Have a "Zen" Mother's Day!

Original Zen Shorts post can be found here.

Wishing you all a blessed day with those you love!

Nature Contour Drawings with Bleeding Tissue

Wow Jenna! Beautiful lines and lovely colors!

Brendon, 2nd Grade

Gorgeous observations Brendon!

Katie, 2nd Grade

Calvin, 1st Grade

Amanda, 2nd Grade

Scott, 1st Grade

Abby, Kindergarten

Sonja, 2nd Grade

This project was inspired by some beautiful still life drawings with bleeding tissue effect at A.C. New Middle School. My latest group of students created these pieces by closely observing plants and leaves I had scattered about the tables. I talked about the difference between a stylized drawing and a contour drawing. If you could magically attach a pencil to your eye so that it would draw only what it saw, this would essentially be a contour drawing. Today we were drawing only what we saw, not what we imagined. Some children chose to begin with pencil and others jumped right into Sharpie and ball point pen. To create interesting compositions I encouraged them to fill the page, turning it upside down, repeating shapes and going off the page with some of their subjects. When their drawings were complete, they chose their color schemes of tissue paper. I demonstrated how to wet their watercolor paper and place ripped tissue (Spectra brand) paper on top, painting a layer of water to flatten the tissue down. Once it was dry, the tissue was peeled away and a beautiful dye effect was left behind. The children really enjoyed this process. Beautiful work kids!

Rothko Color Field Inspirations

A BIG thanks to Katie at Experiments in Art Education for her idea of using chalk pastels on construction paper to create emotion driven Rothko Color Field pieces. With just 30 minutes to go in our last class(K-3rd), it seemed like the perfect art lesson following so many animal themed projects. After looking at some of the artist's works, we talked about different emotions, brainstorming on the whiteboard: calm, happy, angry, excited, sad, ect..( my personal favorite, "out of control".)

Their assignment was to choose an emotion and then a long sheet of colored construction paper(Katie used only black which may have created a bit more depth and mystery) for the base of this mood. From there, they created "fields" of color to convey their emotion. I encouraged them to have one color "bleed" into the next by blending in circular motions. When they were all done, I held up each piece and the children guessed which emotion the artist was trying to convey. But I told them there were no right and wrong interpretations. An artist and a viewer could have two completely different interpretations of the same work of art. This was a fun project for my group. And when I told them Rothko's "White Center ( Yellow, Pink and Lavendar on Rose") sold for $72.8 million, they were even more enthralled by the project. : D

Hummingbirds and Birds of Paradise

Kindergarten thru 3rd grade work

My class used sponges with warm or cool acrylic colors to create their backgrounds first. Chalk pastels or oil pastels were used to create their birds and flowers which were cut out and glued to their painted backgrounds. They had the option of using realistic or creative color choices.

3D Camel Portraits with "Magic Carpet" Backgrounds

Chas, Kindergarten

Jonathon, 2nd grade

Katie, 2nd grade

Supriya, Kindergarten

I did some camel portraits a few months ago and decided to try it again with my new group of students. This time the children made their camels 3 dimensional by gluing squares of foam core to the backs of their cut camel faces to elevate them. Their "magic carpet" backgrounds were created by taking 3 sheets of construction paper (red, yellow and black in this case) folding them in half and creating 6 unique patterns using oil pastels. These were cut into squares and arranged to make a unique background. Here's a sample of their colorful and quirky camels.

Creative Challenge - Complete

Ink, Acrylic and Pastel Collage

Watercolor, Pastel, Ink and Mixed Media Collage

Mixed Media on Acrylic Canvas

Here are the 3 finished pieces I created for the Creative Challenge I signed on for a few weeks ago. Part of the challenge for me was working small (nothing over 8"X10"), as my comfort zone lies in life size people and animals. To keep myself loose and not uptight, I created these pieces on a couple lazy Sunday afternoons while watching Midnight in Paris for the 3rd time and some deliciously bad Bravo reality shows on my DVR. I had a lot of fun "playing" around with a variety of media. The recipients happen to be located in three completely different spots in the US. I will be sending them off shortly. Hope you enjoy them ladies!

Jungle Jaguars

Artwork by K-3rd Graders

I recently started a class with mostly new students. This has allowed me to revisit some of the favorite past projects. I did these paper bag jaguars back in January and was encouraged by one of my students to give it another go. Thanks Jenna :)

The children used oil pastel and watercolor to create their jungle bases. On one rectangular of their brown bag they created textured leaves using sponges and acrylics. These would be later cut out and added to their composition. On the other side of their bag they created their jaguars using chalk and oil pastels. They were encouraged to arrange their leaves around their jaguar to make it look as if it was peaking out of it's rainforest habitat.