ART SUMMER WEEK 2

PAPER FAMILY QUILTS

The Artist Faith Ringgold www.faithringgold.com has created many story quilts to express the memories of African Americans in the 1960's and beyond. Traditionally, story quilts were created to imprint a family's history in a way that went beyond words and they were laboured over and preserved sometimes in secret in order that the family memory would be honoured and not forgotten. We are going to create our own Family Quilt- this may be something that you begin and just keep adding to whenever an important event can be drawn out.

YOU WILL NEED:

  • LARGE SHEET OF WHITE PAPER

  • OIL PASTELS

  • WATER BASED PAINTS

  • Ruler

Let's Go!

  • Begin by creating a large square/rectangle in the centre of your paper. Sketch in your family.

  • Using a ruler, draw lines radiating out from your family square- these will be the spaces for your memory blocks.

  • Add colour to your family block sketch with oil pastels/crayons.

  • When dry, cover with a wash of water based paint.

  • Start decorating each of the outside lines of each block with oil pastel"stitches", criss-cross or plain stitches in a variety of colours.

  • Start adding memories to each block of your family quilt with oil pastels and then a wash of paint...vary the colours each time to make your quilt as colourful as possible. Your memories could be of a favourite place, special people or pets, a holiday, a game you have all played together, an activity that you love to do with your family.

  • Leave some blocks blank for now because you can keep adding to your family quilt as special moments arise.

  • Place it somewhere special!