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Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Monday, January 30, 2017
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Wednesday, January 25, 2017
Make it: Nature assemblage. Key concepts: form, contrast, repetition, variety, color. Materials: sticks, pine cones, pasta with hole in center, wire, tempera paint, wooden beads, yarn. // This project is a loose framework and could take a variety of shapes. We stuck pretty closely to the structure on artbarblog.com, finding natural elements outside that we could use. Any found objects could work. 1. Paint the sticks, pine cones, beads and pasta with tempera paint, and let dry. You could do solid color fields, patterns, color blocking, etc. 2. Using yarn, wrap the sticks to tie together. Think about using the yarn as an element of design! 3. Wrap pine cones with wire and attach to sticks. 4. String pasta and beads onto wire, and then wrap around sticks and tie off. These would be great pieces to hang from the ceiling in a playhouse! // Project idea from artbarblog.com.
Monday, January 23, 2017
It’s up to you to combine your media in ways--with each other and with your ideas--that make them stand out in a crowd. In my view, transforming your media and making it do what you want it to do is the primary thing that distinguishes art from crafts. We can change our materials by changing their CONTEXT. 1. START ALREADY. Got a white canvas that’s intimidating you? Paint over the whole thing with a 10-second wash of paint, and then blot it out in a few places, and go over it again in a few more. You could use sepia tone, or a color that is complementary to what will be the main color of your subject. Now that you’re not afraid of that canvas getting messed up, you can move ahead with your painting without fear. 2. BREAK UP THE PROCESS. You want to cut out shapes to make a collage? Explore one of more of the following: watercolor, pen and ink, xerox transfers, felt-tipped pen, and printmaking (stamping, for example) on a piece of paper first. Then cut your shapes out of that. Explore how different techniques can add widely varied layers of textural interest to your overall design. Eric Carle is a great illustrator to study. 3. USE NONTRADITIONAL MATERIALS. Collage and assemblage are great ways to experience art with young preschoolers. Go on a treasure hunt in your backyard and discuss line, shape and pattern found in nature. Cover a huge piece of newspaper with spray adhesive and let your child use natural materials as collage elements. 4. GIVE EVERYDAY OBJECTS NEW MEANING. Collect found objects and combine them. You might deconstruct, reconstruct, or employ one of the principles of design. If you want to take this up a notch in your own art, think about conventional meaning of these objects and how you are affecting that through thoughtful combining or modifying--what new meaning can you communicate? Some of the abstract expressionists, and pop artists that followed--Oldenberg, Rauschenberg, and Warhol come to mind--were known for combining everyday objects with art media to make a statement on culture and society. Link in profile for a video by Tate Modern on the concepts behind pop art. // Image: Church on a Snowy Day by Farris and Charlotte.
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Make it: Aluminum foil relief. Key concepts: line, texture, space. Materials: smooth-surfaced glue-line relief, lots of old newspapers, paper towels, gold printmaking ink or shoe polish, fine grade steel wool. // This project builds on the previous one. After you pull your print (step 6 in previous post), continue with the following steps to make your relief really shine. // 1. While the ink is still slightly tacky on plate, use newspaper to remove excess by pressing one sheet at a time with your hand or brayer. 2. When no more ink is visible on the newspaper, gently use a damp, folded paper towel to wipe the plate and remove excess ink, except from indented areas. When no more ink shows on paper towels, use dry folded paper towels to burnish the plate. Ink should remain in the indented lines. 3. Use your fingertip to sparingly dab the gold ink or shoe polish on the plate. You can then burnish again with paper towel or steel wool. // Project idea from Emphasis Art by Frank Wachowiak.
Make it: Glue-line Relief Print. Key concepts: line, texture, space. Materials: smooth-surfaced cardboard, white school glue, aluminum foil, blunt pencil, black printmaking ink, two brayers, paper plate or cookie sheet, white printmaking or drawing paper. // For this project, we decided to research heraldry and do a coat of arms on a crest. We looked at different animals, plants and symbols as motifs and divided the crests into sections. // 1. “Draw” your subject matter on the cardboard with glue, filling up the space. Good subjects for young children include animals, fish, butterflies, and flowers. An older child might like historical or outer-space subjects, still life or figure studies. Let dry completely. 2. Once dry, use a glue stick all over the surface of the drawing and press down sheet of aluminum foil, using the heel of your hand to press along raised glue lines. 3. Use a blunt pencil to trace along the edges of the glue line to emphasize the relief. You may then go back into the spaces of the drawing and add patterns with the pencil, such as scales on a fish, spirals in a flower petal, or grass. You could think about dots, swirls, diamonds, stars, and all variations of lines. 4. Using the cookie sheet, roll out the ink with the brayer until the ink is tacky, and then apply ink to aluminum foil surface with pressure. 5. Lay the inked plate carefully on a large clean sheet of paper, face up, and place another clean sheet of drawing paper on top. Roll over the top evenly with the clean brayer, making sure all areas are pressed into the ink, especially the edges. 6. Pull up print carefully by the corner and let dry! // Project idea from Emphasis Art by Frank Wachowiak.
