Art Summer School: Mixed Media

Our first mixed media exercise was Lab 43: Painting with Paper Inclusions.

We found that mixed media projects are much more involved than single-media projects.  Not only did Tiger have to sketch his drawing on a canvas board (photo 1), he had to cut out pieces of papers to fit into shape and size of his image.  After several unsuccessful attempts at trying to fit the cut-outs -- originally cut in a freehand style -- into his image, I suggested that Tiger use a tracing paper to trace his drawing (photo 2), then use the shapes on the tracing paper as templates to have a precise cut of the magazine papers (photos 3 and 4).

With the papers cut and put aside, Tiger started to paint the background of the canvas board with acrylic paint.

The cut-outs were glued on using a matt medium (which acts like a strong form of watery glue).  After that was done, Tiger did some touch ups on the board to blend the colours more and to make sure that there were no white spaces left on the board.

Somewhere along the lines, he discovered that he could paint with a palette knife, which he has been using for colour mixing, so he gave that a try as well.

 

Lab 45: Acrylic and Ink Abstracts was the final project we did.  It started with Tiger dropping a few drops of diluted Indian ink using a pipette onto a canvas board, then blowing them around with a straw to create criss-crossing lines.

While the ink was drying, I asked Tiger to look at the lines and shapes created on the board, to decide what colours felt right to be used.  He then proceeded to mixing the colours that he wanted to use for the abstract shapes that he had identified.

Acrylic paint was applied to the canvas board to 'draw out' the shapes that Tiger wanted.  After the initial shapes were drawn out, we spent a little bit of time discussing whether to leave the abstract painting as it was, or whether to use the Indian ink to draw the outlines of the shapes to make them 'pop'. 

Tiger decided that he wanted to use the ink for outline.

This concludes our Art Summer School where we have done exercises on:

• drawing
• painting
• printmaking
• paper
• mixed media

This post is linked up to:

1. Virtual Refrigerator - Refrigerator Art
2. Hobbies and Handicrafts - Aug 16
3. Collage Friday - Hitting Our Stride and a Field Trip
4. TGIF Linky Party #90
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One at the End of the First Six Weeks
6. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {August 17, 2013}
7. Hip Homeschool Hop - 8/20/13

Art Summer School: Paper

In the paper section, I wanted Tiger to do more than one activity so I started out with what I thought would be the easiest of all: Lab 35: Paper Masks.

The instructions in the book are very straightforward so Tiger got on with folding, cutting and gluing.  He wanted to jump straight into his own design right from the start but as I told him to try out the instructions from the book first, he reluctantly agreed.

"This is how I feel when my Mum asks me to do something."

After Tiger has completed the above, he asked, "Can I do it my way now?"  Of course he could.  The result of a voluntary effort is as follows:

"This is how I feel when I get to do what I want."

Comparing the two masks, it is quite clear that my son does not hide how he feels about being coerced into doing something when he has his own ideas of what he wants to do.

Things got more interesting from here.

After a short break, we moved on to Lab 34: Collage Tissue Self-Portraits.   I placed a mirror in front of Tiger and asked him to draw a self-portrait in pencil, which was to be used as a template for collage later.

I then laid out pieces of craft tissues for him to choose and asked him whether he needed any help.  He said no so I left him to complete his work and went into the kitchen to start cooking dinner.

After 10 minutes, Tiger said he has completed the collage.  I took a look and saw this:

 

Nobody would have guessed that this is the work of a boy who, until 18 months ago, had such strong perfectionist tendencies that he would not even start a piece of work if he decided that he could not get it "right" (whatever "right" means) within 10 seconds.  It took us many years of constantly working through different situations for him to not throw his arms up in the air and storm away from something deemed "too difficult" at the first glance.

Now it's time for a different type of conversation.

Mum:  Is this completed?
Tiger:  Yes.  What do you think?
Mum:  Hmm... What do you think?
Tiger:  I think it's fine.
Mum:  Are you happy with it?
Tiger:  Yes, I think it's ok.  What do you think?
Mum:  Well... if this has been submitted by a three-year-old I would have said the work is excellent, but it doesn't make the cut as a piece of work done by an eight-year-old.  I have seen better work from you.
Tiger:  I think it is ok.
Mum:  There is a huge difference between doing an ok job and doing your best.  Is this your best?
Tiger:  I think it's just fine.
Mum:  (starting to walk back into the kitchen) Ok, it is your work and it has your name on it.  If this is the level of work that you're happy to be associated with, then that's fine.  Remember to clear the table when you're done.

