Week 2 of Art Activities for Young Artists

STUDENTS' RESPONSES TO WEEK 2 

Leah, age 11

Madelyn, age 9 & Anna Kate, age 14

Emika, age 8

Kou

Anna

Check this out! Maria, age 16, recently painted this on her bedroom wall!

Camden, age 10

A Magnolia, by Camille, age 16.

Welcome back for a second week of art activities to do at home! 
This week's lesson plan is a continuation of what we did last week, which was a value drawing, done with a pencil.  This kind of value drawing is a foundation of art and helps us become better at making our drawings and paintings look as though they are more 3-D - not just flat looking, like a cartoon.  It is fine to draw cartoons, but showing how light hits objects and where shadows fall, can give our drawings a more dramatic look, even if we love drawing cartoons.  It also helps us with painting.  This activity builds upon last week's activity.  This time we get to add color.  You can use any material you may want, in order to add color to your drawing of an object from nature.  Choosing an object from nature, is just a way to get you up and out of the house.  It is healthy for your mind and body to move around outside and it helps us to learn to appreciate the world around us.  Sunshine and fresh air are things we have not had a lot of lately, having been shut in during winter and rains.  Now we are finally able to warm ourselves  in the light.  What could be a more inspiring way to get ready to do some art!  
I used crayons for this art activity.  I never use crayons and it would be difficult to even find crayons in the Art Matters studio.  I probably try to provide everything, except crayons, as I want artists to experiment with a wide variety of materials they have never used before.  But this time, I am challenging you to do something with crayons that perhaps you have never tried before!  The challenge is to add thick waxy layers upon layers to your drawing and to build these layers, so that every bit of your paper is covered with thick wax from crayons.  Leave no part of the paper white or unfinished.  Use white crayon if you want something to be white.  Experiment with putting different colors on top of one another, seeing how darker layers of color glow through the lighter colors you put on top of them.  Show the darkest parts of your object.  Show the lightest parts.
If you will choose to do this week's project- especially the part about the building up of wax on your paper- I will show you something else you can do with your waxy crayon painting next week!  Give it a try and send a picture of your art to me!  I will post it here!  Not inspired by this crayon project?  Another choice is drawing pictures of your friends.  You may want to share these drawings you make with your friends.  They can also be value drawings, done with pencil.  Or they can be simple line cartoons of your friends. Maybe you will use them to inspire you to make up stories that star some of your friends as main characters.  Need photos of your friends to help you get a likeness?  Perhaps your grownups can help you obtain a photo of your friend from social media.  This is the age of the selfie.  There really is a photo of almost everyone on social media and chances are your grown ups at your house can help you find just the face you are looking for!  I hope to hear from you about how your art is going, no matter what you decide to do.  Check back again with me next week, when I will have something very different to share with you.  Take care until then!  

P.S.  We have continued with this O'Keeffe theme for the month of March, however, just because I chose to draw and paint flowers, this month, does not mean you have to do so.  I am showing in the gallery below how O'Keeffe painted lots of objects she found in nature:  rocks, shells, leaves, even trees.  Sometimes she would hold an object up to the sky and often painted the sky in the background.  Sometimes she just painted the sky.  The challenge is to go outside and draw what you see.  This time add color!

Rock on top of rock.

Value drawing of a shell.

Leaf on top of leaf.

Succulent plant.

A bone or other object held up to the sky.

Is this how a tree looks to you? How about if you lie down under a tree and look up at it?

Lots of folks do have an animal skull after all. It is more common to find these out west, where folks live in the desert. But today, it's even more common to find them in homes, because of O'Keeffe...

Unusual view of clouds. How do they look when you view them?