Week 3 of Art Class

Wow, I can't believe the first 6 week session of art class is halfway over!  We started class by doing final touch up to the orchid paintings and removing the taped borders- I'm always amazed at how professional something as simple as tape makes children's art look!  Each child then posed with their finished masterpiece:

 Then it was time to get started on our new project.  I love Cooper Edens; he does the coolest little books with almost surreal illustrations and always adds the neatest little sayings.  Anyway, my Mom gave me one of his books a couple years ago and one of the spreads was "If you're afraid of the dark, add one more star to the night"  I just LOVE that!  And so, I turned it into a project starting with filling the inside square with oil pastel stars (any color they wanted because these are THEIR stars, and why should they just be white?) and then going around the entire border with the quote- I love words mixed with art!  Next week, they'll be painting a night-time sky over the words and stars and doing a self portrait of themselves holding a star- we'll also be creating ladders to "stand on" to reach the sky ;)

We took a little wiggle break to dance to "Who Let the Dogs Out?"...........

I can't WAIT to see these with paint and portraits!
See you next week!
Stephanie

And the beat goes on....week 2 of Art Classes

Before I tell you about yesterday's class, I must tell you about the trials (and tribulations ;)) of being ABLE to blog about it.  Some of you know that MY beloved computer with my photo program that I know and love is no longer alive.  So my daughter has very generously allowed me to use hers until we can replace mine.  Anyway, I haven't downloaded my image software yet 'cause I just started using Emmies 'puter this week.  I was downloading the pictures from yesterday, onto the windows program and somehow deleted them ALL from the computer AND from my camera- I had 63 pictures and not ONE of them made it to the recycle bin- they were just GONE!  So, the next hour was spent trying everything I could think of to get them back.  Then it occurred to me to Google how to restore images to your camera (not computer- which is what I'd been trying) and hey, presto, there it was.  Not only did it direct me to Recuva a WONDERFUL program, but they had easy to follow (i.e. idiot proof) directions and in 5 minutes, I had all my picture back!
SO onto yesterday's class.  We covered a LOT of ground between finishing the Orchid paintings and our watercolor explorations to practicing self portraits....A LOT of territory- but we only have 6 weeks to cram so many projects into!
Class always begins with sketchbook work- this week, I wanted them to really think about what faces look like- the shapes that make up the eyes and mouth and nose......

Next we pulled out our Orchid contour drawings and I SHOCKED them by telling them I wanted them to ERASE their beautiful work....WHAT?  If you've ever witnessed 6 and 7 year olds drawing; you'll know that even the loveliest drawings are drawn with that pencil pressed HEAVILY to the paper.  And I wanted their paintings to show a white line, not a black one.....So, I showed them what I meant and what we were going to do

the one with paint is what it looks like after erasing- we could see a faint line of pencil- enough to trace over with white crayon

After all the excitement of erasing and outlining, it was time to PAINT!

And spray to make the colors bleeeed......

and BLOT to get the white of the paper back

It was so much fun teaching them how to add color, take it away and manipulate it over and over again.  Of course, we were able to play with the paints this way, because I use REALLY good paper- to me, the quality of the paper is more important than the quality of the paint- watercolor is pretty much watercolor, but you can't layer water and color on typing paper....:)

I would say sorry for including so MANY pictures here, but after all the trouble I went through to get them, I wanted to use a lot!  If anyone want to see the rest; here's the link to ALL the Art Class photos.

Now I need to get off the computer, and get to painting or I won't have anything for this week's Paint Party Friday!

Toodles,

Stephanie