My Impression Is...

Since we are working on acrylic paintings in class this week we need to let them dry.  The Middle School class homework is to investigate an impressionist artist. Below are links for the paintings on the handouts and an information website link about each artist.

Students were to read about their artist, make notes on the handout, view the painting on the computer and color their picture with colored pencils. Next week we finish our landscapes.

Paul Cezanne
The-Kitchen-Table by Cezanne


Edouard Manet
The_Railway by Manet

Claude Monet Info                 
Sailboats-on-the-Seine by Monet

Tone That Painting

This week the Middle School Co-op Class received their acrylic paint kits. The kits consisted of a plastic box with a lid, 5 tubes of paint, brushes, paper towel, and parchment paper. The paper towel and parchment gets moistened and placed on the lid which becomes their palette. After students are finished for the day the bottom of the box becomes the lid to keep the paints moist for the next time they paint. This is called a wet palette.

The students are beginning their acrylic painting experience by painting an Abstract Minimalist Landscape.  After discussing the feelings that different colors evoke, students chose a color to tone their painting surface.

Abstract art is art where artists use color, line, form, and the other elements of art to interpret a subject. It does not realistically resemble the subject. Minimalism means that the subject is overly simplified, very, very few if any details are presented. Many Abstract Minimalist Landscape paintings consist of bands or swaths of color representing the foreground, middle ground, background and sky.

Here is a link to an artist's online gallery who creates Minimalist Landscapes. Her name is Toni Grote. Many of her landscapes I would consider to be Abstract Minimalist Landscapes.

Click here to view art by Toni Grote.

Next week we will (hopefully) paint the sky, background, middle ground and foreground. Students were to paint a trading card this week and if they had time to tone the canvas covers of their Art Journals.

The Primaries

The Style or De Stijl. It sounds classy. You probably recognize the pattern of many De Stijl paintings. The artwork consists mainly of rectangles,squares,stripes,the primary colors, black and white. Are these hard and fast rules? No.

The students are finishing their De Stijl geometric projects using paper,glue and markers this week. Here is the example I made to show the students; it is reminiscent of the art work of Piet Mondrian.

Here are some of the works by students-

Next week we will begin to learn about Art Deco, Values and Shading.

Cooler, Now You're Getting Warmer, Warmer

This week the Co-op Middle School Art Class learned about color theory. We completed a color wheel handout which defined and/or demonstrated the basic color theory terms. These color theories were then applied in a Warm/Cool Drawing. Simple designs were created on a paper with a grid of approximately 1-2 inch squares. The goal was then to color each section of the main design using cool and neutral colors and the background with warm and neutral colors or the reverse of that. Designs were to be simple like a tree, an owl, a basketball, a shape, a letter, et cetera. To the right is a work in progress the yellow squares in the background will be colored over with green pencil to create yellow green squares. The owl will be in colors ranging from yellow to red-violet and the background yellow-green to violet.

Notice that I am cooling the yellows in the background with greens and blues. I also toned the wing on the right with red.

These are a couple of drawings by the students-

This is my completed drawing with a cool background and warm main design.

Next week we will use color to portray depth and practice color mixing by painting an Abstract Minimalist Landscape in acrylics.

Pop Goes the Op Art!

This week the Co-op Elementary art class experienced Op Art which is short for Optical Art. It's geometric, bright, and makes the eyes see an illusion of depth or sometimes movement. We began by learning a design we called, circus tent. Some students went on to learn a second design, which we called yarn. We learned our designs using markers and 4.5x6 inch cards. The students homework was to do a 9x12 drawing using the patterns we learned, or by trying one of the ones below.

These designs are step by step. New lines are added in red. When using a pencil to make a guide line, make your lines very, very light.

"Circus tent" is the first design. It can be colored as desired. It helps the design pop if you use  checkerboard style coloring.

Here are two of the students drawings using the circus tent like design.

The next design we called "Yarn". Color the ends of the "poofs" darker which adds to the illusion of depth.

This is an extra design that wasn't covered in class. It can be done with a foot outline, hand outline, or a large shape such as a star. The shape outline is done lightly in pencil and erased after the drawing is finished. This drawing I call "Relief."

Next week we will learn about De Stijl art. We will use pencils, paper and glue.

Hurry Draw Faster

This week, Art 101 learned a technique to help capture images faster, gesture drawing. It is a way to quickly draw people and things usually using quick light lines. Since it is a quick method it is normally used to draw things when time is an issue; whether it is a moving subject or a still object which will be moved to a different place in a short time.  We drew people, coffee mugs and flower pots in short intervals. These are the samples I showed in class.

Next week we will be using our new sketching techniques to create a finished piece of art.