The Frog

I think it's fun when people post images of their progress. I drew this frog back in August when I was teaching summer art lessons at the museum. I got to TA for my colleague, which gave me time to practice my art skills. Here's a picture of a frog I drew in my sketchbook.

Foxes and Gouache

I can't believe it's going to be 2014 tomorrow. This year has been awesome for my art lessons, since I started them around March? May? I don't remember. So really, this is the only year I can go off of! But since then, I have gotten some awesome students and had so much fun. One of my students is learning about gouache right now. She's doing a great job! This is her fox on the left.

I never really got into gouache before, but it's my new favorite medium! It's got the feel of watercolor, but it's opaque and more forgiving than watercolors. So you can paint something and have it dry in a few seconds, then paint over it again if you mess up. It's really forgiving for people who don't have the patience to wait for oils to dry, but get frustrated that they can't fix messed up watercolors.

This student is really into painting specific things. So next week, we're going to do a fish study -- one with watercolors, and one with gouache. I'll post a picture and show you what a difference a medium can make!

Cherries In Progress

Tonight after a lesson I busted out my watercolors and painted some cherries. I am trying to be better about making time for my own art, and I forgot how therapeutic it is to just sit and create something. 

I'm learning that it's so important to not be afraid of color and value. If something in a picture I'm working off of is black, I need to make that area black! Not grey...black. Same goes with color. If that cherry is bright red, you better believe I'm going to work on it until I get a vibrant red. 

Working this way tends to get me a lot of mistakes. I have to go all out to get the reward, or else I'll have just a kind of ok, but boring picture. I might fail and have to start over. It's all in the name of becoming a better, bolder artist. Let this be a lesson in bravery. 

Gallery Drawing: The Lady

I am loving all this gallery time. My older kids just eat it up, so I had time to draw this today. I was so over the black dress, so I changed it up with the colors. This new version is a sassy lady who does.not.care.one.bit what people think. See ladies? The power of an outfit. 

Gallery Drawing: Cool Story, Bro

The Spring Salon is up at the museum this summer! SS is my favorite show because it features current art from artists throughout Utah. Our museum is pretty traditional, so it's great to see new art coming in for this show. While my co-worker teaches her class, I get to follow them around and TA for her (and vice versa). Since I'm basically there in case of emergency, I get to draw in the galleries when the kids draw. 

Drawing from actual, real-life art is a great drawing exercise. Not only does it hone your drawing skills, but it gives you the chance to really notice the nuances that go into each artist's style. I picked this painting to copy because I liked the mix of realism and abstraction. I took the liberty to change some stuff; I didn't like the checkers so I added this phrase instead...

Summer Art Classes: Eric Carle Animals

So June is Summer Art Class time at the museum, and I'm having the best time teaching two sessions of Sketchbook Spectacular. Basically, I'm teaching kids ages 8-14 how to use sketchbooks to store and brainstorm ideas, practice their drawing skills, and plan out final pieces of art. Today we did some drawing in the galleries, then started a collage project. They picked an animal, then made their own colored paper. Once the paper dries, they'll cut out the paper and piece together their animal. The picture above is my first step of making a flamingo. I'll upload the final product when I'm done. If you've ever read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, these animals are inspired by author Eric Carle's style. 

It's so interesting to be teaching one session of 8-10 year olds, then another session of 11-14 year olds. My younger kids loved picking out their animals and making their paper. The older kids rushed through that and begged to stay in the gallery longer. They loved drawing from paintings and were so transfixed. I guess that's why I plan a lot of activities into our hour and a half class...if something isn't clicking, we just move on to the next activity! 

This project is available as an Art Party activity. 

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