Poppy Portraits

Every year I try to come up with a new art project for Remembrance Day.

This is the one we did this year.

This was with Grade 1 and it worked very well.













MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- paper for painting, we used watercolour for background and regular white paper for our poppies
- disk tempera paint in blue, yellow, and red
- oil pastels
- black and grey crayons 
- scissors and glue
- masking tape
- black paper, black buttons and poppy seeds
- printed paper with our remembrance day words

PROCEDURE:

I prepped art boards for all the students.  I taped off a border and then a section where the table will be.

We took oil pastels in dark blue, light blue and white and I had them draw circles in the large section of the paper.

Some were very ordered and precise with rows of circles and some just scribbled circles all over.  I found the scribbled circles tended to look better.

The students then painted the large section with blue disk tempera paint.




Set aside too dry.

While our background dries I gave them some extra paper.  One I crimped with my crimper for texture.

On the other piece I had them draw circles again with black and/or grey crayon.

We painted these papers.  I used red disk tempera for the paper with the crayon circles and red acrylic for the crimped.

I was trying to get 2 different shades of red.

Set aside too dry.

Back to the background.  I took the tape where the table is and moved it up so it was on the edge of the blue background.

Now with yellow disk tempera we painted in the table.

I made up sheets of repeating words in different fonts and sizes.  They were all related to Remembrance Day.


We painted them with some watery grey paint.  This is to make it less stark and darken the value (colour value) of this component.

Set aside too dry.

On the back of the paper with the words we draw out a vase.

Cut it out and glue into place on the background.  Make sure it is touching the table.

On the back of our red poppy paper we draw some poppies and cut them out.

You want at least 3.

Before we glue them on we use green pastel and draw in the stems and one or two leaves.

If they are different heights it looks better.



Glue poppies on.

For the centers we used 3 different materials:

- black paper
- black buttons
- poppy seeds

This gave each of them an interesting look and lots of discussion, especially about the poppy seeds.

Finally we outlined our vases with black oil pastel and smudged it a bit.

This helped to visually bring the vase forward in the composition.

That's it.  Great job Grade 1!


Gail

Negative Poppy Painting

Here is the next poppy project that I came up with, a negative poppy painting.

Negative painting is a hard skill to grasp so I love that this project gives students more practice at it.


















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- watercolour or heavy painting paper
- masking tape
- watercolour or disk tempera paint
- sea salt
- pencil
- black acrylic paint

PROCEDURE:

I start by taping off my watercolour paper to my art board.

This will give me that nice finished edge.


Using reds, orange, yellow and a little purple and blue I paint the paper. I am using a lot of water to make the paint flow.  The purple and blue are mixed with the red before dropping onto the paper to create the dark reds.

I also scatter some sea salt onto the paint at the end before the paint dries.
Set painting aside to dry.

When painting is dry brush off the salt.  You can see the effect you get in this picture.

Now I need to decide where my poppy flowers will be.  I look at the paint and choose my favourite spots, places where the colours are rich and where the salt has created amazing effects.

I draw the outline of my flowers in these places including the stems and a few leaves.

Taking black acrylic paint I begin to paint around the flowers following my pencil lines.

I paint the spaces inside between the flowers using a smaller brush.

When I have painted all the negative space black I leave my painting to dry.

When it has dried I remove the tape. The last thing I do and this is optional as the painting is pretty awesome as it is right now, I paint in a few shadows with a mix of watery blue and black.  I use a small brush again and I'm very selective where I'm adding this.

That's it.

I love the way it turned out.



Gail

Chalk Pastel Poppies

I have already had requests for new Poppy projects for November so I have come up with a few.


This is a chalk pastel version using the white glue on black paper method.

I am very fond of this technique as it always produces winners but I added a bit of twist this time.


















MATERIALS NEEDED:

- black paper, you want some tooth or texture so black sketch paper or construction paper works great
- chalk pastels
- white school or tacky glue
- acrylic or liquid tempera
- charcoal and pencil crayons

PROCEDURE:

With a pencil draw out your design on black paper.

Overlapping some of the poppies and stems helps create a good composition. You need enough space between your lines so that the glue won't just run all together.

Using white school glue or tacky glue go over your lines with a bead of glue.

Keep paper flat to dry.

When the glue has dried it's time to add the chalk pastel.

For smudging I like to use kleenex and q-tips for the tight spaces.

When I am using chalk pastels I approach it just like a painting, adding light colours for highlights, dark colours for shadows.  Each poppy is made up of several colours not just red.

Here are the poppies all filled in.

Now you could just stop here or add a background.  I wanted a background but I did not want to use chalk pastel.

First off that would have been a lot of chalk pastel, most schools have a limited supply of pastels. Second it could easily become messy with the smudging, although I have my glue lines for definition chances are some of the background colour would wind up on the poppies.

So I chose to use acrylic paint. You want a colour that will give you a chalkboard like effect so pick a lighter more 'pastel' colour.


Do not add water we are doing a dry brush method here.

You can see what I mean here. I am also criss crossing my strokes.  I do this because the brush strokes show up quite a bit using this method and I don't want long brush stroke lines that the eye will follow rather than looking at my poppies.

When the paint dries I decide to take it a bit further.

Using a charcoal pencil I add some shadow around the poppies on the left.

I also add some pencil crayon, layering on some different shades of blue. I am doing this lightly just to add some depth to the background.

Finally I just add little white paint to the upper right corner. I'm just using my finger to rub it in.

That's it. I quite like using the paint for the background and I can see that this will become my primary method from now on.



See you next time.

Gail

Poppy Patterns

This year's Remembrance Day art project is the result of 2 main inspirations,  Project Runway's red palette challenge this week and last week's"Make it Artsy" segment on Rebekah Meier's circle mandalas.

If you haven't checked out "Make it Artsy" it is well worth your time.  I just watch the episode online as it's not carried by KSPS. I watch with my design journal right next to me as the ideas just start to pour out.






MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- basket coffee filters
- liquid tempera or acrylic paint in red, black and white
- glue
- circle shapes for tracing
- scissors
- printmaking materials like cardboard, pencils, skewers, little cups
- white and black pencil crayons
- buttons, beads, and/or poppy seeds, optional
- paper for background

PROCEDURE:

The first step is to paint your coffee filters. I started out using disk tempera but the colour was very dull.  Liquid tempera and acrylic produced nice bright colour.

You need 1 bright red, 1 dark red, and 1 black painted coffee filter for each poppy.  From there you can mix and match.  Mix a tiny bit of black into your red to make the dark red.

If you want a background pattern on your poppy add it before we start cutting.

Here I am using a cup and making circle shapes.  Stay in our limited colour palette of red (light and dark), black, and white.

When the coffee filters are dry you want to cut different ring shapes from them to construct your poppy.

Use circle shapes from around the classroom as templates.

I folded mine for easier cutting.

You can also cut your rings to have a more natural petal shape.

Now you can add more patterns to the parts of your poppy.

Here I use a piece of cardboard to make lines.

Here I added dots using the end of a pencil and a skewer.

I had not cut this one in rings but later I needed to.  It was a lot harder to cut the ring after I put the pattern on.  Note to self : have students cut rings first.

You can use pencil crayon to add details.

Mix and match your ring shapes.

Use the black coffee filter as the base.  Glue your rings on top letting some of the black filter exposed.

You can embellish them with some buttons, poppy seeds, beads, whatever you have on hand.

You can add extra details if needed.

For the background I painted the paper grey with black and white disk tempera.

Glue poppies on background.

That's it.

Hope you give this one a try.

Gail