Zentangle Mandala

As part of a unit on abstract design, I taught my class how to do zentangle. It starts with a square or circle, in the case of the mandala, divided into sections with freeform lines, and each area is filled in with a design. It is supposed to be done without really thinking about it...the zen for meditation...the tangle for the repeated designs. Here is one student's finished project.

Woven Fish Painting

This was a project I taught to my art class. Start with two identical pictures, identical size, and paint or color them in two different ways. I used two sheets of 10 x 12 watercolor paper so I could paint it with watercolor, but any paper works. My students used regular printer paper and either colored them with markers or crayon, or they printed them in two different color schemes.

To weave the two pictures together, cut 1 cm strips of one picture horizontally, keeping them connected at the ends. Slice the other picture into 1 cm strips vertically and number them as you cut them to save confusion was you weave.

Starting somewhere in the painting that is important to match up, weave one strip through the picture until it matches up. (I started with strip #6 to match up the mouth). Continue to weave on either side, matching as you go. It won't look perfect. You may have to trim the strips slightly as you go along to prevent it from becoming too distorted, unless you like the distorted look.

Hint: I kept the first picture connected at the ends to make it easy to work with. But it makes it necessary to trim the slices as I weave through. You can keep them connected until you've woven enough pieces through to stabilize the weaving, then cut through the ends to give you more room to weave.

Alcohol Ink Tiles

Wondering why I asked for alcohol inks for Christmas? I took nine of the tiles I made from alcohol inks and put them together to make my New Years card. They are a really fun project that Sandy Maudlin showed the class how to do. Very relaxing. Glenn gave me the supplies for Christmas. Thanks, Honey, for feeding my addictions.

Stella's Portrait

Portrait of Stella, Diana Petty's little girl. She's got red hair, but you can't really see it in the photo. So I made the white hat green, emphasizedd the reds in the eyebrows and eyelashes, and hoped it would come across as a red-head to be. Done on Fabriano, which really was much easier to use than I expected.

Andy Warhol style portraits

 In one of my classes, I am teaching about Pop art, Andy Warhol style. Why not?
He was the best known artist of my growing up years. This lesson was on portraits done Warhol style...photographic, flattened to two or three values.    The first step was to find a good photo...had to be somebody famous and glamorous, someone Warhol would choose. (picture #1) Then I photo-shopped it to black and white and flattened it to just a few values. (picture #2) The students then copied it four times on their sketch pads. (Warhol loved repetition) They had to use three colors, using different color scheme for each of the four. Picture #3 shows Grant's final product: Portrait of Johnny Depp. I loved how these turned out. (more student work to come)

AURORA RAIL STATION

This is Linda's first water color project. She wanted to do a painting of the railroad station in Aurora on tile to hang above their basement entry. First she painted it on water color paper about 14 x 22. Then we scanned the image and stitched it in Photo stitch. We printed it out in sections and fitted it onto the tiles. (The tiles had been previously mounted to fit the area of the entry) Finally, we glazed it in clear acrylic gloss to bring out the color and protect the painting.  It turned out great, but it was not an overnight project!  Congratulation, Linda, on persevering. Most of my students choose a much simpler project to start. Plus she also has the original to frame and hang elsewhere.

I loved this picture of my grandson, Jonas, as he was rolling a ball to Candy's dog, Purdy. I try to do a painting of each kid around the age of 2. I struggle when painting to keep children's skin fresh looking, but I think I managed it this time. The painting is watercolor on 16 x 20 Arches.