Student Trees

Here is some student work for this beginner lesson on trees.

We began by learning to sketch a tree "skeleton" on graph paper. They learned to compare the dimensions of the height with the width and other important parts of the tree. I like to use graph paper when they are first learning to draw so they can make quick size comparisons.

They transferred the pictures onto wc paper. Then they sponged yellow all over the outline of the leaf portion. Next came a sponging of orange for TB, green for Emily and Felicity, then a final sponge of a darker color. Feicity used salt on her leaves to create some texture.

After drying the leaves they painted the trunk and limbs. I had them wet the paper first, add some burnt sienna, and darken around the edges with blue to give the trunk a rounded appearance.

I encouraged the students to choose some item that would tell the viewer the size of their trees. TB drew in a squirrel, park bench, and lamppost and road. FL drew in a park bench and a sign and grass in the foreground. Emily opted not to add anything.

Here are some web sites that might help in learning about sketching trees.

sibleyfineart.com
squidoo.com/draw-a-tree
dianewrightfineart.com/drawing-trees-1.htm

Beginning Portrait class

Here is F.L.'s student work for today. First we learned about how to proportion a face, using a gridded paper as a guideline. Who knew there was so much math in art?

After drawing their own face, the students took a pre-drawn face and began "sculpting" it with one color of paint. We began blocking in all the light colors first, then the darkest, then the medium shades. Keeping it monochrome helped focus on values instead of getting the right skin tones.

A good web site to look into portrait basics is www.portrait-artist.org

TRADING CARDS

There's a new fad in artists circles - trading cards. They are 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inches. You paint/draw/whatever one for each of your friends, and they do the same, then you trade. Voila - you have lots of interesting original mini paintings to remember your friends by.

We did this in class about three weeks ago, right around Mothers Day. I did a portrait of each person in our class for my trading cards. (Yes, it is hard to paint a likeness so small.) The portraits are, in order: Mary, Paul, Kathy, Ginger, June, Joane, Joan, Maryanne, and Sandy M.

The seven other cards are by others in the class. I really loved getting them! Thank you Kathy, Joan, Sandy, June, Joane, Ginger, and Maryanne.
(Given in order of the cards)

New Classes

I just started my first regular class for younger students. I've tutored individual kids and adults, and I've taught adults classes. I've taught large community driven classes for kids, but I prefer the smaller classes where they can get more personal attention. They also have opportunities to express what they are interested in learning, and we can steer the class in that direction. Interest equals learning in my book.

I am really impressed with the kids so far. I will try to post some of their work on-line now and then. Also some brief lessons in case they miss a class.

I also discovered some good on-line sites for portrait drawing, which is what our next class will be on. (Man, they want the hard stuff first!) A good basic one is portrait-artist.org. They use some of the principles from The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards.

Tulip Batik

Candy gave me some beautiful red tulips for Easter. I photographed their progress as they blossomed, and loved how interesting the shapes were, when I normally associate tulips with kind of a boring same-same shape. We were doing batik in class, and I decided to take two blossoms and reverse the images in a quilt-like pattern.

The unmatted painting is about 15 x 16 inches.

Also, Sandy had some cool new "toys" to play with. As usual, my non-technical mind can't remember the names, but they are like copper stamps that you heat in the hot wax and stamp shapes, like the star, or leaf patterns on the side. I used a rice paper (again, name challenged) that had the checkered background. I like the result. The only draw-back was how fragile that rice paper is compared to kinwashe or thai unru.
I originally intended to mount these on a canvas. Sandy M. had done one, and boy, I loved the look!!!! I didn't though. Just mounted it on regular Canson, which gives a nice white undertone. Also Maryanne W. finished one last night, and it looks gorgeous!!! Maryanne, get a blog so we can see some of your beautiful work!!!

Dogwoods

While on a walk at Ludlow Hill Park I saw this dogwood tree in bloom and liked the odd ways some of the petals curled. Three weeks later I ended up with this. I really like the S-curve overall design and got some good advice from the class.

I painted on Canson (which I don't normally like because I like to lift, and Canson seems to destroy the paper when I lift.) Oddly enough, another painting that I really like I did on Canson - the '49 Hudson. (see previous blogs) I also tried putting lifting preparation under the petals to see if it helped any. I think it kept the Canson from losing its sizing completely. I'll have to try it on something I am more familiar with before I can make a judgment on lifting prep.

This original painting is 10 x 20 inches.