Monday, October 18, 2010

schooled in san diego.

Andrew Holder is an illustrator who grew up right here in San Diego. Two of his biggest clients are Roxy and Urban Outfitters. He uses a variety of mediums in his illustrations, including acrylic paint and screen printing.

I like how he creates layers of depth and 3d space while filling his compositions with relatively flat shapes. He also uses pattern effectively to create variety and texture throughout his illustrations as well.

Since the kinders have been working with contour line and pattern, I thought Andrew's work would be a good introduction to pattern in landscape and the use of printmaking to create a final image in art.
I showed the kinders a number of Andrew's illustrations and talked about how these images of outside places are called landscapes. I then revisited the use of pattern in art and had students identify a few patterns in his work.

Instead of drawing on paper, students drew on the same material that they use as lunch trays at school. Students pressed into the styrofoam as they drew so they indented it. After coloring the shapes on their plate with color markers of their choice, I helped them transfer that image onto a dampened piece of paper.

I like using washable markers on some print projects because students can work with multiple colors at once and add color patterns to their images more easily. Plus, the clean up for me is SO easy. 

1. intro to Andrew's work 
2. draw landscape on styrofoam, working from the front of the composition to the back
3. add color with washable markers to each part of the composition
4. dampen white paper and place on top of styrofoam and rub evenly to transfer
5. coloring process may be repeated to create more than one image from the same plate





4 comments:

  1. Andrew couldn't add this comment, so he sent it to me. Great job kinders!


    Hey Donald,
    I tried to post on the site but I couldn't figure out the "comment as" part.
    Here is what I wrote though...

    These look amazing!
    I really like all the great shapes and patterns.
    Keep up the good work,
    Andrew Holder

    Please pass it along.
    Thanks,
    Andrew

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your blog is fantastic! A great resource for the small art class I teach. Thank you!!! This looks like a great project. Where do you find the styrofoam? Any recommendations?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Annie-
    Thanks for the kind words. We order our styrofoam thru sax art supply. Places like Michaels MAY carry it. For my personal work I oftern use the tops of styrofoam food containers. We get a lot of to-go sushi, so i always have a decent supply:)

    ReplyDelete