Tempera and Chalk Sugar Skulls

This art lesson works well for grades 6 or 7.  It is good to start with a study of the traditional Day of the Dead customs from central and southern Mexico and learn the basics of Zentangle design (see my previous post).  This follow up lesson uses patterning and bold colors in tempera and chalk to create a brightly colored sugar skull painting on watercolor paper. 

Our mixed media sugar skulls radiate strong personalities and bold colors.

The lesson starts with a blank skull shape pre-printed on watercolor paper.  Details are added in pencil, then outlined with black marker.

Jillian draws face details in pencil.

 Trace over the pencil with a bold, black marker.

Paint in areas using tempera paints.

Jillian paints a yellow red design over the yellow background.

Using thickened tempera paints to keep the colors bold and bright, start painting the lightest colors first, then add the darker colors.  

Melody's skull has a cowboy theme.

Gretchen adds octopus tentacles to her skull.

After the paint dries, cut the skull out.

Next, mount the skull on mat board backing with glue, and use chalk pastels to add more details and a border around the painted skull.

The proud artists show their beautifully decorated sugar skulls:

Jillian

Melody

Gretchen

We are looking forward to creating more exciting art together very soon, and hope you will visit us again in the studio.

Betsy

Zentangles: Spinning Beautiful, Tangled Webs

Our project today is to create a web sampler filled with tangles.

Art class at Bear Paw Studio this week is an introduction to the art of creating Zentangles (or ZT for short)-those fun, elegant designs that have the benefit of helping us develop focus and confidence in our drawing.  

I've always loved filling empty paper spaces with squiggles and patterns of radiating design, you know, along the margins of lists and phone notes, otherwise known as doodling.  Zentangles are different in that they are created with deliberate intent, and though the final result may be unplanned, there is an effort to make patterns.  Some patterns are simple and loose, but many are intricate and tight, and some have color, shading, or 3-D illusions.  There are many benefits of tangling, such as de-stressing, increasing focus, attention span, and confidence in drawing.  However,  Zentangles are addicting, and may be hard to stop once you start, since one good stroke often leads to another!

Our class on tangling started with a slide presentation covering the basics of tangling and showing many examples of different styles of Zentangles.  My friend and a more experienced tangler, Sue Zache, was kind enough to lend me many of her excellent books and journals filled with wonderful tangles she has created over the years. 

Zentangle examples on display included how-to books, journals, and fabric.

After the introduction and slide show, we learned a few basic tangles and tried them out on a practice sheet.  One of the nice things about ZT is that you can improvise and create your very own patterns if you like, or follow stroke by stroke directions to learn designs created by others.

Melody adding some new tangles to the practice sheet.

Gretchen works on details of her own design.

There are endless ways to tangle, and there is no wrong way.

Sue helps Melody and Gretchen with their designs.

Focus and planning keep patterns consistent.

Tangling focuses the mind on the task at hand, creating a "zen" or meditative state of mind that is calming and stress-relieving.

Our ZT project today is to create a "web sampler" filled with tangles we create ourselves or ones we learn from others.  We use a compass to draw three concentric circles of our paper, then add web lines to create interior sections which we fill with different tangles.  We finish by gluing the completed web to a mat board backing and adding a title.

Gretchen knows what she likes, and fills her web spaces with many intricate  tangles of her own design.

Gretchen's web is almost done.

Jillian has her web filled with creative patterns.

Jillian's is filled with fabulous texture and pattern, including the spider.

Melody has a web of creative designs that is still growing.

Melody's web is a nice mix of simple and complex patterns that create a lovely design.

We will continue with patterning in the next lesson, when we will mix sugar skulls, Day of the Dead, colorful painting, and Zentangles all together to create some amazing art!  Please join us again in the next post to see what we do!

Till next time,
Betsy

Art Camp Day 2 - Monet Waterlilies

Kids' Art Camp - June 9-13, 2014

Watercolor Fun - Ready, Set, Paint!

Day 2 - Monet Waterlilies

Today we learned quite a bit about the impressionist painter, Claud Monet, and his art by looking at many of his paintings and photos of his home and gardens in Giverny, France.  After learning a little about his life and style of painting, we created a 3-D waterlily similar to the ones he painted so often.

We had three sheets of heavy paper.  We left one sheet blank.  On the second sheet we traced 5 large petals, 5 - 6 medium petals, and 5 - 6 small petals.  On the third sheet we traced 4-5 large leaves and several circles for the flower center.  

The next step was to paint a wet wash over the three sheets:  the blank sheet was painted in shades of blue for the water;  the second sheet with petals was painted in various shades of oranges; and the third sheet was painted green over the large leaves and yellow and red on the flower centers.  After the paint dried, we cut out the flower parts.

Then we used glue sticks to attach first the leaves, then the petals, in a circular fashion around the center of the blue painted sheet, overlapping the leaves and petals at the centers a bit.  The circles were glued on top of all the petals to make the flower center.

Our Monet waterlilies were done, and looked beautiful with their curled leaves and petals.  

Danielle

Gretchen

Hailey

Madison

Melody

Danielle and Hailey left for home after class on their bikes, looking so charming that I had to snap a photo of that too!

Day 3 is going to be a blast!  We are going to paint BIG!  

Watercolor Fun - Kids Art

Kids Art Camp - June 9-13, 2014

Watercolor Fun -- Ready, Set, Paint!

Day 1 - Love Birds (Silhouettes)

I'm back with a wonderful group of artists for the fourth year of kids art camp.  I'm always amazed at the high level of energy and the fast pace of this group. This first two and a half hour session was so busy I hardly had time to take any photos of our process, but did manage a few. 

After reviewing a few basic art terms (primary, secondary colors, complements) we practiced mixing up tube watercolors and painting dry brush, wet in wet, flat washes, and glazing. 

Our main project consisted of a wet in wet wash of warm colors for a sunset and another wet wash for two birds in silhouette sitting on a wire in the foreground.  The birds were drawn freehand, using what we had learned about using simple shapes to create a figure or object.  In this case a circle, oval, and triangle created a bird. 

Gretchen working on her sunset sky after painting a juicy wet in wet wash.

Danielle is done with her beautiful wash and ready to cut it out.

The group with their Love Birds finished and looking magnificent on the art line!

It was a great lesson and we are ready for Day Two!