Art Lessons

I draw, paint, sculpt and teach art lessons. 

I'm really enjoying teaching from home. It fun, relaxed and with my current students...it's giggles the entire time and I LOVE it.

The is Kalli and Sheridyn, my 8 year old art students. 

{Portrait drawing:}

 switch!

The finished work. This was their first attempt at drawing someone in person. We have a long way to go but it's so fun to see the things they focus on when they're drawing. They're loving textures. :)

 {Mediums}

 I wanted them to get a quick experience working with as many 2-d mediums as we could. 

{graphite, colored pencil, charcoal, oil pastel, water color and acrylic}

 The paper was split into 6 squares and the original assignment was to choose one simple picture. Like a sun or a flower. Something relatively simple and render it in each medium

BUT....they're eight, you know? They immediately got bored of doing the same thing more than once. Ha! So we changed things around and it was pretty much a free for all. And they had fun.

When we first started lessons and they immediately started getting pencil all over the sides of their hands and paint up their arms, they were so concerned and out of sorts about it.

In order to remedy this, I told them that to be a "real artist", you have to get messy. 

So now every time they point out the paint up to their elbows, I just tell them it means they're becoming a true artist. It's worked pretty well, I think.....

They love naming their drawings...

{Mother's Day Painting}

First: they decided generally what they wanted to paint, using some ideas I had found on Pinterest.

Second: Choosing a background color they thought their mothers would like. We used acrylic paint and they did really well! We had to discuss how to handle canvas so you don't dent the surface or get hand oils on it. We discussed paint strokes and how to treat the brushes. 

Third: While the background paint dried, they sketched their idea onto paper and got it all planned out and then chose the colors they would use. 

Fourth: Hair dryer so we could do the whole project in under 2 hours! Mother's day comes quickly when we only have class once a week!

Fifth: Painting their flowers.
Sixth: More hair drying and then picture time!!

Kalli chose an abstract version of flowers and, according to Sheridyn, it looks "African". Kalli used a permenant marker for the stems to speed up the process and help with the fact that painting strait lines is super hard. Then used q-tips for the flowers. She did fabulous! I was really proud of her!

Sheridyn chose a dandelion painting idea and added in the sun. She also used q-tips for the whites of the dandelions. She came up with the lines on the sun to give it more interest. She did great too! So awesome!

Can't wait for next week!