Shondra
All year long we learn about thinking and acting like an artist. Now's the perfect time to really think and act like an artist! How? Here are some reminders:
We practice, practice, practice. Just like athletes and musicians. We keep a sketchbook or scrap paper handy so that we can doodle or draw all the time.
We don't dwell on mistakes. Mistakes are happy accidents that can lead to innovation. We don't have time to let silly mistakes get in our way; we've got to keep going.
We observe. We notice the little details that make life interesting. And we use those observations to inspire our art.
We are curious! We wonder about things and then research those things. We read about those things, a lot! And those things inspire our art.
We make connections. Maybe something we've learned in science or math will inspire our art.
So, let's use this time to cultivate our creativity!
Paideia art instagram
Accepting submissions from our Paideia community! We want to showcase your creative efforts and inspire others. Email photos to any art teacher.
Follow along at https://www.instagram.com/paideiaart/
Calling all budding artists!
J.K. Rowling is inviting you to help illustrate The Ickabog for her. Every day when chapters of the story are uploaded, she will be making suggestions for what you might like to draw or paint to illustrate the story as it goes along. You should let your imagination run wild!
The best bit is, if you are between 7 and 12 years old, your parent or guardian on your behalf can enter your drawings or paintings into the official competition being run by J.K. Rowling’s publishers, for a once in a lifetime chance to be featured in The Ickabog book, which will be published in November.
color doodle
Abstract doodling is meditative. Create a colorful one and hone your art skills.
Curate your own museum!
We've seen some examples of pet museums created for gerbils, guinea pigs, turtles and birds but you don't have to have a pet to create a gallery space. Crystal Bridges, one of my very favorite museums, shows how to curate your own space using a cardboard box and whatever supplies you have handy.
drawing challenge inspired by the gruffalo!
Look at these 4 short videos and then use Alex Scheffler's 3rd tip to be an illustrator (practice! draw a lot!) by using these one or more of these prompts. Give life to a creature that has:
a pink itchy nose, long green hair, and spots
rainbow wings, 6 legs, and hairy crooked ears
funny teeth, a striped tail, and purple fingernails
a fiery mane, marshmellow legs, and loving eyes
a corkscrew horn, zig zag strips, and transparent wings
Have fun and take your time to show lots of details. Maybe take some inspiration from Alex Scheffler and use lots of media to bring your creatures to life - pencil, pen, watercolor, colored pencils, whatever you have! Maybe even sculpey or playdoh! Bring your creatures to our zoom meetings to share!
Michelle Obama reads The Gruffalo
Axel Scheffler: How to draw a Gruffalo
How the Gruffalo was created
3 tips to be an illustrator
Make art online!
Check out the Kids' section of the Tate's website! There's lots to explore. My favorite is to create street art! You can share your creations with the world, or send a photo to me and I'll share it with the Paideia community on our Instagram! Have fun!!!
create an alma thomas inspired flower painting
Alma Thomas was a Color Field painter who was most active in the 1960-70's. She was the first African-American woman to have a solo exhibition in a New York museum. She painted the color of flowers rather than realistic portraits of flowers. Let's look at some of her paintings and then get inspired to make your own flower color field works!
The happy duckling
The Happy Duckling is an animated adventure set in a pop-up book world. I love the idea of creating a 3D world out of 2D paper. Watch this and get inspired to create your own! Below are some instructional videos to help you get started.
Start off simple with this pop-up rainbow.
Circles can create the body or head of any kind of creature!
This tutorial demonstrates lots of pop-up techniques.
do a perspective drawing of the metropolitan museum
This step-by-step instructional video guides you through the finer points of rendering an image of The Metropolitan Museum of Art's facade using perspective. You'll learn all about horizon lines, vanishing points and pencil techniques that will enable you to capture New York's greatest museum in all of its Beaux-Arts splendor.
famous paintings recreated
This Facebook page is endlessly entertaining! It originates in Russia but it's gone global. It’s impressive to see what people have made with random things in their homes. Scroll through to see creative interpretations of a variety of paintings - from cartoons to abstract art to old masters. What painting can you recreate?!