Monday, January 16, 2017
GET SCHOOLED. Remember how we started this series talking about seeing the world? I want to build on that concept this week. I know that sometimes we don’t know where to start when creating, or helping our children create. Our minds are blank, and we have zero ideas. I’ve been there, and something that really helps is studying the art of others. Visit a museum or check out a book from the library on art or history. Find something that fits your child’s interests. Heck, just google Michelangelo and see your kids’ reactions when you tell them that he was paid to paint on the walls and ceiling. Exposing yourself and your children to lasting art will simply add more knowledge and richness to your own art. You might discuss the short, broken line quality of Van Gogh, or Monet's interest in the changing light, or the surrealism of Magritte. Your child might love the minimal colorblocking of Mondrian, and you might be totally moved, as I am, by the rich layering of Rothko’s color fields, through which he expressed fundamental human emotions. You might come home and let your research give direction to your next project. Note, too, that anything can inform an art project, and that historical references can be especially inspiring. If your child is fascinated by knights and castles, look at ornate tapestries, coats of arms, and medieval clothing. A really great way to start a project is by having a reference in subject, technique, materials, or format; for example, my girls were enamored with a beautiful gilded egg we found at a yard sale. So we looked at pictures of Faberge’s famous jeweled eggs and decided to make our own.
Saturday, January 14, 2017
Friday, January 13, 2017
Monday, January 9, 2017
Make itt: Cutout Collage. Key concepts: abstraction, shape, color, composition. Materials: construction or origami paper, patterned or painted paper (optional), scissors, large sheet of white paper, glue stick. 1. Spend some time studying the large-scale cut paper works that Henri Matisse created late in life. We read two great children’s books: Henri’s Scissors by J. Winter is colorful and beautifully done--it’s wonderful for learning about his life and later artistic process. Blue & Other Colors with Henri Matisse (pub. Phaidon) is a very simple book showing his use of shape and color. We spent a while looking at the abstract shapes and discussing what they reminded us of--mermaids, alligators, leaves, men with funny chins! It’s a great book to use to start training a young mind to see abstractly. 2. Start cutting that paper! I brought in some fern leaves and jackson vine for some shape inspiration. // My girls were pretty self-motivated during this part; Farris was cutting all kinds of shapes and naming them different representational things. Charlotte was not too fond of this project at first, as she is more drawn to realism (she says, although her art says otherwise), but after a while of discussing the freedom that comes with a project based on discovery instead of having to perfectly produce something fixed in her brain, she came around and started enjoying layering the shapes to create compositions. I also told her that using scissors instead of “line” tools like pen and pencil is a great exercise to help us to think about shapes. At a few points along the way, we discussed how certain objects in the room could be cut out of paper if we simplified them into shapes (for example, a desk = one big rectangle and four thin rectangles). You can also discuss organic lines vs. geometric lines (edges of your shapes). // 3. Once you have plenty of shapes cut, begin moving them around on the paper to create compositions. Don’t forget that you can use the “leftover paper” (negative space) from where a shape has been cut out! 4. Once you’re satisfied with the composition, glue them down!
THINK FREELY (part 2). So let’s see abstraction in use: 1. USE ABSTRACTION TO DEPICT FIGURATIVE SUBJECTS. Thinking abstractly and stylistically about a subject means you can break it down into its more elemental parts. Notice the defining characteristics. Are you painting a still life? Really look at your subject, and then determine what elements and principles best fit to convey your message. Maybe those flower petals are a series of quick dots with the paintbrush. Perhaps the edge of a leaf is a beautiful nuanced, organic line of varying width. Maybe you want to convey a sense of airiness or lightness, so you set the flowers to one edge in the frame and paint in a lot of negative space (area around the subject). The shadow on the edge of the vase might be a purple triangle. You could use some very quick marks to show life and movement, and restrained marks for contrast. 2. GIVE ABSTRACT IDEAS A VISUAL CONTEXT. We’re doing the same thing here as before, simply thinking about which elements and principles of design might best express an abstract feeling or thought. Do you want a landscape that feels subdued and moody? You might stick to a very cool color palette, with undertones of blue, green, and grey throughout. Your marks might be more repetitive and horizontal to suggest calmness. Do you want a purely abstract painting that expresses vitality and joy? Think about your visual tools that might express this: Color! Movement! Variety! Check out the next post for a project idea to strengthen this mode of crossover thinking, and visit the link in profile for a great article I found on Our Everyday Life. It contains some good ideas to help children think abstractly in everyday goings-on. // Image: stained glass windows by Farris.
THINK FREELY (part 1). Hi everyone! Welcome back to Mixed Media Musings! I'm excited to seek out beauty and goodness in this new year. Bear with me for a long-ish post--this week is about the incredible importance of abstraction! Let’s look at a couple definitions of the word: 1. the quality of dealing with ideas rather than events. 2. freedom from representational qualities in art. Remember those elements and principles of design? Well, guess what? Those are your tools to express abstract ideas AND to depict figurative (AKA representational) subjects in art! I think one of the most crucial things an artist or designer can know is how to crossover from thinking figuratively--as well as concretely--to abstractly and back again. What does this mean? It means that you can look at a spindly wooden chair, and one minute you see it as a functional object used for sitting, and the next you see a holder for all the clothes on the floor, a foundational wall for a fort, or even a giraffe body if your little girl is going on a safari in the kitchen. The minute after that, you see a group of wooden lines interacting in space to make a subject that looks like a chair. Those stars in the sky? They aren’t stars; they’re just dots of light. That group of mountains is a series of overlapping purple triangles, and the cotton fields a repetition of lines. The shoebox in your closet is really just a group of rectangles that converge in space to make a box, and it can be a doll bed, dog body (right, @silver_spork?), or charging station as well as a container for shoes. See how I’m freeing these figurative things from their conventional roles as well as translating them into the elements and principles of design? It also means that you can have a idea or feeling and use these same elements and principles to give it a visual expression. Abstraction in art gives IMPACT to visual expression and VISUAL LIFE to ideas.
Friday, January 6, 2017
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