Painting a Still Life

Just a couple weeks before the fall session starts. Classes are almost full with a nice balance of returning students and new students. Here some shots from  the 9-12 year olds acrylic painting day of summer camp. 

Our fresh from the garden still life. The palette of colours is careful chosen so that we can learn about cool colours, tints and shades.  

The first step is a quick sketch in pencil crayon to establish a composition and correct proportions.

students are then ready to block out the main shapes with colour.

Love the variety of brush strokes and colours.

Painting tints and shades

Summer Camps are now registering. Click here for all the details.

First lesson in my acrylic painting class. Tints and shades with the Seattle skyline. 

   

Seattle on a typical grey day.

A painterly Seattle through rose tinted glasses!

Another nice range of colours.

Introduction to Painting with Acrylics

During this 3 session class we learned about complimentary colors.

Caroline's (7) lovely clementine.

In the first session we explored both watercolor and acrylic paints. We worked quickly so that the colors could mix and blend while they were still wet.

A still life composition, also by Caroline (7).

These paintings are all acrylics on small blocks of wood, approximately 5"X5." We painted very quickly; I love the gestural quality the students achieved in their paintings.

Ananya (6) loves Kiwi, so she was thrilled to have them model for her.

We started by first doing a quick sketch of the subject, kiwi's, limes or clementines today.

John's (10)  portrait of a clementine.

Since we were focusing on just one object, I wanted to make sure the kids made it pretty big. Then straight into the paint.

Kiwi's by Henry (6).

Subject first, background second, stem third, shadow fourth and then more paint and details on the subject.

Clementine by Henry (6).

A nice use of complimentary colours in this painting of a lime by John(10).

Other rules off my thumb: try not to use the default color straight out of the tube, let your brush strokes show on the painting, use more paint then you think you should,  and whatever you do, never, ever, ever ever paint with brown. Happy painting everyone!

The Joy of a Finished Painting

I love how unique each painting turned out even though the students were working from the same subject and color palette. Our prior painting lesson was fairly controlled so we could learn about composition, the different stages a painting goes through, and how to work in layers. With this foundation, the students were now free to make their own final creative decisions.

Painting Lesson: Acrylics on Canvas from Still Life

We started our first paintings on canvas this week, I'm so excited with the early stages of all the paintings that I can't wait for this week's class when the kids complete them. We started the class by looking through a book of Pablo Picasso's work. We focused on his still life paintings and talked about using the still life as our own subject matter. I set up the arrangement using my son's guitar, an old suitcase my mom brought over from India over 50 years ago, a nice little lamp, and some other goodies. The children started by completing some preliminary drawings in their sketch books.

We started by drawing the table top first, followed by the suitcase. Finally, the other objects were  drawn; we payed close attention to their size and placement in relationship to the suitcase.

 

I described the details the kids should include in their drawings and reminded them to really look at the still life, and try hard not to draw from memory.

Once the students were happy with their compositions, they moved onto canvas. With colored pencils, the children sketched on their canvas. They could chose which part of the still life they wanted to draw, but they were asked to include the table top and the plant.   Finally, it was time to paint. The children first blocked out the negative spaces of the painting using a yellow ochre color. This became the base coat for the painting -- it will give depth and texture to the next layer of the painting and make subsequent colors richer than if they were just painted onto the white canvas. Next, the kids chose their table top colors and blocked in the suitcase.

I can't wait for this week when we'll get to work on more layers in the paintings. Stay tuned!