Origami lessons every monday at 5pm
Join Sachi Nakato Takahara each week as she teaches the entire family how to create imaginative Origami on FACEBOOK LIVE! Just tune in to Nakato's Facebook Page on every Monday afternoon at 5pm Sharp!
Origami inspiration
This video features beautiful origami from a museum exhibit called "Origami Threefold". About midway through, there are many origami animals. My favorite is this hummingbird and flowers because hummingbirds are just now starting to visit my hummingbird feeder! What could you make to add to this collection?
check out this rube goldberg machine
Bored? Get inspired by this epic TP-powered Rube Goldberg machine built by engineer Mathieu Carillat. Create your own and send us a video!
create a roger brown-inspired building
Recycle a cereal box into a building that is inhabited by silhouettes inspired by artist Roger Brown. Maybe, create a city of Roger Brown box buildings and use it as a backdrop for a stop motion animation!
fun crazy art things people do when quarantined!
This family made an art museum for their gerbils. Look at all the masterpieces! The gerbils weren't very appreciative though...
Paper airplanes
Short on supplies? All you need is a regular piece of copy paper to make one of these airplanes. Popular Mechanics has a pattern for the "Perfect Paper Airplane". And John Collins, aka the "Paper Airplane Guy", shows how to fold 5 amazing paper planes using origami techniques he mastered. There are also posted instructions here for 4 of the planes to help you follow along. See if you can beat his world record!
Rainbow unicornS!
Need I say more??? I know lots of rainbow unicorn fans who would LOVE watching this instagram video of stop motion animator and model maker Jim Parkyn.
draw dogs!
My dogs modeled for this video. They are a bit lazy, so they're great models. If your pets are more active, try to catch them when they are worn out or napping. You only need a few minutes. Gesture drawings are just practice, so they are quick!
or draw cats!
This is a great video by professors from RISD, one of the top schools for art and design. There's LOTS of great information about gesture drawing and technique. There's also lots of talk about supplies - you can skip through that.
Procreate photo into cartoon.pdfjunior high
Have fun transforming your photo into a cartoon! Follow along with these step by step instructions...
Procreate Cartoon.mp4procreate project #1
Or follow along with this video. Once you are done, everyone in your family will want to be a cartoon too!
Blendoku!
Blendoku is my favorite video game because it's all about color mixing. It's free and suitable for all ages. Lower elementary kids can play some of the simpler levels; upper elem and Junior High students (and parents?) can see how advanced they can become.
illustrator & animator Rachel Ryle
Rachel Ryle is an animator & illustrator known for her short stop motion animations created with just pen & paper. Here is her latest about how to do our part to flatten the coronavirus curve. She has many more animations and they are so satisfying to watch. Below are 3 of my favorites.
For everyone, but especially JH!
Meet cartoonist Elizabeth Montague
The New Yorker is one of the, if not the, most coveted publication for cartoonists. It's been published 47 times a year since 1925 and features about 20 cartoons an issue, so if you do the math it's a bit mindboggling that for the first time only last year, a Black woman had her illustrations featured. At 24 years old, Elizabeth Montague does not take this honor lightly. Watch her video introduction. There are so many great moments in it!
For everyone!
NYT illustrator and graphic journalist Wendy MacNaughton is conducting drawing classes on Instagram every weekday at 1pm. https://www.instagram.com/wendymac/
Check out her website: http://wendymacnaughton.com/
April 1st UPDATE! No fooling!
Wendy Mac's drawing lessons are now on YouTube so you can access them anytime! Click here: Wendy Mac's Youtube
For all ages: Zentangles!
At the beginning of the school year, we learned about Zentangles so that if we were to finish other projects before our classmates, we could practice Zentangling. Zentangles are doodles that create a pattern. All that is required is a pen and paper! A ballpoint pen will suffice. If you have a thin Sharpie, that works well too. Zentangling helps develop fine motor skills and improves hand-eye coordination. The practice is meditative and increases focus. Plus, they are fun to create! Here are 3 videos to get you started. There are loads more on Youtube.
