City Lights and Countrysides

Our Budding Artists created big city lights! 








This awesome cityscape started with a painted blue sky filled with swirls. Then a big yellow moon and stars (we have a stamp for that).

Next, the street and the big buildings were cut out of black paper and glued over our night skies.

Finally, we glued brightly colored windows to the buildings!

                              These colorful countrysides were created by our Friday afternoon Art Adventures class. Our goal was to view the fields and farms from a "bird's eye" point of view.

We learned to apply paint with a palette knife while creating this project. 

First we drew our horizon line and two or three more lines below it. Then we added uneven vertical lines between them.      

We painted the sky, scraping on a few white clouds with a palette knife. This artist also added a moving river and white water along the bottom of her painting. 

They painted their lines using a mixture of blue and black paint, then filled in the spaces with lots of colors, most of which they mixed themselves. Then they painted and scraped patterns like stripes and spots. 

Finally, they added details like birds and tractors and trees. 

Landscapes & Cityscapes

Summer 2018 Art Camps have begun! Week 1 was all about landscapes and cityscapes from a different "perspective." (Get it?)

First we went outside and did some plein air sketching - which means drawing (or painting) outdoors on location. Our goal was to capture the downtown Blackfoot area by sketching the things that represent our little town and that caught our eye, sometimes from an unusual point of view. 


For example, we tried looking straight up from the sidewalk to draw buildings and signs. We drew murals that we saw on buildings. We drew doorways, stone and brickwork, mailboxes. 






We drew manikins and displays in shop windows.

We even drew each other DRAWING!








The next day we selected our favorite sketches to complete. We outlined important images with Sharpies and filled in colors with any media desired. 

For added interest, I took a few b/w pictures of Blackfoot's iconic images such as the water tower and the big Idaho potato in front of the Potato Museum. They could turn these into art by outlining, coloring, and cutting them out for use in their final project.


When all of the elements were completed, they were arranged and glued down to a large piece of paper or posterboard to create a personal poster promoting downtown Blackfoot! 

Father's Day Art

Our Friday Art Adventures kids made these framed watercolor paintings for their dads. Aren't they beautiful?




Creating this project was a three-step process. First the artists sponged painted their cardboard frames to create natural colors and textures. 







Then they created three small watercolor landscape paintings using photographic ideas found in our resource files. Finally, they assembled their frames using their choice of natural elements. 




Once everything was complete, they viewed each of their paintings through their frame opening and selected the one Dad would like the best. 






They framed Dad's painting and kept the other two 4" x 6" paintings for themselves.


Shown here are a few of the other little paintings our artists might attach to greeting cards, mail as postcards, or frame for themselves.


Creating three paintings meant no pressure to paint the "perfect" picture. It gave them a chance to practice realistic watercolor techniques while painting different types of interesting landscapes. Plus, it was fun!

Abstract Collage Art

This abstract watercolor collage art is so lovely - and yet so simple! I've found it equally suitable for all ages, kinders, teens, and adults alike.


The first step is to simply paint. We used scraps of watercolor paper left over from other projects. 




We drizzled, dabbed, and splattered. We painted squiggles and zigzags and we tried wet-on-wet and let the paint bleed. We made new colors. We used bright colors (no brown or black) and we did not make mud. 








Once all of our little paintings were done we dried them (blow dryers are fun!) and then we cut them into triangles: fat skinny, large and small. It didn't matter. 

Then we fit them together on the square poster board substrate like a puzzle and carefully glued them down. Rules: no pieces may touch, and leave some substrate showing around the outer edges of the piece.

Part of the appeal of this project is its large size, I believe. So much fun to take home a huge piece of beautiful art to display! One of our artists was sure his piece will be hung in a museum.

My sample, on black poster board, 17.5" x 17.5"

Thanks to Like a Musical Ride for this great project idea!

Animal ART!

Always a favorite at the Blackfoot Art Center, we completed this project for our last class of the school year and by request: oil pastel animals on black paper. 




The children did a wonderful job and were quite surprised at the results and their own ability as artists! (I love it when that happens!) Oil pastels are similar to crayons, yet a huge step up as far as color intensity, blendability, softness,  versatility, and so much more.


The secret to success is to use a resource photo that is the correct size (not too small) for a 9" x 12" sheet of black construction paper. They transfer the image to the paper using tracing paper and then carbon or graphite paper: it's like magic!

This technique eliminates the time taken (and stress of) trying to draw the image freehand. They can jump right into the oil pastels and fill in the colors. 




They can then practice creating textures, blending colors, and adding shading and highlights.

Even the youngest children can learn to work effectively with oil pastels while creating an amazing masterpiece of their favorite bird or animal!
  

           

More Memory Project Portraits

You may recall that our students have participated in the Memory Project in the past. 

We first created portraits of Bolivian children in early 2017. We then created portraits of Congolese children.  

We just completed our third Memory Project portraits, this time of Afghani children.

We are always excited to see the video the Memory Project creates for us of our efforts and delivery of the portraits to the children. When it is available, we will post it for you!

Here is the video of the Afghan children receiving their portraits.