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.