Patterns
Here are some basic Zentangle patterns. Some look tricky but you can see how to follow along to easily create the patterns. Pause the video if need to catch Some of these designs might use a ruler but if don't have one handy, just fold a piece of scrap paper and use the straight edge as a ruler. We're not measuring, so this is a quick trick! This artist creates her Zentangles inside of circles but you can create any shape you want. There are lots more videos creating lots more patterns so search for more if you want to continue!
Color
If you have markers or colored pencils, experiment with using color to create your patterns. Maybe you can make an analogous or a complimentary color scheme! Don't remember what those are?
Let me help you out:
Analogous - related hues on the color wheel. For example, red, orange, and yellow. Or yellow, green, and blue. Or magenta, purple, and blue.
Complementary - opposite hues on the color wheel. For example, blue and orange. Or purple and yellow. Or red and green. Or, if we want to use a more contemporary color wheel, magenta and green.
Silhouettes
Ready for something more advanced? Create a "silhouette" or an outline. This video shows Zentangling inside an outline of your hand. You could also draw block letters to spell your name, flowers, cars, an animal, a person, etc. If you choose a more complicated image, like an animal or a person, blacken important details such as the eyes and mouth first. Then fill in your silhouette with lots of Zentangles!
For elementary: Mo Willems
If you are looking for something artistic and interesting to watch, Mo Willems will be posting a video every weekday at 1pm. I like to discover how artists create. Mo shows us his impossibly clean and organized studio. I am so jealous!!! He flips through some of his sketchbooks and he shows some "dummies", or first drafts for books. You can also email him some of your drawings and questions. It could be fun to see if he mentions them in a future video!
Auction Project!
For Alessandra & Britt's artists:
Whew! What a whirlwind getting everyone's auction projects home! I know some of you are apprehensive about working on your own, but don't worry. Just do your best! Remember yarnpainting - or bead painting - is relaxing and it's fun to see your face emerge as your progress. Here are some tips to remember:
Make sure you organize your values from light to dark. Place them where they correspond on your face. We went over this in class quite a bit so I feel like everyone should understand this just fine!
Press down your yarn working from one side of a shape to the other. Don't outline a shape and then fill it in because you will end up with gaps.
Remember to lay the yarn side by side so that each strand touches the wax. If strands of yarn cross over each other, they won't stick because they are touching yarn, not wax.
Your eyes are your focus! Use a really dark color to outline the top of your eyes. You likely don't have room to create individual eyelashes, so outline the top of your eye with one strand of yarn, then zig back across halfway and then zag back to the end. So the end of your eye shape will have 3 strands of yarn; the beginning of your eye shape will only have one. This trick is used in drawing too! Artists will often create a thicker pencil line instead of drawing individual lashes. Look at your photo and decide whether to outline the bottom of your eye with that darkest color or to use a dark that is one level below.
For your hair, have your yarn follow the direction of the strands of your hair. Make sure you use at least 2 colors for your hair - a lighter one for hilites and a darker one for shadows.
Here is an example of a yarnpainting I made about 3 years ago of my daughter. I did try to make some individual eyelashes for her eye, but they are bulky!
Junior High: procreate
Experiment with Procreate!
Procreate is an awesome comprehensive drawing app that many artists use. You have it on your iPad!
Check out this YouTube video by an illustrator. She states that the Apple Pencil is the best stylus to use, but don't worry if you don't have one because any stylus or even your finger will work just fine. She shows the basics of Procreate, plus some tips and shortcuts.
There's also a Procreate Handbook pdf. It has LOTS of info, much more than you need to know now, but if you are interested, you can check it out at https://procreate.art/handbook.
For this week, just experiment! Learn the basics. Maybe research what other artists have created so you can see what's possible. Procreate on Instagram has lots of examples.
Most of all, have fun with it!
And please email or add to your Seesaw journal to share your experiments! Thanks!