Mussel Painting

The students had to compose a story in their head. They had two or three characters, a plot and a setting. Instead of writing their story they painted it.

They painted the background first, starting at the furthermost point then moving toward the foreground. After the experience of painting portraits, the students were able to blend colours confidently and in most cases allowed the paint to create moods or features.

After completing the backgrounds, the students painted faces on dried mussel shells (the characters of their story). Many students used other materials for hair.

When the painted background was dry, they dry brushed features onto the foreground of the paintings to compliment the story.

The mussels shells were attached to the painting with hot glue.

The compositions took on a special meaning to the students after they had given the characters names and composed a story. This activity could be extended to writing the story.

Finish Painting the Portrait

What a difference!

After struggling for weeks to pull together blending skill, propositions of the face and adding shadows and light to our portraits we finally finished impressive artworks.

Check out the other painting blogs to see the story thus far.
Last week we painted over our portraits with red and yellow paint.

After revisiting our colour wheels and colour theory, this week we painted complementary colours on the background. The make the background look behind the face we painted around the edges of the face with yellow and red paint, brushing it back into the existing paint.
Tip: If the background is painted last it will look like it comes over the top of the foreground.

Next step, we dry brushed on the blue paint to give us the shadows.
This proved to be much easier and the students were able to add detail in a controlled way. There looked in the mirror to see the shadows.

With all the drawing of faces we have done, the students are now adding details and propositions confidently, although there a few students who need reminding to look at where facial features go in comparison to others.

The next learning step is to move from the face to the whole body.

Next job for me is to mount the finished portraits and get them onto the photo page for all to see.











The photo on the left is the first attempt to paint the portrait
The photo on the right is repainting with red and yellow
The bottom photo is after the dry brush shadows.

Look at the progression of skills.

Painting with limited colours

As mentioned in a previous Blog about painting with limited pallet, today I tried out my theory. The students found it much easier to using only two colours and were getting a little frustrated that they could not put in the shadows.
Yes, we did paint over the painting we had already started. The good thing about doing so many layers of paint is that the images look like they had a depth which is impossible to achieve with only one or two layers of paint.

Next steps of learning:
Next week when the painting are dry I will teach them to do dry brush painting. This way the paint will be easier to apply in limited areas of their portrait.

Comment for students:
"I made my face look roundish by curving the colours with brush strokes." Paul

"I made my painting look better by painting over my guidelines." Sky

Sketching improved

Today the students did self portrait sketches using black and white pastels. They had to start with whisper lines, getting the shapes and proposition correct before putting in shadows and light. Not only do they look in a mirror, but many of them felt their faces to see which way the skin ran and what parts were curved. By using the pastels, students cannot rub out and are forced to be courageous about drawing the image.

With regular practice the childrens sketching skill and powers of observation have improved. They are now taking more care looking at the shape of objects, there they interconnect and where the shadow and light lay.

In the two photos on this Blog, the left hand sketch was do a few weeks ago and the one on the right was done today by the student hold the sketches. As you can see there is improvement in the student developing their own style while incorporating the sketching techniques taught to them.

Next learning step:
Using different medium to practice sketching the same objects. Move to sketching the whole body.
Comments for students:


“I found it easier to see the shadows and light today”. Louise


“If I don’t use the techniques to get the proportions right my face looks wrong.” Grace

“I still need to put in more shadow to make my face look rounded.”

Painting and Screen printing

In today’s episode the children enjoyed painting and preparing their stencils for screen-printing.

I learned something today: As discussed in my last painting Blog, I mentioned about some children found it hard to blend colours while painting their face; plus they found if difficult to not paint over their preliminary guidelines. Today most children mixed colours and started to blend colours without having blobs of colour in various places on the face. Having three colours to blend still remained a problem.
Next time, to help children learn to blend the colours without making mud colours, I will only have them use two colours. We will start with yellow and red by doing the mid tone, and then use the yellow as the light. After the painting has dried I will then introduce dry brushing and put in the shadows with blue. I think this will make the paint more controllable for the children.

The master designs of the screen-printing are all looking very individual artworks. It has been a challenge for the children to understand the concept of screen-printing. By using the example of stencils, showing the children how the cut out part is where the colours goes, has helped them to make their own paper stencils for the different colours they intend using on their artwork.

No photos today, I was allowing the children to experiment with their art.

Reflective comments from the children:

“I learnt that when you are painting a face and you make the lines curve it looks better.” Caleb

“I learnt how to paint dark to middle to light tones”. Jesse

“I learned there are shadows on our face and the face is curved”. Jada

“I learnt to draw a nose. I learnt by looking at Jessica nose and seeing that her nose doesn’t look like a pigs hoof. I looked at mine and I change it.” Louise

“I learnt how to draw a proper mouth. I learnt how to draw a mouth by looking gat my mouth in the mirror.” Jessica

“I learnt that blue and red and yellow are primary colours. I learned that red is a tone colour and blue is a shadow colour and yellow is a light colour. Grey and brown are earth colours.” Paul

Sketching

The students used pencil to sketch themselves while looking in a mirror to check their features. We talked about proportion, shapes and size. When sketching a buddy they observed details they missed when drawing themselves. Next the students sketched themselves by feeling their own face. This helped them understand features that stick out, others that are indented and the roundness of face and neck.

To get away from the restriction of pencil, the students had to sketch with charcoal, crayon and then paint. The focus of the white paint sketches on black paper was to highlight the shadow and light.

The coloured paintings are a work in progress. The students were given only primary colours. The yellow being the light tone, red mid tone and the blue shadow tone. They used yellow to draw the preliminary outline shapes.
Once they filled in the face with red they wanted to keep the colour pure and were very reluctant to blend in the yellow and blue. It was as if they were colouring the face like a colouring in book. They also would not paint over the preliminary lines.
When the students started painting a few of them forgot to use the correct proportions and the feature outlines looked like very young children's drawing, even through they had drawn the features correctly in pencil.
Interestingly, these students have not got the same observational skills as the students who had no problems getting shapes and proportions correct in pencil and paint.

The next learning step is to have a model and get the students to draw a range of facial expressions and viewpoints with paint. Give them a short time (5minutes) to draw each one. During the session have the students identify what has made their sketch look good, what they improved and how could they improve the sketch next time. Have them also share their painting and talk about them to a peer. Thus developing skills to self evaluation and problem solve.