Table Top Painting and Drawing Part 2

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….I finished my on-line course this week

I really enjoyed this on-line class with Diane Culhane. I don’t always finish all the assignments but for some reason this class held my interest and the assignments didn’t inhibit me. Carla Sonheim really has a knack for finding amazing art instructors for her on-line classes.

The last three days of this six-day class involved painting on gessoed paper, a textured wood panel and glazed canvas and making glazes with acrylic paint. All the compositions consisted of table top still life arrangements that we had to create. Here are my creations in the order that I finished.

On gessoed paper.

On a textured wood panel.

On a glazed canvas.

Painting Your Garden

Posted on July 3, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..I’ve just completed another on-line painting course hosted by Carla Sonheim and taught by Diane Culhane

I loved this class. It was the first time I painted on wood and the first time I used the palette of paint from one assignment as my canvas for the next assignment. There were six lessons in all with 3 large assignments all using different techniques or a combination of techniques from one week to the next.

The process involved putting gesso on the board to prep it for painting and then creating a garden scene inspired from your memory, magazine pictures, other artists or from your own garden. Most of my inspiration came from my imagination. The idea is not to create realistic flowers (but you can if you want) but to use a variety of techniques to create a more whimsical garden. It’s almost more like folk art. I loved doing this and am looking forward to creating more gardens. Maybe in future paintings I will include some buildings and maybe I’ll scratch in some fun characters coming out from behind the flowers.

Two Down and One Big One to Go

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Mama Cormier

…..paintings that is

Today the grade 5 students in my art class managed to finish painting all the circles and background of their art project for the silent auction. After school I started putting a second coat on some of the areas that needed it. Tomorrow I’ll pull a few more students out of class to go over the background one more time and then I’ll redraw the black lines around and inside the circles.

The two canvases that the one grade three class designed and painted had the finishing touch ups done today. Tomorrow I’ll have all the students sign the back of the canvases and they will be good to go. The first one actually has a grey background. I’m not sure why the colour looks so beige.

Hung Over 120 Pieces of Children’s Art This Week

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..90 of them were put up yesterday

I teach about 110 students art and I feel it’s important that every child’s work should be displayed. This week I knew it was time to take down some of the older work and replace it with newer assignments.

In grade 5, I taught the students about the colour wheel. Even though I’ve taught art as a prep coverage subject for only the last two years, when I had a grade 5 homeroom I always did my own art. So for the last 14 years, the colour wheel was always been an important aspect of my art program. This year I decided to change it up a bit and instead of giving them a prepared wheel that they added colour to, I had the students create their own wheels and I encouraged them to be somewhat creative while remaining true to the colours and placement of the colours.

Once the acrylic paint dried I had the students take it one step further and add a splash of Zentangle designs to their wheels. Zentangle is an art form using structured repetitive patterns to create beautiful images. It’s like doodling but more carefully applied. Here are a few examples of their amazing work:

The other 90 pieces that I hung yesterday were inspired by Picasso’s Peace Art. Here’s a sneak preview.

I’ll post the lesson in the next day or so. Have a great weekend!

Letting Their Creative Juices Flow

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….or how grade 2s paint when left alone

Yesterday in my art class I worked closely with my grade 3s while I asked the grade 2s to work more independently. In the last class the grade 2s started a monochromatic multimedia painting. They were instructed to find black and white pictures, puzzles, headings and text from the newspaper that represented a theme (e.g., numbers, words, sports, puzzles, love, money) and glue them onto a piece of paper in an interesting pattern. Then they had to choose one colour and using water colour paint they created a wash over their pictures and words.

In yesterday’s class they continued adding more paint and detail to their art work. I allowed them to use acrylic paints, stamps and sharpies. The only instruction I gave them was to bring the paints to me so that I could squeeze a small amount onto their plates. They were very excited about using acrylics for the first time.

As I was helping the grade 3s with their quilting project the occasional grade 2 came to me to ask for advice. No one brought the paint to me. I should have been suspicious about their use of the acrylics but I was so caught up in the sewing project that I didn’t check how the acrylics were being used. I was totally oblivious until one of my students came to me to tell me that the brand new tube of white acrylic was empty. What????????? I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t really fault the grade 2s for using too much paint, except that the only instruction I gave they chose to ignore. In the end I love the finished projects. Some of them need a little more tweaking but they are 90% done. Only one student didn’t quite get the monochromatic theme but I liked how it turned out and it is mostly green.

Some of the students finished early so I gave them an old floppy disc that we had gessoed in an earlier class. I showed them some pictures of famous paintings for inspiration and then gave them free reign to create anything they wanted. They loved it. Here are some of their masterpieces.