External/Internal Fruit and Vegetable Drawing Activity

I thought I'd share this lesson from a fellow art educator, where students focus on capturing details as they practise creating art from direct observation.

 

Here are few examples from secondary school students using oil and chalk pastels:

Art News - Andy Warhol Drawings Rediscovered

No Title (Female Head), c. 1957
ink and graphite on paper
Courtesy of Daniel Blau Munich/London
© Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Art Inc.

Just a quick post.

About 300 drawings by Andy Warhol dating from the 1950s were recently rediscovered.  It will be interesting to see if these drawings lead to a new understanding of the artist and his later artworks.

Click HERE to read the article.

Art Fun For Fridays - Bomomo

This week I found a super fun art website called bomomo.  To create artworks you use a variety of  circles which respond to your mouse to form different designs.  I also like the fact that you can save your finished artwork.

Here is an example artwork that I created

Art Activity - Watercolour Doodle Giraffe

I recently created homemade liquid watercolours from markers.  Click on the link for how-to instructions.  The colours that I ended up with were fantastic!

I created the watercolours for a drawing class activity.  For my watercolour drawing I used the artwork of Jennifer Mercede as inspiration.  In particular I loved the long necks of her giraffes and realised that it would be the perfect opportunity to do a drawing lesson that introduces pattern.

Below is my 'doodle giraffe' where I placed different patterns in each of the giraffe's spots.

Here's the final artwork using all of the watercolours.

Today's Artistic Inspiration - James Tissot

James Tissot, Reading the News, 1874

Updated Art Ed Blog Directory

 Just a quick post.

The blog directory from Art is Basic is open again, so I've updated the list of art teacher blogs from my previous post to include the newly added blogs.

Homemade Art Supplies - Liquid Watercolours From Markers

I've seen this recipe for homemade liquid watercolours online and have been wanting to do this for awhile.  The main reason, is that I have a bucket of markers which are probably 10+ years old, but which I just couldn't throw out because some of them still worked (yes I am an art teacher).  Well now I don't have to-yay!  I also have new drawing class coming up, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to create some lessons that involve using watercolours (I'll put the lesson in a future post).

 My markers-I love the colourful swirl of this top view

Start by sorting the markers by colour.  Don't worry about separating darks and lights of the same colour.  I did however do this with the blues since I wanted to see if I could get a really inky blue watercolour.



For my markers I used pliers to pull of the caps on the bottom of each one.  Depending on what type of marker you have you may need to use a box cutter to cut through the plastic tube.  Once the bottom caps are removed, what you want to get is the ink reservoir inside the marker.  Most of them easily slide out, but for some I had to bang the marker down on the table top to loosen it.

(On a side note this photo kinda creeps me out, since the caps look like a bunch of teeth.) 

Now its watercolour making time! 

I filled a variety of glass jars almost full with water.  The amount of water you use depends on how many markers of that colour you have.  For example,  I had a lot of green so I used a large jar of water, and only a few yellow so I used a small jar.

Once your jars are filled with water, go ahead and put in the marker ink reservoirs, one colour per jar.  Don't worry if the ink reservoirs stick out of the water.  Leave the jars for 24 hours for the colours to deepen before taking out and discarding the ink reservoirs.

Voila!  You now have a set of awesome liquid watercolours!

Art Fun For Fridays - Art Restoration

Today's bit of art fun is courtesy of the Tate Kids Art Lab and involves exploring the restoration of famous artworks in their collection.


Click here to play.

 

Art News - Online Only Street Art

I Thought I'd share this interesting story I came across today about an artist who creates artworks called GIF-iti (a play on graffitti): street art that can actually only be fully viewed online, despite their physical existence.

Click here to read the full story and to view the artworks.

An example of the artist INSA's GIF-iti

Today's Artistic Inspiration - Claude Monet

Claude Monet, Impression: soleil levant, 1873

Famous Artists Music Playlist

Woohoo!  The first post of 2013!

A new year always means reviewing those lessons and art ideas that worked, as well as looking at new ideas and ways to teach art.  In a past post I wrote about using artist quotes as a way to introduce a new lesson, artist, or art movement.  Music can also work in a similar way to help students remember what makes each artist unique.

 So without further ado here's my famous artist playlist

Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent (Starry Night) by Don McLean.
Whenever I think of Van Gogh and music, this song always comes to mind.

But how about also playing Please Mr. Postman by The Marvelettes, since much of what we know of Van Gogh comes from the copious amount of letter writing he did.

Paul Klee

My Cat's Name is Maceo by Jane's Addiction.
Paul Klee loved his cat Bimbo, and included cats in many of his works.

The Park by Canadian musician Feist could also provide a nice connection to Klee's Park Near Lucerne.

Andy Warhol

Blue Suede Shoes by Elvis Presley.
Andy Warhol was known for creating artworks of both celebrities (including Elvis) and shoes.


The Consumer by another Canadian, Stompin Tom Connors.
A reference to pop art and Warhol's connection between art and business.

 Leonardo Da Vinci

Mona Lisa by Carl Mann.
The song Mona Lisa of course springs to mind, but rather than the traditional slower versions I like this livelier rockabilly one.

Salvador Dali

Just My Imagination by The Temptations

Dreaming by Blondie

To create his art Dali looked to the world of dreams, and the illusion of reality.  Dali once said:  “Give me two hours a day of activity, and I'll take the other twenty-two in dreams.”





Any suggestions?  Feel free to post a comment and add your own artist song connection to the playlist.