Animals and Cosmic Art!

We ended our June Summer Art Adventures session with Animal Art.

First we decided what animals to include in our animal menagerie.

Then we drew them and colored them in.

Next, we created a colorful background by rubbing soft pastels into the area around the animals.

See more animal art like this on our previous weblog post, Amazing Animals.

These artists created out-of-this-world Cosmic Art!

First they sponged on a galaxy of colors and splattered everything with stars! 

Then they glued on planets, space ships, aliens, UFOs, and even a dog-astronaut taking a space walk!

The last step was to add details, like rings around planets and such, using metallic pens for added awesomeness!

Find more amazing cosmic art on our original weblog post, Outer Space Art.

Butterfly Gardens - Part 2

Our 3D flowers are complete, so now it's time to create butterflies to visit our gardens.

These butterflies are painted on heavy black paper using liquid temperas. 

This was a great lesson in symmetry! 

We folded the paper in half and cut out one side of the butterfly. Then we painted one wing of the butterfly with very thick wet tempera paint, folded the other wing over the paint, and pressed all over. 

We opened them up for a mirror image on the other wing. We repeated this process once or twice again, then proceeded to add final details to the opened butterfly until it was complete. 

After they were dry, we stapled them closed in the center, folded the wings outward, and inserted pipe cleaner antennae.

As in the past, our younger artists made giant butterflies! 

It's fun to put on the sticker dots, and the wings can flap when you run around; did you know that?

Butterfly Gardens - Part 1

Our first Art Camp theme of the summer was Butterfly Gardens, so we made these amazing 3-D layered flowers. 

Then we made beautiful butterflies to visit our garden flowers!

To get started, we taped a piece of watercolor paper to a painting board. Then we painted a very blurry watery background (using cake temperas) and allowed it to dry.

Next, artists traced three of four circles, from large to small, and painted them. Then they cut them out and created any type of petals desired along the edges of the circles.   

Then they layered and glued them onto their backgrounds. 

The next step was to scrunch up a few bits of tissue paper and glue to the flower center for added texture and realism. 

Some artists added some implied texture and detail to their flowers using Sharpies. 

Everyone had fun and looked forward to creating their butterfly visitors! 

You can see how we made our butterflies in the next post, right here!

Nature Studies

This summer, our first classes and camps focused on nature studies and scientific illustration. Our 'outdoor studio' made this theme an obvious choice for us! 

For example, we often meet under a very large evergreen tree, so our first scientific illustration subject was pine cones, of course! We examined a variety of pinecones, including tiny ones and a few that are almost a foot long! 

We focused on color and texture while using different types of painting techniques to complete our artwork. This artist added a crow, which is commonly seen in the tree we were studying. 

Next, we explored our green space and selected additional objects for our nature studies.  

Artists could choose from markers, temperas, watercolors, pastels, or colored pencils for their illustrations. 

This artist labeled all of her carefully rendered illustrations.  

The artist below used oil pastels to paint similarly colored objects - a rose and cherries) for an interesting piece of art.

 

Our thanks to Painted Paper Art for the pinecone nature study lesson idea.