Trees of Orange... Gold... and Blue? - Easy Watercolor Project

One of the girls' trees!

Trees of Orange... Gold... and Blue? - Easy Watercolor Project

A bonus project for the art curriculum this week!

This is a simple project to prep for, I gathered and planned most of it this morning right before putting it into action.

The final result is so charming it's suitable for all ages: colorful and fun for younglings; sophisticated and lovely for any modern decor.

What you need:

-watercolors (it doesn't need to be expensive, we have large bottles of brilliantly colored kids watercolors)
-multipurpose paper
-brushes (cheap, but not plastic, plastic doesn't hold water)
-spray bottle
-paint palettes or bowls/cups to hold the paint

We did two pieces. The first one was just to get the technique down and play with colors.

We all used the same 3 colors: blue, red, orange. You can use whatever (and however many) colors you desire.

Time: 45 minutes for Both pieces

• Thoroughly soak your brush in the first color
• Hover the brush over the paper and use your finger on your other hand to tap and splatter the paint - don't be shy when splattering! Cover the page with blobs and splatters of all different sizes!
• Rinse your brush and move on to the next color and repeat with all the different colors.

• Now the super fun part! Take the spray bottle and spritz those colors! Take it slow at first, it'll depend on the amount of paint on your paper and how thickly you spray the water as to how the colors will run and retain their vibrancy. When it comes to adding water to watercolors, less is more.
  
• For fun, we added salt to our first masterpieces. The more salt you add, the less bold your colors will be. However it creates some fantastic texture.

Left half "After Spritzing"
Right half "After Salt"

• The second piece we made trees. I drew light, rough ovals on the paper as a guide for the kids. We used the same colors: blue, red, orange. And we were only allowed to splatter within the oval as best we could.
• Spritz with water!
• We manage to direct the dribbles by tilting and bending the paper so we ended up with tree trunks!
  

Overall: Fun. Easy. Prepare for speckled faces and arms from the splattering. I suggest a good layer of newspaper on the table to help with easy cleanup and spills. :)

Related art projects:

-Perspective With Watercolors
-Watercolor Winter Scene
-Expressions in Color

(logging 1 1/2 hours for prep and execution)

Art Curriculum- Week 2- 1 Point Perspective

Reference Picture

Week 2- 1 Point Perspective

Last week's lesson involved basic gridding. If you want to view it you can click here.

This week's lesson was 1 Point Perspective.

Artistic Movement: Renaissance

The project was good practice for watercolor painting with different methods and listening to instructions.

What you'll need:
-watercolors
-plain art paper of some kind (it doesn't have to be fancy but for water colors you want paper other than regular copy paper so that the watercolors have some texture to soak into)

Time: 40 minutes approx.

The original painting (pictured above) is something I found on Pinterest. I used it as a reference and quickly drew 7 rough copies of it using a sharpie.

I kept it basic, explained how when things are far away they get smaller and smaller whereas when things are closer they get bigger. I used a paint bottle on hand and I zoomed in back and forth in front of them.

This was another piece that I did step by step with the kids. I gave them one color at a time and we moved in stripes down the page. Blue-Orange-Yellow-Purple-etc.

For the red and orange ground I had them "messily" color within the lines with red leaving wide spaces. Then I gave them the orange and had them fill in all the white spots. I wanted there to be a bit of color mixing going on without creating mud.

The road we used black paint but I had them practice using lots of water with their brushes while taking tiny dabs of paint to achieve a lighter gray.

Overall: Easy and fun project. Simple cleanup (watercolors don't stain) and the kids love painting so it was a great learning experience.

In Addition: Something you might want to point out and explain is that cooler colors (blue, deep purple, etc) make things look farther away, while warmer colors (red, yellow, etc) make things appear closer. ;)

Related Posts:

Art Curriculum- Week 1- Gridding
Creating an Art Curriculum

(logging in 1 hour for prep and execution)

Art Curriculum- Week 1- Gridding

Week 1- Gridding

Today I taught the first lesson in my curriculum. Gridding.

Artistic Movement: Renaissance

This is an attempt to expose them to the classical methods in art early on. Even if they don't understand it technically and exactly, they'll at least have experienced it to a small degree.

The project required them to listen to instructions and for the younger ones it was good practice with coloring skills and identifying numbers.

