All Things Beautiful: Art Concepts

Showing posts with label Art Concepts. Show all posts

123...I Can Paint! Complementary Colors and a Busy and Bright City Street

Pairs of colors, like blue and orange, green and red or purple and yellow are called complementary colors. They look extra bright and busy beside each other.

Let is turn these busy colors into a bright and lively city street.

Mix up gray paint, using a little black and a little white paint together. Cover the background to make a gray sky. Let this dry.

Using a spoon, drop blobs of paint on the background, putting complementary colors next to each other.

Press a square of cardboard on one blob of paint at a time, dragging it down to the bottom of the canvas.

Keep doing this until you have a painting full of colorful city buildings. Don't the colors together make the buildings jump out at you? Let this dry.

Now you can paint in the details.

Paint in windows, a street at the bottom. You could add cars, people, planes or clouds...whatever you want.

sources and resources:

123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

123...I Can Paint! Cool Colors and Purple Mountains Majesty

Last week we made a painting using warm colors. This week we will make a painting using cool colors. Cool colors includes purple, green and blue.

First, using purple, paint a background for your painting. Let this dry.

Mix together a blob of the same purple paint you used for the background with a little white paint to make a light shade of purple. Using this purple, paint over the background three-quarters the way down the canvas.

While the paint is still wet, use a damp sponge or paper towel to rub triangle-shaped mountains along the horizon line. The horizon line is where the ground and sky meet. Let this dry.

Now you can add any details you would like. Use a very small brush to paint tiny, faraway trees on the sides of the mountains, a medium-sized brush for the bigger trees on the bottom portion of the picture. You can add a blue winding river that starts out wide at the bottom and narrows to just a point where it reaches the top of the horizon line.You could paint all sorts of details such as white,fluffy clouds or a big full moon. We made our moon by dipping a water-bottle cap in white paint and then onto the painting.

sources and resources:

123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

123...I Can Paint! Warm Colors and A Field of Flowers

Some colors seem warm and some seem cool. Red, yellow and orange are warm colors whereas green, blue and purple are cool colors. This week we are mixing and using warm colors to make a field of Black-eyed Susans (the Maryland state flower).

First mix the paints to make a warm light orange.

Use this for the background.

Once the background is dry, paint brown circles all over the background.

We dipped a wine cork in the paint and dabbed it on. You could also use a piece of cut sponge or just paint them freehand. They do not have to be perfect circles.

You can let this dry before adding on the petals, or you can just be careful not to smear the centers while you add on the petals. Either way, when you paint the petals, first mix up two shades of yellow -light yellow and a darker yellow. Using these different shades of yellow, paint the flower petals. We used fingers to paint on the petals.

For contrast, you can paint a strip of light, bright blue for the sky...

and some green stems and leaves. You can add any other details you would like to your painting.

Next week we will be working with cool colors.

sources and resources:

123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

123...I Can Paint! Tones and A Bird's-eye View

Every color can be lightened by mixing it with a little white paint or darkened by mixing it with a little black paint. The new colors are tones of the first color.

We filled three sections of his pallet with a little green paint. To one we added a bit of white paint and to another, we added black paint. We left the third section alone.

Just as we painted the blue paint to form the background for our ocean scene, we paint the background of this painting with the green paint. Let this dry before going on.

Paint a few squares on the background with the light green and a few squares with the dark green. Brown paint can become dirt roads. Let the painting dry before going on any further.

Once dry you can add the details of your bird's-eye view. You can use any colors you want for houses, cars and animals. Let this dry before adding the last touches.

sources and resources:

123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

1 2 3...I Can Paint!: Mix It Up! Primary and Secondary Colors

For Christmas Alex received an art set with acrylic paints and an art book. We will be doing weekly art projects that are simple enough for young or special needs students and yet interesting enough that perhaps some older students might want to do them, too. These would be great for a family art study. The first lesson is about primary and secondary colors and is simple enough to take just a few minutes and yet sets a great background for an ocean themed painting.

Blue, yellow and red are called primary colors. When you mix them, they make secondary colors green, orange and purple.

