Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Peacock Feathers and Paisleys


Hi again! Yes, I've been busy.  A son's wedding in New York. An open house here to celebrate with West Coast friends. Christmas travel to spend time with ALL our kids and grands. So not much time at the computer. I'm going to try and catch up with a few Art Club projects. 


I try to dove tail projects that use up leftovers from the previous project so we have less waste. This also allows for early finishers to move on to the next project without me bringing entirely different supplies. (I have to haul everything to each school every week, so I have to think about that!) In this case, we finished up collaged glass plates like these with either silver or gold paint on the backs. So with extra acrylic paint still on our pallets, we moved on to a mixed media piece.


Artists could chose to paint paisleys, peacock feathers, or a single letter. I demonstrated how-to-draws for each. (And I shared a real peacock feather fan from India that a former student had given me. So beautiful!)


The following week, with the paint dry, we added color with oil pastels. (And then we began another project with oil pastels too. More on that in another post.)


 I only got photos at one of my schools. These are mounted on white paper. Another school got red mats- very striking. (You'll just have to take my word for it..)


The kids got to practice using very small brushes, making sure to make the paint smooth and creamy before loading the brush. And I love how great the colors look on the heavy black paper. (An up cycle of some business folders…love being able to use something that was headed for the trash!)


These were fairly small, I think about 5x7. Smaller scale meant a quicker project.



Hard to see in the photos, but the shimmer of the metallic paint really added interest.


Make it a Wonderful Day!