed themselves, and realized that 3 minutes is a long, long time when you are drawing the essence, the essentials of the object in front of you.  They cropped their images in very interesting ways, excitement!  We had a lot of laughs.  I had a large stopwatch running on my smartboard, some music in the background, and they happily rotated after every round. 

Everyone left happy, and successful, and feeling pretty accomplished... a good day. 

Folk Tale Set - 8 feet by 9 feet acrylic on canvas

The completed set!

I work in a wonderful K-12 charter school where we find ways to collaborate between younger and older students on a regular basis. Along with teaching middle school math, I teach 4 hours of project-based learning each week.  My project is naturally an art project, and I have posted before about some of our lessons and activities.  One of the projects in our kindergarten is Folktales, where the students put on plays.  This year, they asked us to create a set for their play.

Three primed panels, ready to go.

We read the play, made a list of anything we thought should be included in the set, measured the wall, then had to sit on our ideas through snow day after snow day until we reconvened in project with only a few days left before the kindergarten's big day.  I love a deadline, and teach a week of theater camp each summer at our local art association so I am accustomed to short time frames.  (By the way, this summer we will be producing "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" during our summer art camp, so check the link above for dates and details).  

However, I have never had seventeen students painting an 8 x 9 foot tarp in the close quarters of my small classroom.  We divided the students into three teams, cut the tarp into three strips, listed the items to be included on the set, and divided them among the teams.  

They agreed that they would make some of the objects cross from one to another for continuity on the set, then they designed their pieces of the set, collaborating with the other teams.  I asked some students to stay after school one day so we could prime the tarps with tinted gesso... then off we went.  As you can see, they painted a house, barn, well, school bus, forest, firewood,  a variety of chickens, and even a teeny, tiny 6-inch chicken coop painted with a teeny tiny brush.  

 

Teeny Tiny Chicken Coop

I love watching these teams of students work together, figuring out color, placement, and how to dance around my room getting only a little paint on themselves and the floor.  Some students are very cautious, afraid to make a mistake.  I help them break that "surface tension" and they emerge proud and brave.  Some students dive right in, working group to group. Some are super-focused and can paint a teeny tiny chicken coop right in the middle of the panel while everyone else maneuvers around them.  What a blast.  The play was a huge success, and we're going to make our collaboration an annual, if not more frequent, event.  

File under "love my job".  Thanks for looking!

"Monochrome by the Dozen" teaching 5 zones of light

Although I teach math to 7th, 8th and 9th graders, a job I love, I am lucky enough to also teach a few hours of a weekly art project at South Shore Charter Public School.  I used my small project budget to buy good sketch books for my seventeen students... the kind of books that will handle wet and dry media.  This week, I taught the students to see the 5 zones of light that create the illusion of a turning object.  And, today they all painted monochromatic compositions of a simple cup using the 5 zones.  I had them tape off rectangles in their sketchbooks, and tomorrow we'll reveal the
beautiful edges, before we create "complement scales" and begin painting in colors.  They were a bit dismayed when I outlawed black for them, for now.  In fact, one 13 yr old girl declared, "My life is over!".  (Have I told you I love middle school?)

Here's a collection of their work.. they asked great questions, came to a lot of realizations and I overheard one of my boisterous 7th grade boys talking to a friend, "We have the best project!  We get to paint!  We get to draw!  We get to break glass!"   More on the glass breaking later when I show you the mosaics they are making with the guidance of the very talented Sally Dean.
Stay tuned!

Sketching and Listening

I attended an interesting conference yesterday with a variety of speakers.  I took the chance to work in my sketchbook, adding some watercolor pencil to a few sketches, and drawing the conference attendees.  Sometimes I am a better listener when I am working with my hands and other parts of my brain at the same time.  

I have math students who like to doodle in class.  Maybe their brains work as mine does. I check in with them to make sure they are hearing instruction and retaining the content.  If so, they can doodle away.  If not, I work with them to help them discern when to doodle and when to shift focus back to the class. I remember sitting at rigid attention in classes as a child.  I wish doodling had been an option.    How about you?       

"Creative Freedom" is in the house!

In January, I blogged about Maggie Price's new book, "Creative Freedom".  She asked me to be a contributor to her book about breaking the artist's block.  Well, I'm thrilled to say, I now have a copy of the book in hand.  It is a compilation of 52 artists' thoughts on moving beyond the block, however that artistic obstacle manifests itself.

The artists are arranged alphabetically. Naturally, I looked at my pages first, and I can attest to the fact that the colors are true to my original work. (Thank you, Liz Haywood-Sullivan for your patience and photographic expertise.)

