Tunnel Book Workshop - July 29, 2014

I will be offering a tunnel book workshop on Tuesday July 29th at 9:30-12 and, if the first class if full, from 12:15-2:45pm at Leidys Church in Souderton. A tunnel book is a three dimensional, layered book. Each page has cut outs with the back page being solid.  This adds visual interest as the viewer looks at all the layers and reads the poem. Yes, we will be writing a Haiku poem that will be the illustrations in our book.  If you sign up, I will send information on how to write the poem so participants can have ideas before they come to the session.  I will also have poems available in case of writers block. 

Tunnel books appeared in the late 1800s as a book to commemorate special events or sold as souvenirs of tourist attractions.   The name came from a book made for the opening of the tunnel under the Thames River in England.  They were referred to as "peep shows".  The page openings allow the viewer to see through the entire books and the "pop out" images on each page work together to create a dimensional scene.

The workshop is open to students and parents. I had moms attend the art journaling workshop last summer!  My only requirement is that your child can measure 3/4" and 1" borders and be able to cut out their drawings on four pages. I will check everyone's work, but will be unable to measure out the pages for everyone.

Warm and Cool Sun

This week will be a continuation of color theory for the 10 am class and an overview for the 11:30 class.  

A color wheel (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet) is divided into warm and cool colors.  Warm colors (red, orange, yellow) are vivid and energetic and tend to advance or appear more active in a painting.  Cool colors (blue, green, violet) give an impression of being calm and soothing, they also tend to recede in a painting.

 

This week we will begin a painted canvas project of a sun.  Students will trace a circle to make the correct size of the sun's face. We will divide the face in half to give it a cubism look. We will add rays using straight and curved lines. Students will paint their sun using warm and cool colors. They can mix white paint to give them a tint of that color therefore creating a larger paint palette to work with.

This sun was painted, starting at the left moving right, cool, warm, cool, warm, cool, warm. 

If the above is to complicated, students can simplify and do half the face cool and half warm or a warm sun and cool background or cool sun and warm background.  This is example was done in crayon showing half cool and half warm.  Our project will be painted.

crayon example, our project will be painted

"Down the Well" - 6/3 (11:30 am class)

This lessons is packed with the elements of art. We will be working with five out of seven elements (line, shape, color, space, value). Lines will be used to create shapes (circle, rectangle), space will be represented by foreground, middle and background, we will use color and value to further show perspective. Perspective is the drawing of solid objects on a two dimensional surface and gives the impression of height, width and depth.

We will be drawing a well with an object trapped at the bottom. What got dropped/fell down your well? A frog, mouse, kitten, baseball, food wrapper... Students will start with a circle in one of the upper corners.  We will use curved lines and vary the size and spacing to show perspective. I traced my bricks in marker.

Objects will be drawn around the top of the well.  These get drawn lightly to show distance. The bricks will be colored in using value: dark to light.  This will help add the illusion of depth.

Down the Well - perspective

Color Wheel Chameleons - 6/3 (10 am class)

Color theory has three basic categories: color harmony, the context of how colors are used and color wheel which is what we are focusing on in this lesson.  Sir Isaac Newton developed the first circular diagram of color in 1666.  The color wheel consists of primary, secondary and tertiary colors. All our colors come from just three (primary) colors: red, blue, yellow.

Rather than do a traditional color wheel, we will create ours in the form of a chameleon. Chameleons are a lizard. The 160 species come in a wide range of colors - perfect for a color wheel!  We will do a practice drawing first then redraw on our good sheet.  Since they are found in warm climates, rain forests and deserts, students will have a choice as to the setting for their chameleon.

We will be using primary and secondary colors for this project. Students will have a choice of crayons or color pencils.

color wheel chameleon