Wayne Thiebaud Inspired Cake

Our next project is based on the work of New Realism Artist Wayne Thiebaud. Born in 1920, Thiebaud became known in the 1950s and 1960s for his paintings of cakes and pastries.  Some say his work influenced the Pop Art movement of the 1960s (think Andy Warhol).

This is another step by step drawing to make the 3D looking cake. We start with the top oval, find the center, make some lines on an angle and you have a cake with a slice cut out.

 We will talk about tints (mix of color and white to increase lightness) and shades (mix of color and black to reduce lightness).  We will talk about a light source and how a shadow or darker area is present.  For my example, the light source is on the left side of the cake so the left side and inside right of the cake appear lighter. The inside left and outside right sides of the cake are darker because they are shadowed.  This balance of light and dark give the cake a 3 dimensional look.  For this project we will be using oil pastels.  The finished piece will be cut out, sit on a "plate" and glued on black paper for a dramatic effect.

Koi

A new session of home school art begins tomorrow. We are going to be painting Koi fish. We will talk about the symbolism of the Koi in Asia and look at photos of real fish as well as art work.  Students will work on watercolor paper, outline in sharpie and then paint with watercolors. We will use different shaped lines to draw the fish and work on controlling the light and darkness of the paint.

This looks complicated but I will go over step by step how to draw. It uses curved lines, little "C" on the mouth and eye area, a big "L" for the fin.

This is an easier version that students have the option of choosing.

ATCs for China

Artistic Trading Cards (ATCs) have been around since the mid 1990s.  They originated as a calling card or business card for artists.  They are original mini works of art that are traded: you give a card you get a card.  ATCs are now traded world wide.  I have a large collection from my years on yahoo art groups making and trading.  The only standard is they MUST be the size of a baseball card: 2-1/2" x 3-1/2".  Other than that, anything goes- paint, marker, crayons, collage...

While my husband, daughter, friend and I are in China we will be serving at a performing arts school that educates 135 very poor, rural mountain kids.  We will be teaching Bible lessons on Creation and Noah's Ark.  I plan on making ATCs with the Chinese kids with the themes of: weather, animals and food and trading them with the cards that I am bringing from kids here.

Here are some examples I made.  I still have a bit of coloring to do.

"Sunny" and playing around with Van Gogh's "Starry Nights".

These are some of the 90 cards made by my students at Grace Christian School.  I will be taking them to China, making trading cards with the students in China and returning home with the cards to swap out.

My son is working on this one.

Surrealism

Home school art classes will be working on a surrealism project based on Salvador Dali's "The Elephants" (picture further down).  Dali was a surrealism painter born in Spain in 1904.  As a child he created very detailed drawings at a young age.  His parents sent him to art school when he was older.  He studied classical style of painting and was introduced to Dada, an avant garde movement of art.

He met artists Picasso and Miro and tried cubism and impressionism and then met Magritte who introduced him to surrealism.

What is surrealism?  It is a philosophical movement that said the way to find the truth in the world was thru the subconscious mind and dreams rather than logical thought.  Hmm, sound way out there!  Dali studied Dr Sigmund Freud's theories and used this method to create reality from his dreams and subconscious thoughts.  He mentally changed reality to what he wanted it to be, not necessarily what it was.  This became his way of life and was expressed in his art.   Dali painted until 1980 and had to retire due to permanent trembling in his hands.  He died of a heart failure in 1989 at age 84.

"The Elephants", painted 1948.  Sorry still figuring out how to add photos!

Dali's most famous work "The Persistence of Memory", 1931

Art Party

I did an art party for a 13 year old's birthday this weekend.  The theme was whimsical birds.  The girls combined collage and paint on canvas.  They did a great job and everyone went home with a super cool piece of art work!

Update on Warm/Cool Suns

We spent a second class working and some students finishing up the warm/cool suns.  When completed we will outline the suns in black.

Look at the beautiful blending of warm colors in this project!

Finished project.  Nice job.

Drying after first class. I enjoy a project like this where the students are given some guidelines to work with and we end up with such a variety of work.

Paper Mache Plastic Eggs - Step II

Here is the finished egg. I used craft acrylic paints from AC Moore.  With all the texture from the paper mache, I needed several coats to get in all the cracks. It would be nice to seal the egg with Modge Podge or a gel medium.  Gel medium is found in the fine art section of the local craft stores or in an art catalog.  I prefer this over Modge Podge because the MP will get tacky in humid weather.  Gel medium can also be used as a glue in collage.  It comes in a matte or glossy finish.