Tiger sat in his seat for a few moments after our conversation, then came into the kitchen.

Tiger:  I think I'll do the exercise again.
Mum:  Good decision.  I would have done the same.
Tiger:  How much time do I have?
Mum:  Take as long as you like.  Daddy will be home in an hour.

Tiger said he didn't need any help, so I continued to cook dinner while he went back to the table and restarted the exercise from scratch.

This is the result of his second attempt:

This incident is one reason why I am glad I am doing the art summer school in-house.  If I have paid for Tiger to attend an external art summer school for children, he could have gotten away with submitting the first piece of collage because most children's art teachers are far too polite to give any genuine feedback on children's work.  In all the external art classes that Tiger has taken, no one has ever made any real comments about his work.  All I've only ever heard was the term "wonderful" used to describe his art work.  Really?  Is every piece of my son's art work "wonderful"?  Isn't that just being as politically correct as describing someone as "nice"?

Being a parent myself, I understand how difficult it can be for parents to listen to any criticism of their children or of their work.  Therefore I am very glad that homeschooling has given me the opportunity to gain an intimate understanding of Tiger's abilities and weaknesses, so that I am able to respond to them accordingly and to support him in a meaningful way.  In other words, to know the right buttons to push at the right moment.

You can read all about our in -house Art Summer School series here.

Art Summer School: Printmaking

With printmaking, we opted to do Lab 24: String Printing.  It really is one of the easiest activities to set up.

I diluted primary colours of the acylic ink in a plastic container, put one piece of cotton string in each, and let Tiger use the strings to create prints on A2-sized watercolour paper.  In order to prevent the ink from mixing up in the containers after each string has been used on paper, I had to wash each string after each application.

Tiger found 'drawing' with strings to be an interesting exercise so he went on to create three pieces at a go.

I wanted Tiger to experience more than one type of printmaking, so when I heard that an artist friend was doing a demonstration of monotype printing, I asked whether we could go along and he said yes!  That worked very well to coincide with Lab 26: Monotypes, and saved me from having to set it all up.

The basic process is actually very straightforward:

1. Begin by spreading a few dots of printing ink onto the plexiglas then use a brayer to spread the paint evenly on the surface (photo 1).
2. Place a piece of drawing paper gently over the suface and use a pencil to draw (photo 2).
3. When you are happy with your drawing (photo 3), lift the paper up carefully and turn it over.
4. Your print is on the other side of the paper (photo 4).

Tiger then repeated the process using the same sheet of plexiglas and paper but using a different coloured ink this time.

And another go....

Finally, Tiger tried to create two different prints using the same layer of ink on plexiglas.

The first one (top print) was done in the usual way.  The second one (bottom print) was done with another sheet of paper but without reapplying the ink.  It is interesting to see how differently both prints have turned out simply with a slight variation to the process.

You can read all about our in-house Art Summer School series here.


This post is linked up to:

1. Virtual Refrigerator: Phineas and Ferb 
2. Hobbies and Handicrafts - Aug 16
3. Collage Friday - Hitting Our Stride and a Field Trip
4. TGIF Linky Party #90
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One at the End of the First Six Weeks
6. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {August 17, 2013}
7. Hip Homeschool Hop - 8/20/13

Art Summer School: Painting

The second part of the art summer school has to do with painting. We did Lab 11: Painting in the Style of... from Art Lab for Kids.  The example given in the book was that of Georgia O'Keeffe but we decided that we wanted to do Picasso, mainly because we had been to see two exhibitions recently.  The first was of his prints, The Vollard Suite, a while ago.

The second, and more relevant to the painting exercise that we will be doing, was the Becoming Picasso exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery.

The year 1901 was pivotal for Picasso as he was emerging from being an art student to cementing his position as a master in the art world.  At this point, his style had not yet evolved into that of a Cubist, which most of us are very familiar with.  It was still quite traditional in a sense but we can certainly see his personal style emerging.

We also read two books about Picasso, although they are probably more relevant for understanding his style in the later years but they are good for a biographical overview of his life.

For our painting exercise, I asked Tiger to choose one of Picasso's paintings of the year 1901, which we had seen at the exhibition at Courtauld Gallery, to briefly talk about and to copy.  He chose to copy the Absinthe Drinker, saying that the colours and the posture of the model intrigued him.

