D.I.Y. Circus Skittles for Lawn Bowling/Carnival Ring Toss

I created these skittles for a circus themed week-long camp at the community rec site where I teach.  To create the skittles or pins I used plastic Perrier bottles.  The variety of flavours: lime, lemon, and grapefruit, already create colourful tops for each skittle.  I then used acrylic paint to create the different designs, since it wouldn't flake off like tempera will on plastic.  While painting some of the colours may appear transparent, but will dry opaque as you can see below.  To finish, slightly fill each skittle with sand, rice, etc. to give them a bit more weight.  While I made these for skittle lawn bowling, they could easily be adapted to a carnival ring toss.  If you save up the bottles ahead of time, these could also be a fun activity to do with an entire class.

Introduction to Watercolour Techniques

Last week my drawing and watercolour group took a break from their giraffes to learn about watercolour techniques.  I found a great grade 6 example from deepspacesparkle with detailed explanations on how to introduce or review using watercolours.  I decided to adapt this for our giraffe drawings.




Since I had watercolours in tubes rather than pans, each experiment was also an opportunity for the students to realize the importance of adding enough water to the paint.  Some of the younger students still struggled with this concept, so for younger groups I would use pans in the future.

The first three techniques: thick and thin stripes, pencil contour, and wet-on-wet, all deal with learning how to control the medium.  The next three: rubbing alcohol, oil pastel and crayon resist, and salt provided introductions to the possible effects for the backgrounds of the giraffe drawings.  I had not used rubbing alcohol before, but I found that it just gave the kids okay results.  In the future I will likely replace this technique with using cling-wrap instead.  On the flip side, the kids were intrigued by using salt, with many of them adding it to their other techniques.  Even though the class is a short one, the students were able to successfully explore each technique and really enjoyed tackling something new.

Have a watercolour tip or technique that you think is AMAZING!? Be sure to share it in the comments.

Andy Warhol Monoprint Soup Cans Part 2

I previously posted the Warhol inspired blotted line monoprints that my younger students created.  Today I'd like to share those made by my older students (8-12).  After doing this lesson with my younger students I realized that they needed to paint the soup cans larger in order to create enough room to write the labels.  The kids did a great job creating the monoprints, as well as using colour to differentiate their two artworks.


I also had them use the colours of their choice for the soup can labels.  Like those of my younger students, there were mixed results.  One alternative that I was quite pleased with was writing the labels in white, since it really pops (pun intended!) against the bright colours.

 This student's decision to create yummy raw sewage soup was hilarious.

There were a number of students who, like Jane, added dots to their soup cans.  I also like how she turned the centre dot into a mini 'magic' label.

Unfortunately, this student was away on the final day when the class added the labels, however I really like the addition of vertical stripes to their background.

 This student created soup for their pet cat after learning that Andy Warhol had 25!

These soup cans provide an nice opportunity to see the difference between black and white labels.

This student's use of Pokemon colours for his soup can has me thinking that by picking labels first the kids could choose colours to match rather than arbitrary ones.

This student created an extra monoprint, turning the can of bear soup into an actual bear!

Art News - Canadian Artist Ted Harrison Passes Away

Canadian artist Ted Harrison passed away on Friday at the age of 88.  Harrison was best known  for his paintings of the Yukon.  Below are just a few of his artworks that capture life amidst the natural beauty of northern Canada.


For more about this artist visit his website HERE.

Illustration from Harrison's picture book O'Canada

Tungsten, 1984

 

Whale Frolic, 1994

Giraffe Drawings & Step x Step Printable

This week I started teaching a drawing and watercolour class at my local community rec centre.  I have a small group of kids aged 5-10, so it's quite a mix of artistic abilities.  The group meets for an hour once a week for 4 weeks.  The main project for the class are watercolour giraffes.  This week the kids followed my stepxstep guide below to create their drawings on 11x15 watercolour paper.  As you can see below, they created some fantastic drawings, with each one full of personality.  Next week we will be adding the final details to the drawings as well as patterns to the giraffes' spots. 



Stay tuned to see how the artworks progress each week.

Best Art Ed Blog of 2014 Contest!

It's that time of year again!  The Art of Ed is having their art ed blog of the year contest.  This year they've changed things up a bit, dividing nominations into 4 categories: best elementary, best secondary, best rising star, and best wild card.

Nominations are open until this Thursday, Jan 15th.

To nominate Art Intertwine as the Best Rising Star Art Ed Blog click HERE.


THANK YOU!

Art Fun For Fridays - Way of the Tangram

There are a few online tangram puzzle games out there, but I picked Way of the Tangram because it places the puzzles into a more fully developed video game.  If you are unfamiliar with tangram, it is a Chinese puzzle made of 7 shapes (1 rectangle, 1 parallelogram, 2 large right triangles, 1 medium right triangle, and 2 small right triangles) which are used together to create a variety of silhouette images.  The goal of the tangram puzzle is to use all 7 pieces, while not overlapping any of them, to create a particular shape. 

In Way of the Tangram you play as a Chinese girl Yan-Yan who solves 150 tangram puzzles to create the Old Great Puzzle and help Tanguy return to the land of Tangram.  I like that the game's Chinese theme is keeping with origins of the tangram puzzle, and the intro animation also adds to the overall style.  One complaint, however, is that the pieces are a bit sensitive and a slight overlap can cause a puzzle to appear unfinished, making the game more suitable for older students.


click HERE to play

Andy Warhol Inspired Blotted Line Monoprint Soup Cans

As part of my New Years resolution to get more organized I've been going through old photos and found these from a unit I did on Andy Warhol with my younger students (ages 5-8).  This activity combines Warhol's blotted line drawings with his soup can subject matter, and his wacky use of colour.  On the first day, I had the students use a paintbrush to apply India ink to an unwrinkled sheet of aluminium foil.  Working quickly, while the ink was still wet, the kids laid a piece of paper on top, rubbing the back of the paper with their hand before peeling it back from the foil to reveal their blotted image.  Since they were working with foil, the paper had to be removed quickly to avoid it sticking to the surface.  The great part about this activity is that you get a variety of lines, from thick smears to thin whispers. 

After letting the monoprints dry, during the next couple of classes I had the students begin painting their images.  Each student had two soup can artworks so I emphasized making different colour choices so that each monoprint would be unique.  Once the paint was dry the group finished the artworks by labelling our soup cans with any flavour they could imagine.  I gave examples of royal biscuit soup, pickle soup, and Sally's seaweed soup, which some of the kids decided to adopt.  I can't remember how the suggestion of dragon soup, and its variations, came about but as you can see from below it really took hold.

This student did a fantastic job creating two very different colour schemes.

 This student's monoprints are a fantastic example of the variety of lines and blots that can be created.

This student only created one monoprint.  He really loved dark browns and greens, but his colours go well with his soup flavour-yummy pickle soup!

Two more dragon soups, one of them using dragon's breath to create a burning soup.

 

 Some yummy star and apple soups

The hot fire soup I'm sure was dragon inspired.  I also love its partner-hot candy soup.

I've since taught this activity again and have made a few changes (which I'll share in a future post) including, as evidenced by the choice of light blue above, how the soup cans are labelled.