Nearly finished Painting

Painting is nearly completed. After blocking in the colours on each prop the students have gone back over each part of the painting adding in patterns and details.

After everything had been blocked with colour most of the students thought their paintings were finished. We re-looked at Henri Matisse (our focus artist) and discussed how he used patterns, shapes, line and colour. Before they started the patterns on the painting, they revisited their plans and drew the patterns on the objects, when confident they painted. This process has taken two days. Yes, I know it is a lot of time. However, the quality of the artworks speak for themselves and for the perseverance of the children.

GOOD ARTWORKS TAKE TIME. A benefit of giving time is the children get on a flow, they become absorbed in their work spending long periods of time concentrating, even the children who traditionally have a very limited concentration span.
All the children are now assessing their own paintings, looking for parts that don’t look right or need more work. I am delighted with this development because it shows the children have become confident decision makers, problem solvers and independent thinkers in relation to their artwork.

It was interesting listening the the comments when we looked at several pieces of art. The children talked about the patterns used, the colour variations, the shape of objects and how things worked well together. It was a real buzz for the children who’s art we discussed.

Beginning to paint composition

The children drew their pictures onto the undercoated cardboard with chalk, copying them from their pre-drawn plan. Chalk is used because it can be easily rubbed off the undercoat if the image is not right. It is important to get the image large and bold; use lines only, no colouring in.

After the chalking had been completed the children painted over the chalk lines with thin blue paint and very thin brush (#0 or #1). This makes the image more permanent when applying the top coats of paint. I use blue and not black because I have found black paint permeates through the other colours after they have been applied. I was delighted to see the children enlarged their images to fit the A2 size cardboard. Certainly modeling and talking through the process helped them understand what was required.

Before starting to apply the colours the children had to colour in the part of their planning picture that was farthest in the background. This was a revelation to them as they began to understand background and moving forward to the foreground. In many cases the background was the sky or walls in the composition was done indoors. Some children found they had not included a horizon line and yet others did the typical putting a sky line at the very top of the picture. We had a great discussion about how the sky meets the earth. By colouring the plan many of the problems faced in colouring the composition have been recognised and solved before painting.

The work continues...

Planning our painting

Today we looked at how painting tell stories. We discussed Glenda Randerson’s painting of her daughter. It did not take long for the children to talk about the girl and her likes and activities. The children had to say what they thought was happening and what props. colours or actions gave them the clues.

Next we discussed:
- the things we like doing
- our favourite clothes
- our favourite thing
the place we like to be most of all

I gave them A2 size and a permanent black mark pen. Use half the paper (landscape) they had to draw themselves doing the activity they liked most.
Then they had to draw the favourite thing (large).

Lastly they had another A2 paper and had to draw the scene of their favourite place. It was interesting that a few children could not draw this from a ground view they draw a birds eye view.

After finishing the three drawing we cut out the two first drawing and placed them on the scene (the place) They were able to manipulate the images around to get the best position then glued them. This became the planning drawing for our paintings.

I will now photocopy the planning drawings and the children will use these to work out the colours they next to use.

The A2 cardboard was then painted with undercoat awaiting next week.

A lot of work for one day. However, the drawing are amazing and have covered the whole page. It has created background, overlapping and the foreground subjects.