Tribal Vibes

Tribal Vibes  - Day 3

Bear Paw Studio - Kid's Art Camp

Art Safari - Sept. 24 - 27, 2012

Cassie's Tribal Collage

We have used our artistic talents to create giraffes, elephants, leopards, monkeys, toucans, and other exotic wildlife so far on our Art Safari, and today we had a little fun creating tribal warriors and colorfully dressed women.  First, we looked at photos and fabric panels depicting African traditional clothing, ceremonial costumes, and textile patterns, noticing the colorful patterns and unique styles.  Then we used paper collage to create our own stylized African tribal people based on two Asanti wall hangings we had in the studio.

The first step involved drawing and/or tracing stencils to make our people and their clothes.  We used black construction paper for the people, and previously painted watercolor paper for the clothes.

Cassie traces around the warrior's robe.

The women's hand, feet, and head were drawn freehand and cut out, then glued to the back of her dress, which was traced and cut around a pattern.

After the woman was glued to a background of mat board, bundles and baskets were cut freehand and added to her head.  Then patterns and details was added with markers to the clothing and bundles.

Hailey thinks about adding patterns.

And here are the wonderful patterns Hailey added.

After making the woman, we had just enough time remaining to make the warrior, and did it in much the same way.

Danielle  has her warrior's body ready to glue.

Melody glues her warrior.

We pin them up on our gallery wall for our show.

The beautiful women are like wallflowers, waiting for the warriors to come along.

Finally, the warriors are finished and join the women.  Everyone is beautiful.

We loved how the women could balance so many baskets on their heads, and enjoyed the variety of intricate patterns and bright colors in the clothes.     

Here's a closeup of each couple and the proud artist:

Gretchen, age 8

Emma, age 7

Danielle, age 9

Hailey,  age 9

Melody, age 10

Cassidy, age 10

It was a busy and exciting day, with so much good work by the artists.  We'll be back soon for our final day of the Art Safari!  See you then.

Betsy Bear, Safari Guide

Monkey Faces

Monkey Faces - Day 2

Bear Paw Studio - Kid's Art Camp

Art Safari - Sept. 24 - 27, 2012

Day two of our Art Safari took us to the monkeys!  The adventure started with a review of the color wheel and how primary and secondary colors differ.  Two other terms we learned about were complementary (opposite) and analogous (similar) colors.  We used chalk to color a daisy shaped wheel to use in our project today.

The main project was to use three pre-selected "mystery" analogous colors to create monkey faces. 

With these pre-selected oil pastels, students drew circles and ovals for muzzle and eyes, and triangles for the nose and hair, colored them in, and adding a little black for contrast.   After drawing the features and laying in the colors, they worked the oil pastels with their fingers to smooth out and blend the colors together.   The artists also learned and practiced some smart cutting techniques to be sure the monkeys looked their best after being cut out.

Gretchen cuts carefully around her cute red-brown-gold monkey.

Danielle's monkey has several brilliant shades of green.

Hailey's monkey is beautiful in blue and blue-green.

Melody's monkey looks wonderful in pink and violet.

Emma's monkey is a stunning yellow-orange-red.

Cassidy's  monkey looks great in shades of blue with lots of black accents.

After the monkeys are cut out, the artists choose a paper that is a complementary color to put behind it, and then both are mounted on a black background.

Danielle is putting red behind her green monkey.

Melody puts yellow-green behind her violet monkey, and adds a nice violet border, too.

The monkeys hang on the wall, and the artists do a little monkeying around too.

Wow!  The monkeys all had very unique personalities, and color schemes that sizzled and popped! 

That does it for day 2 of our Art Safari.  Visit again to see what exciting things are on the itinerary for day 3!  Thanks for visiting!

Safari Guide,  Betsy Bear

Shapely Animals

Shapely Animals - Day 1

Bear Paw Studio - Kid's Art Camp

Art Safari - Sept.  24 - 27, 2012

Africa is the focus for art camp this time, and we are going on an Art Safari, using music, pictures, books, and art projects to explore and have fun learning about art and Africa.  Art concepts for this trip will include using basic shapes to draw animals; increasing our knowledge of primary, secondary, complementary, and analogous colors; learning about traditional African clothing and textile patterns, and discovering the fun of making and trading ATC's (Artist Trading Cards).

We started by studying photos of African wildlife closely to discover the big shapes we could see in the animals (circles for heads, ovals for eyes, long rectangles for legs, etc.), and then used these shapes to make 8"x10" drawings of the animals.  We used tracing paper and markers to outline the basic shapes,  rubbed the back of the tracing paper with graphite, then traced over the lines to transfer the drawing on to our painting paper.  

After the design was on the paper, we used tempera paints to color the animals.

Cassidy paints a brilliant red lion.

Melody mixes orange and yellow for her leopard.

The next step was to cut our paintings out, after letting them dry.  Luckily tempera paints dry fast!

Hailey's giraffe is dry enough for cutting.

Emma is glad she doesn't have to cut out all those stripes.

Gretchen smiles with her beautiful toucan.

We used colored construction paper to make grass for our animals to stand, sit, or hide in, since we wanted to include a bit of their habitat.  Glueing the animals to a backing paper was next.  This project had a lot of steps, which kept everyone very busy for two hours.

Danielle's giraffe quietly waits for glue and backing paper.

Emma's purple glue matches her shirt.

Gretchen's toucan needs some green behind to show up on the black paper.

Using oil pastels, the artists added a hot African sun and a border around the edges to finish the project.  Everyone was proud of the masterpieces, and rightly so!  They were colorful and full of life--wildlife!

And the sun set on the Serengeti-studio after a long day on Art Safari!  This was a great start to our four day trip, and the six young artists did a fantastic job!  Check back soon for our next adventure.

Betsy Bear, Safari Guide