Category: Arts Guild

Jasper Johns was born in America, on May 15, 1930 in Augusta, Georgia to be exact. As a boy, he knew he would be an artist one day. So when he grew up, he moved to New York and studied art. Jasper Johns became famous for painting ordinary things that people sometimes take for granted…

flags…

maps…

targets…

and numbers.

Using this last Jasper Johns painting as inspiration, our group of young artists learned how paint their ages! It was a great exercise in color, scale, form and composition!

To begin their paintings, each student was given a large 11 x 17 stretched canvas, a pencil, and examples of numbers in different typefaces. You can do this by typing a row a numbers on your computer, changing the font a few times and printing them out large for your children to draw from. Have them look at and observe the nuances of line and curve that different letterforms have.

Next, I demonstrated how to lay down a design first in pencil. Since the entire surface would be covered in multiple layers of paint, it was not so important to create perfect drawings but rather for students to concetrate on their compositions. I encouraged the use of the whole canvas, emphasising size and shape, and having students pay extra attention to white space.

"Make the numerals big so that the negative spaces around the image of your age are really interesting to look at." 

Then we talked about color. I reminded them that painters don't use color straight from the tube.

Using acrylics, I pre-mixed a palette of bright, complex colors to share so the artists could focus on design and painting technique. I explained how more interesting hues are created by combining a color with a bit of its complement—green has a dash of the red, blue has a dash of orange, yellow has a dash of  blue, and so on.

My students then helped me drape the table with a plastic drop cloth, I set out jars of water, and set paper towels at each place for blotting and drying brushes. Then the painting began!

This was a two session lesson, each session taking a little over an hour with a snack and stretch break in between. During the first session the artists drew their composition and blocked in their design, covering all the white canvas with paint.

During the second session the students built up their paint layers. In some of the negative spaces they experimented using dry brush techniques so that the under layers peeked through. And and in the positive spaces (the numbers), the artists experimented laying down wet thick paint onto the design.

The results were fantastic, gestural and bold—a friutful exercise in Abstract Expressionism! Mr. Johns would be proud!

This past week Søren added JFK to his Book of 100 Heads. This time I noticed that he drew in two sessions instead of one. He told me that after he set it aside the first time and looked back at the drawing, he noticed that he needed to add more range of value.  As luck would have it, I had photographed the drawing after the first session of drawing.

At the end, Søren was inspired to read a book about the man he had spent a couple hours drawing. He may even write a little report.

Creativity inspires the mind.

Our fall iMadonnari project is well underway. Stay tuned for progress!

Van Gogh chimes in, celebrating Da Vinci Summer II:
“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.”

Can’t make it to the art museum this summer? Well, create your own museum at home!

This is a perfect impromptu activity for the patio or driveway. All you need is space, inexpensive sidewalk chalk, a box of chalk pastels in a lovely range of colors…and a bunch of friends.

What’s great about this project is that you get to own an original installation of art until you decide to have the artists close the exhibition with a few squirts of the hose!

Step 1
Prepare the surface using inexpensive sidewalk chalk. We used white because Van Gogh’s sunflowers are bright.

Step 2
Draw what you see. This is a terrific opportunity to practice observation skills.

Step 3
Color in the negative space (the background). Begin with colors slightly darker than the painting you are copying. This will add depth to the finished work.

Step 4
Begin to fill in the details. As you do, be sure to experiment with colors. Don’t use a single color. Use a range of analogous colors (colors that are neighbors on a color wheel) to simulate the rich layering that a painter such as Van Gogh might use.

Step 5
Layer and layer until your composition is complete.

Step 6
Make some lemonade and invite the neighborhood to your very own street painting festival.

Most of all… enjoy the process!

Last week Søren decided to copy a Van Gogh drawing. He pulled out a sketchbook, sharpened some pencils and spent an hour studying line and texture, shape and value.

The result is stunning.

This reminded me of the wonderful creative journey my friend Sandra set her son, Joshua, on a challenge to “Draw 100 Faces.”

And so, the challenge is on. Only for Søren, the challenge verbiage has been transformed, “Make a book. Not just any book. Make a book of 100 heads.”

Some of the heads will be studies of famous artist’s drawings. He started with Van Gogh. He moved on to Paul Klee. Tomorrow he might try Da Vinci.

Some of the heads will be drawings from life. Today Søren drew himself.

But some of the heads will be straight from Søren’s imagination. These are the drawings I am especially looking forward to.

The goal is a drawing a day for 100 days.

And the reward?

Why, the book of course.

– Kim