plenty of portraits.

Last week the 2nd and 5th grade classes experimented with making tints of colors while creating portraits. Both grades used chalk pastels for these drawings, so the process was a lot of messy fun:)

The 2nds looked at the work of Argentinian painter Dan Casado for inspiration. We talked about how he exaggerates and changes the face parts, and that we can still recognize his people as people. We also noticed how he uses bold outlines to separate those face parts and other background elements.

We started by practicing a portrait on smaller paper and as we went along I modeled different ways they could approach the shapes. If they wanted to go at shapes differently, I encouraged them to try it out. We also added background elements that added to the personal quality of the drawings. For the final drawing, we drew them out on 12x14" brown paper, traced the lines with black crayon, and add chalk pastels to the paper.

When applying the pastels, we practiced not resting hands and arms on the paper to keep the paper (and ourselves) as clean as possible. Once we had most of the paper colored, I modeled adding white to certain areas to make lighter versions of those colors. I also then showed them how to smooth or blend certain areas with a finger (just one:)

I loved seeing the wide variety in face/background shapes, and color choices in these. Some kids were very delicate in their pastel handling, while others were much more aggressive and bold in approach.

The 5ths also looked at Dan's work for inspiration, but we also compared and contrasted his work with the work of San Diego based artist Gloria Muriel. She's one of my favorite artists working right now and I have been fortunate enough to see her at work while she was painting a mural in downtown San Diego. While Dan's forms are solid and blocky, Gloria's are much more elegant and flowing. Dan's portrait heads tend to take up the majority of the picture plane, while Gloria's more often are smaller in scale, allowing her to explore the rest of the space for hair, water, and other flowing natural elements. Despite all the differences, they both use bold dark lines throughout their compositions and both use tints of colors to great effect in their work.

After discussing the work of both artists, we set off to create a couple practice compositions inspired by their work. Kids could focus on the style of one or both artists. Furthermore, if someone went their own way with their portraits, that was okay, as long as they incorporated the required elements of bold lines and color tints. After sketching and sharing, we got to the large versions and like with the 2nds, I demonstrated chalk handling, creating tints, and blending colors.

I have been blown away by the diversity in portraits with this project. So many different compositions and takes on the portrait concept.

painting portraits.

This week the 2nds and 5ths have been experimenting with paint as they create portraits. Thw 2nd graders are looking at a couple images by Cbabi Bayoc and the 5th graders are looking at some paintings by Maurice Evans. Both grade levels are still exploring 3d space and volume in art.

The 2nds have looked at the images below by Cbabi Bayoc. we've talked about how he changes the human form a bit. We have noticed that even though his portraits are different than the Coronado Bridge landscapes they did, he still uses overlapping to create 3d space. When painting, we have tried to make light and dark colors by adding more or less water to the tempera cakes in order to make the shapes seem more solid.

The 5th graders are making portraits of musicians that are based on the work of Maurice Evans. We are looking at how he uses size to create space in a short distance in his portraits. The hands of his subjects are exaggerated in size, but the largeness of them compared to the size of the heads, creates distance and drama. When painting, we are trying to use dark and light color values to create 3d forms in places.

Again, this week, both projects have been pretty direct with choice coming in to play in the painting portion. The next time I see both grade levels for printmaking, there will be more room for choice throughout the artistic process. As with the chalk pastel lesson, I am using more control in terms of subject and process, so that they gain experience with the materials while demonstrating a beginning grasp of creating different effects with them.

making faces:)

This week the 1st graders are revisiting the use of value and secondary colors in art. Many of the classes created MLK portraits with their classroom teachers a few weeks ago, so I decided to apply these concepts to a different type of portrait with the help of an image by Tunisian artist Ayat Taieb.

We looked at this portrait and identified the primary and secondary colors in it. We also talked about how some colors are lighter than others. We also took a few minutes to identify the different portraits I have in my classroom. What the kids discovered was that the look of portraits are not the same- artists can make a portrait in a lot of different styles and use a lot of different materials.

We used chalk pastels for this project, so kids could get practice mixing colors with different materials, so I emphasized that only their drawing tool should touch the paper to prevent unwanted smearing.

Students added white chalk to their paper to make it a lighter value first, then drew their portraits, and traced them with a black oil pastel for the contours to stand out more.

They then added primary colors to their portrait. Once the portrait was filled in, they could mix secondary colors in places.

The final step was to trace the contours one more time, so any lines that got obscured could be brought back to life:) This was a direct drawing lesson, but there ended up being a lot of different personalities present in the portraits.