For this project, get out your primary colors and a surface to paint on. We are using acrylics and a small canvas, but you can use any paints such as tempera and any surface such as paper.

Paint your entire surface with blue paint.

Now, put some yellow paint near the top of your surface and mix it into some of the wet blue paint.

When the yellow mixes with the blue, it turns green.

Now, do the same at the bottom, using red paint this time.

As the red paint mixes with the blue, it becomes purple.

Now, let this background painting dry. We will turn this into an underwater world, with the light playing off the surface of the water, making it look green and the darkness at the bottom of the painting is a deep, dark purple.

Once your background is dry, we can begin to make our ocean scene.

We mixed some red and yellow paint together in various proportions to make several shades of orange. You will also need some black, white and some blue to mix with some yellow to make shades of green. You will also need these supplies: brushes, cotton swabs, craft sticks, a pencil or any other supplies you would like to use to make the details.

Dip your thumb into the paint and press it onto your painting to make fish. You can make them fat, round fish with just your print straight on the surface, or you can drag your finger a little while moving it up to make a longer fish.

Using a paintbrush or cotton swab, you can add the details of fins and tails.

With a craft stick you can add stripes to your fish...

and a pencil can be used to add the eyes. Using the pencil, you can also add white dots for bubbles.

Mix some blue and yellow together to make shades of green and add some water plants. Add the darker shade of green on one side of the plant to give it depth. You can any other details you want.

sources and resources:

123...I Can Paint, Irene Luxbacher

Equatorial Africa and African Masks Art Project

"Equatorial Africa has Equatorial Guinea, Sao Tome, Principe, Gabon, Cabinda, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Angola -Equatorial Africa, the heart of the continent."-Geography Songs, Larry and Kathy Troxel

Learning About African Masks

The first thing we did was learn about African masks in general. We learned that most of the traditional masks we think of come from either West Africa or Equatorial Africa. We learned that African mask design centers around bold patterns which tend to be geometrical and symmetrical. Subtlety is not a quality you look for in tribal masks. Parallel, zigzag, cruciform, curved and spiral lines, representing scarification marks or tattoos, are frequently used to adorn the mask face. Square and triangular checkerboard grids are often carved to decorate sections of a design. Patterns on the top of the head can also can show the complex African braided hairstyles. Stylized and simplified features are used to help express abstract qualities like nobility, integrity, courage, fear and humor. Symmetrical arrangements of line, shape and form in masks evoke a sense of integrity and dignity. Straight, simplified, linear designs are often used to contrast with the curves on the rest of the mask. Using different combinations of colored cards will affect the mood of the mask.

The Art Project

To begin with you need two similar sized sheets of thick paper or card, one light in tone, the other dark to create contrasting tones. You will also need a pencil, scissors or craft knife, and some glue. Fold the light sheet in half down its vertical length and cut along the crease. This should give you two equal halves. You can set aside one of the halves and use the other half to make the facial features.

Draw stylized parts of the face, keeping in mind some of the things about African masks that you have learned. It is best to simplify this into basic shapes that contain little detail. As you cut out each feature, flip it over and place it on the dark sheet to form a symmetrical arrangement. Don't forget hair and tribal marks.

Now take the leftover background shape, flip it over to the other side and align it with the vertical center line. This will create the background for the negative side of the face. The remaining space will become the background for the positive side of the face.

As you glue the light shapes down onto the dark background, take care to ensure that a neat line is formed down the middle of the mask where the two halves of the design meet.

Art Techniques Learned from this Lesson:

Basic collage techniques.
How to simplify and stylize shapes.
The expressive power of simple shapes.
The balance and interaction of positive and negative shapes.
The use of symmetry in design.
The effects of color, pattern and texture on your design.

Sources and More Inspiration:

The Arty Factory
African Tribal Masks at Crayola
Usborne Treasury of Art
Masks Around the World at Classic Play
Geography Songs, Larry and Kathy Troxel

Halloween Week Art and Science: Negative Art and Bones

The boys made negative art by spraying paint on top of their hands. We have done this before years ago when we studied cave art, to simulate cave handprint paintings.