What you'll need:
-markers

Time: 30 minutes at the most for both pictures

I looked up simple coloring sheets. I picked flowers to do a color by number, and then an abstract piece so they could see realism and a more fun piece side by side.

I cut the page into 8. There were only 6 kids, so whoever finished coloring their piece first got an extra.

For the sunflowers I went and numbered the different parts with pen. Then I had them do one color at a time. They would pick out a number, and I would tell them what color belonged with it.

For the abstract one I told them they could color it however they wanted to with rules that:
(1) They had to use at least 3 colors
(2) No colors could touch

When they finished coloring we pieced them together again so they could see the final picture.

Then I taped each piece to a black piece of construction paper. Not a necessary addition, but I did it because I thought it gave the paper some stability and if they ever were to put their separate pieces in an art book it would look nice.

Advanced Art Project- Week 1

Keirstyn's assignment was to pick any picture (preferably an animal/landscape etc), apply grid lines to it, and then copy the picture on to a blank grid.

It's not complete yet here's glimpse of the set up:

(Logging in 1 hour for prep and execution)

Related posts:
Creating an Art Curriculum

Anthem Strings- poem

acrylic painting digitally edited in Pixlr

It is time for the Thursday/Friday post!

Today is a poem. Doomsday and music smashed together.

Anthem Strings

Cut down, cut up

Gleaming paths that soon erupt

Cut up, cut down

Plucking strings that make no sound

Falling stars are silver strings

They rain down for serfs and kings

Now the basses singe the ground

They never ask the why or how

Switch lies, switch lays

Swung around within the haze

Switch lays, switch lies

Wood winds dim chaotic skies

Blow the trumpets this is our doom

Raise the harps and cloak the moon

Crush the sun by pounding drums

This is our brilliant anthem

Blood Always Tells

Heyloeth guys,

'Tis Thursday so a writing piece is due. :)

This week for American Lit. I had to read a short story titled "The Telling-Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe. It's an unnerving tale told with an insistent voice.

The basics of the plot are that a young man murders an older man. What I wrote is told from the perspective of the old man after he's murdered. However the route I decided to go is different, because there's no human conscience present, it's just his body and his blood and how they "react."

It's very... disconnected, because there's no one being to control and direct the thoughts.

While it would mean more to you if you read "The Telling-Heart," hopefully this will be an interesting way to spend a few minutes of your time.

To find out why the younger man murders the older man, click here: The Telling Heart

(the last part in italics is from "The Telling-Heart," I own none of Poe's characters or his words, no copyright infringement is intended and I make no profit from this)

Blood Always Tells

At first silence is the only sound.

Red rivers flood and collide with twisting rushes of dark water. Red rivers roll and submerge themselves in the essence of simply being. They no longer belong to anything or anyone, they are themselves.

Now they are thinning and running apart until they vanish in the wisps of rusted drains and porcelain bodies.

The blood of the murdered has already been lost. Nobody remembers it anymore.
_____

The bones and flesh lie in condemned shadows.

Abandoned… but are they forgotten? Whispers of life still wets their thrumming shapes.

The murdered is gone. And yet they quiver in remembrance, of what it was to move and feel stone and glass.

Now all they feel is each other.

And hate.

Frantically the bones sing out and snatch at the life misting away into the clotted air. Flesh cries out.

The final traces from the vanished rivers of red stir in agony.

All together they give a final push.
_____

A ringing beat.

One. Two. Three…

The heart is alive.

It is a slow and ponderous beat… It quickens.

It dips, it pounds, it marches as if to rise out of the earth where stained hands laid it.
_____

It grew louder --louder --louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God! --no, no! They heard! --they suspected! --they knew! --they were making a mockery of my horror!-this I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die! and now --again! --hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed! --tear up the planks! here, here! --It is the beating of his hideous heart!

-THE END-

marker and pencil - quote from Evanescence's song "My Immortal"
edited in Pixlr-o-matic

Resounding

Today I present a painting. :) This one more or less burst out screaming with me trying to bring it out with random strokes. I wanted there to be a sense of power and fury in this piece.

There is so much I can see in this piece... It was one of those "just make it up and go with whatever comes out."

Oh the possibilities of what stories could spring from this... I would love to hear your thoughts on this piece.

The third pic is an example of what happens after I complete a drawing or a painting, I like to play around on my photo apps and see what comes out of my experimenting.