A Christmas Card

Emily wanted to do a poinsettia and had a general layout in mind: a poinsettia in the corner and a star over a snowy hill in the background. So we came up with this.

I think anyone would be happy to get this card!

Bubble Painting

 

I followed the recipe given by Sandy Maudlin to do bubble painting in my young student class. It was 2 oz acrylic paint, 3 oz dish soap, and 6 oz water. Mix thoroughly. I had thought you’d need a big bowl to blow bubbles, but we had to use smaller ones, like Cool Whip containers, and they worked fine. Blow bubbles through a straw, and when they get over the top of the container, gently lay the watercolor paper over them. Use several colors.

Here are two projects our class did with the bubble paints. First we did a painting of a bear in a bathtub and bubbled over it. In the other painting, we bubbled the paper first, then decided on a painting to put over it. This one was of a butterfly.

PS: I DID warn them not to suck in…but one of them did.  YUCK.

“Stained Glass” Fish

 

Our class did a simple but effective way to learn what colors will do when mixed together.

Supplies needed are simple: a spray bottle, coffee filters, paper plates, magic markers, frames for “stained glass” objects (we used fish purchased from Dick Blick, but you can cut your own), and some iridescent medium for watercolor.

 

 

First put the coffee filter on the plate. Using regular magic markers, scribble patches of color, using several colors.

 

 

 

Put a little (about a tsp. ) of iridescent medium into about 4 oz. of water in a spray bottle. Saturate the coffee filter until the colors run together.  (The iridescent medium will leave a sparkle when it dries.)

 

Dry completely. It only takes about a minute with a hairdryer.

 

 

 

 

Carefully pop the “stained glass” forms apart. Apply glue to the inside of one side. (These came from Dick Blick) Then gently lay the dried coffee filter on top of the glue.

 

 

 

 

Trim the excess filter away from the form.

 

 

 

 

Apply liquid glue to the inside over the filter. Make sure to apply glue to all the lines. Then carefully lay the second part of the stained glass pattern over the first.

 

 

 

 

 

Thread some fishing line through the hold in the top. Hang near a light for a fun sun catcher.

Ludlow Hill Park

Here is a very bad image of the painting of Ludlow Hill Park I put in the Sharon Woods Art Show. I framed it before I had a chance to scan it.

My class of girls from the summer has started up again and I'm very excited about it. They are so fun! We've done some bubble painting and some light catchers. I'll try to get some photos of their projects, but I usually get so caught up in doing them, I forget to take photos.

The show at Sharon Woods was a lot of fun. I really enjoy seeing all the different artistic styles and meeting the artists. One of the five paintings I put in was this yupo version of Lawrenceburg's Ludlow Hill park early morning.

Matting artwork

In this class the kids learned to mat their own artwork. We talked about the math of how to figure out how big your mat board needs to be. We discussed how large a mat is needed to best enhance the painting, and what colors would make the painting look best.

Rowan is holding an almost-finished painting done on masa paper. (Done in the last two classes) She just has to finish the brushes.

T.B. is holding a mat that she is embellishing with designs in colored pencil.

















Emily is holding her white with black core mat for the Steve-Blackburn style painting she did of butterflies. (Done in the last two weeks of class, along with a masa paper painting). This is going to be part of her 4-H exhibit in the Butler County 4-H Fair. Good luck, Emily!

Creating textures

Here Avery and Rowan show their exploration in ways of creating textures. The kids made six spaces on their papers. On the first they lay down yellow, blue, and red, then salted with three different salts to see how each reacted in each color. Another space was used to lay down color, then when dry, lift off color over a stencil with a sponge. In a third space they used masking tape to tape off a picture, then painted around it. In a fourth space, they wet the middle, then spattered the whole thing. Then they spritzed the bottom part with water. This let them see three separate textures they can create just with spattering. In the fifth space they lay down color, then put crumpled saran wrap over it while wet, creating this very wrinkled, icy look. In the last - and I think they had the most fun with this - they put a drop of very wet color on the paper and blew it with a straw, repeating over and over again.