I contributed two ideas for breaking your artist's block. Contributing meant painting the demo and writing the copy.  Really exciting and fun.  My first demo is about painting 30-minute studies.  Everyone can find a half hour.  Each of the four paintings at left was completed in thirty minutes or less.  I used an old-fashioned egg timer, and laid the brush down when the bell rang - no cheating.  It was tough for the first painting, but no problem at all for the rest.  (Which was the first?)

My other idea is painting in an unfamiliar size; even a small move outside your comfort zone provides a freshness to the painting. "Birds of a Feather", shown left, is 8" x 12" - a slight deviation from standard sizes.

Once I left my pages, I explored  "Creative Freedom" as a whole.  There are wonderful demonstrations, ideas and paintings in a variety of media.  Beautiful book, beautifully designed, packed with terrific information. I'm proud to be a part of this endeavor.  And, I made the back cover!
 
"Creative Freedom" is published by North Light Books, and is widely available.  Thanks for looking.

"Building Space" a Generation at a Time and Theme Song

I love to teach.  My students range in age from single digits, to teens, to octogenarians.  I teach middle school math and painting, and sometimes they coincide as in the one art class I hold each week.  This term, the 7th/8th graders are making books from one large piece of paper.  They are designing 12 frames, including a title and ending page, and telling the story without words, only pictures.  We will eventually cut and fold the large paper to make the books. 

When I was a child, I sat riveted in front of the television humming the Star Trek theme song, and "whooshing" with the Enterprise as it "whooshed" past us in space.  Space... my students and I consider space:

During our last class before the winter break, my art students saw the first quick sketch above left on my whiteboard with a dog, ball, house, car and tree. I asked which of the objects was closest, and the students eventually realized that they didn't know (you can see we began by voting).  We talked about how to make depth, space, distance in their drawings by: 

- putting things behind other things   

- placing closer objects closest to the bottom of the surface

- adding less detail to the farthest objects

- making objects smaller as they recede  

The second drawing above aligns the 5 objects showing my students how to put some objects behind, the ball now being closest.  Everyone got the idea right away. In the third drawing, I showed how to pull and push to create a tangible space in the middle of their pictures.
Next is a painting by one of my adult painting students.  With color, we added the ideas of softer edges farther away, and atmospheric perspective along with the ideas listed above.
 
The last image is an Aldro Hibbard painting I saw in his retrospective at the Rockport Art Association in the fall... beautiful design, leading the eye around and into the space in front of the shaded men in the foreground.  The arrangement of light and shadow and the placement of the white figure looking slightly downward build a sense of curiosity and then hubbub about the street market.

Building distance, designing the picture space, pushing, pulling, shapes, shapes, shapes - across the generations.  So much thinking, so much fun. 

Here's to lots more in 2013.  Happy New Year, all.  Thank you for sharing some time here with me.
                           




Promised theme song, click here: Space, the Final Frontier                                                                                                                        

"Birds of a Feather" oil 8 x 12

Last fall, Maggie Price asked me to participate in a book she was editing.  Exciting!  The book's subject: strategies for breaking artists' block.  Would I like to participate, did I have any favorite strategies, could I meet deadlines with iterative demo photos, copy, and delivery according to North Light Book's specifications? This was new to me, but of course, I agreed to the challenge.  I learned a lot in short order, and, thanks to a couple of friends with the right photographic capabilities, it all came together.

"Birds of a Feather" is the result of my first painting demo.  My strategy was to paint in a different size than you're accustomed to.  The size needn't be drastically different, just different for you, which results in a different energy, different relationship to the edges, and the underlying diagonals.  I paired several vintage props from my studio with the Winslow Homer postcard including the pair of friends.  The complete demo, including photos from thumbnail sketches through completion will be available in the book  "Creative Freedom: 52 Art Projects, Exercises & Techniques to Overcome Your Artist's Block" available in spring, 2013.  More news when the release date gets closer. 

Onions 'n Oil 8 x 8 oil

I like onions.  I like to paint onions.  You might have started to notice.  They are sensual, and strong, and shapely, and subtle, and lovely pieces of everyday life.  They add elegance and some sophistication to almost anything you pick up and place nearby; here an oil bottle and a jar of spice.  

This is a backlit study I painted with my class;  cool up-facing planes, and juicy, warm shadows; and the hot glow of the oil bottle. Combine the three; and it's that wonderful cooking smell you love to come home to.... 

Did you ever see the movie "Always"?  Richard Dreyfus, Holly Hunter, with cameo by Audrey Hepburn.  It's a beautiful movie about love, grief, hope -  wrapped up in a story about the men and women who fight fires from the air.  Holly Hunter invites a romantic interest over for dinner.  She buys a boatload of takeout; then sautes onions and oil, tosses the takeout into her own serving dishes... dinner date success.  Okay, a bit of deceit; but my point is that onions and oil are a wonderful combo to cook... or to paint.