I set the table easel up with a canvas board.  Then I used a blu-tac to hold the postcard-sized copy of the Absinthe Drinker by the side of the canvas board.  Our previous contour drawing exercises came in handy since drawing the outline of the work using a pencil was to be the first step of this painting exercise.

Once the outline was completed, it was time to paint with acrylic paints.  I wanted Tiger to mix his own colours so I told him to use a limited palette:

• cadmium red
• crimson
• cobalt blue
• ultramarine blue
• cerulean blue
• cadmium yellow
• lemon yellow
• titanium white
• mars black

Mixing colours and painting carefully took the most part of the day so we only managed to do one exercise from the painting section of the book.

Next week we will continue with exercises on printmaking, paper, and mixed media.  You can read all about our Art Summer School here.


This post is linked up to:

1. Virtual Refrigerator: Phineas and Ferb
2. Hobbies and Handicrafts - August 9
3. Collage Friday - Braces and First Days of School
4. TGIF Linky Party #89
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where We Did Stuff
6. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {August 10, 2013}

Art Summer School: Drawing

When I planned to do an in-house art summer school using Art Lab for Kids, I had in mind that we would focus on one section of the book at a time and choose whichever activities we fancied.  The first section of the book is about drawing with different media.  Below is what we have done based on the ideas taken from the book.

(1) Lab 1: Contour Drawings

This exercise is mainly about getting the hang of contour drawing (i.e. only the outlines).  We set up a simple still life and Tiger did the exercise with a thick permanent marker (photos 1a and 1b), followed by charcoal (photo 2a).  As charcoal naturally smudges in the hands of a child, Tiger decided to introduce shading to his drawing, after completing the contours (photo 2b).

With the pencil, Tiger went back to contour drawing again.  The drawing shows that he has observed the placements of the still life objects but did not know how to draw the vase correctly.  Admittedly, the symmetry of the vase can be quite challenging.

Since this exercise was a straightforward set up with minimal mess, I sat myself beside Tiger and tried the exercise myself.  You can see from below that I had a slightly different view of the still life set up because of where I was sitting.

(2) Lab 2: Large-Scale Ink Drawings

Since this exercise asks for "large-scale", we used an A2-sized watercolour paper.  It is another still life so we changed the blue vase out and added a transparent vase and a jam jar in its place, just for variation.

The exercise started out with making contour drawings using Indian ink (photo 1).  Once that was completed, Tiger used diluted ink to mark out the tonal values (photo 3).  The final step was to add colour to the drawing using either pastels or watercolour.  He chose to use pastels (photo 4).  Here is his completed work:

I decided to use watercolour for mine:

(3) Lab 3: Scribble Drawings

As the title of this exercise suggests, Tiger started out with scribbling lines on an A2-sized paper.  The idea is to find interesting shapes or images from the scribbles.  Once he has located the shapes he liked, Tiger drew over them again with his pencil before cutting the shapes out.

 

The next part was the most interesting aspect of the exercise.  Having wet the watercolour paper all over with clean water, Tiger then dropped acrylic ink onto it to have the ink spread out due to the wetness.  When the colours did not flow to his satisfaction, Tiger listed the board and turned it this way and that to facilitate the ink flow.

When the ink had dried, Tiger used it as the background to stick his cut-out scribbly shapes on.

 

This is what the end product looks like.  I think it looks a little pale and unfinished, perhaps because the contrast between the background and the cut-outs are too great, and the background seems to have dominated the work.  However, Tiger likes it so I guess I have to respet the artist's views about his own creation.

(4) Lab 4: Soft Pastel Drawings

This exercise is very straightfoward: draw a flower still life using soft pastels.  I set up a bouquet of flowers for Tiger to draw, yet he chose to do it Georgia-O'Keeffe style by picking one small flower head and magnifying it to fill the entire paper.  Well, I guess you can say that it's one way to interpret the requirements of the exercise.

We will be covering exercises on drawing, painting, printmaking, paper, and mixed media.  The ideas for which all come from Art Lab for Kids.  You can read all about our in -house Art Summer School series here.


This post is linked up to:

1. Virtual Refrigerator: Phineas and Ferb
2. Hobbies and Handicrafts - August 9
3. Collage Friday - Braces and First Days of School
4. TGIF Linky Party #89
5. Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where We Did Stuff
6. The Homeschool Mother's Journal {August 10, 2013}