Chalk Pastel CityScapes

We had another fun day at the Lakeview Art Room!

 Today we created a cityscape with chalk pastels on black paper.
We looked at the paintings of Kandinsky and other modern artists for inspiration.
These artist incorporated bold, vibrant colors into their work.
We designed a cityscape, creating a horizon line and using both vertical and
horizontal lines.

 Soft, hard and oil pastels are the most common but there are also water-based pastels
and pastel pencils. They all can be smudged and blended during the drawing process.
Although pastels offer a little more control than paint; they need special treatment
when finished; spraying with a pastel fixative or framing under glass prevents further
smudging.

We learned the different properties of chalk pastels and realized they can be messy if
not used correctly. Our cityscapes are exciting and full of energy.

Students will get a chance to work more with charcoal and chalk pastel next week when we spend time  finishing their cityscapes (as well as their charcoal pieces).  Students who finish early, will get to experiment some more with blending chalk and blending charcoal.

Good News!  Kids aprons and portfolios are for sale NOW for $20.00 each.  Check out www.smartwithart.net (click on Register  under "Goodies") or email Michelle Dutton michelle@smartwithart.net to order.  We will have them available for pickup at the next class.

Charcoal

Welcome to Smart With Art's Spring Session:  Back to the Drawing Board.
We have a wonderful group of artists and an exciting new curriculum for this session.

Today we learned about drawing with charcoal.

 Charcoal drawings remain an essential skill for budding artists. Working with
charcoal serves the dual purpose of building artistic creation skills and
developing art appreciation skills.
We worked with vine charcoal and used gum erasers and blending stumps to
create a still life.

 We learned the properties of charcoal and how to work with this material.
We discovered that erasing charcoal creates light areas; smudging charcoal
creates value; and drawing lightly with charcoal creates contour lines.

 We also discussed overlapping shapes, and where it exists in a still life set up

Students practiced on newsprint and then did a final still life on white charcoal paper.   Final projects are being sprayed with a fixative and then will be mounted on black paper.   We will post pictures of the final pieces after they have been matted.


Next week, students will learn about drawing landscapes and they will use chalk pastels.
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Our World Tour

Today we finished our last lesson in art from many cultures.   Hopefully your child has had fun, learned about art, and learned something about the various cultures we studied.

All art work was sent home today.  If your child is missing something, we kept all the work with no names, just in case it needs to be claimed later.  Also, if your child was absent today, you can pick up your work on Wed., April 18th.    We also found a pile of Japanese Notan Designs that didn't go home.  This work is also in the art room cabinet and can be retrieved Wed. April 18th.

We enjoyed teaching your children and are excited to come back in April to teach our next session on drawing skills.

Thank you,
Erin and Carl

Notan: Japanese Light & Dark Designs

Notan is the Japanese word for the interaction or harmony between dark and light.

 

Students learned how to make a black and white collage out of a square and learned about positive and negative space. Some people call it an “expanded square.” 

Students who were finished, created some Notan-inspired designs using the polish paper techniques they had learned earlier this session.

 Our last class for this session is next Wednesday, March 28th.   All artwork will be going home with your child then.  You are welcome to come to class at 3:15 if you'd like to be part of a mini art show of all our work.

More art opportunities with Smart with Art:  
Click here for information about Summer Camps
Click here for First Friday Art information

Henna Design, Next Session, and Bellevue Art Museum events

 
Dear Parents,
Today we learned about Henna Designs.  

Henna is a plant that has been used as a dye since the Bronze Ages, 

primarily in the Eastern Mediterranean region encompassing Northern Africa, Italy, Spain, 

and the Middle East. 

It was also widely used in India, 

where it is still a popular form of temporary body art to this day. 

 To create a dye for the skin, the henna plant is grounded into a paste 

with a few other ingredients, which is then applied to the body using a cone-shaped funnel. 

The henna must stay undisturbed on the skin for several hours to properly stain the skin, 

and then it is washed off. Henna designs can last for days or months. 

In India, henna designs on skin are called mehndi. 

We traced our hands on watercolor paper and then used paint to paint our designs. 

Next week we will add sharpie to go over some of our pencil lines. 

We have two  more classes left in this fun World Cultures art session.   

Our last class is April 28th.  

Your child will be bringing home ALL their artwork on that day.

If you are interested in more after school art, we will have a drawing session after spring break

"Back to the Drawing Board!”

In this session students will be challenged to build upon their drawing skills, whether they are a first-time art student or an advanced artist! We will begin with lines, basic shapes, shading, shadow, and spatial concepts. Then, we will challenge students with perspective, dimension, blending and texture. Whatever your skill set, this course is designed to challenge you!

We will explore drawing from observation and work with charcoal to render a still life piece. Working with soft chalk pastels, we will discover texture and spatial relationships in a cityscape. With watercolor pencils, we will create perspective in a landscape. We will culminate this session with an acrylic canvas painting that introduces value in color! Join us on this drawing adventure which will explore many mediums and challenge the artist inside of you!

 Every first Friday is a special event at the Bellevue Art Museum.   Please click on this link to see information about April's art event.