Pastel Resist Night Skyline

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope it was a good break.  I was in Florida with my family.  It was nice to see flowers and green grass again.

I'm back at it, scheduled into residencies up until Spring break.

This week's project is one I presented at ECEC as part of my Canadian series, pastel resist skylines.  This is Toronto but any skyline will do.  My hometown here in Calgary also works well with reflections in the Bow river.






MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- reference photo of skyline
- white drawing paper, pastels work well on paper with a little bit of tooth or roughness
- green painter's tape, art board
- pencil, eraser, ruler
- oil pastels
- black sharpie
- disk tempera paint

PROCEDURE:

Place your paper onto your art board and tape into place.  This will give you that nice clean edge at the end.


In pencil draw out your skyline.  You can use a reference photo to draw a specific city or just have the kids create their own.  Draw a horizon line in the lower third of your paper.  Your skyline will be reflected in this lower section.  Most cities are near water and this water is where we see the reflections.

Go over your skyline with sharpie or permanent black marker, just the outline.

The skyline is a nighttime scene.  With oil pastel add in all the windows and the lights on top of the buildings.

I used some black pastel to define the horizon line and some of the sides of the buildings.

In the lower third, the water, smudge in the reflections.  You want them to correspond to the buildings so smudge long rectangles of colour.
Don't forget the moon if you have added one.

When the pastel has all been added it's time to add the paint.

Start at the horizon line. Working up add some purple paint, gradually make it darker purple adding some blue and then black when you reach the top.

The part below the horizon is darker than the sky.  A little purple but mostly black.

When the top of the horizon line has dried (it takes only minutes), go over the buildings with black tempera.  This is the secret and makes them stand out from the sky.

When it has fully dried remove the painter's tape.



With our short days in January this project fits well.  If you are starting an Olympic theme there is a great night skyline of Sochi here just click on #3.

Here is another skyline project you could try:


 Night or Day Skylines.



Give it a try and I'll see you next time.

Pastel Resist Bugs

Bugs are a popular curriculum topic right now.

This is a project I did a couple of weeks ago with Grade 2.
We went big, colourful and shiny!









MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- brown kraft paper, or paper bags
- pencil and eraser
- bug reference books/pictures if needed
- black sharpie
- oil pastels
- tempera disk paint
- metallic acrylic paints
- shimmer mist, optional
- scissors

PROCEDURE:

On a large piece of kraft paper draw a big bug.

Use as much of the paper as you can and when drawing legs and antennae don't just draw a single line use shapes, (squares, rectangles, triangles, circles) to form them.

On this bug you can see triangles used for the legs.

Outline everything with black sharpie but no colouring in with the sharpie.

Using oil pastels colour in your bug.  Use bright colours and allow some of the paper to show thru the pastel.

After you have coloured it all in choose 1 colour of tempera disk paint.  We used red and blue.  Apply a wash over the entire bug.  For the kids I put the disk into a separate container and add some water.

We use big brushes and I ask them to dip into the water and then go in on the disk to get nice bright colour.

Using metallic acrylic paints and the ends of paintbrushes add dots of metallic paint to your bug.

You can add some shimmer mist if you want to get that iridescent look.    The ones I used were inks which can be expensive to buy but you can also make your own.  Buy a travel mist bottle (dollar store) add a marble, pour in some metallic ink (look where the calligraphy supplies are in the art store) and you are good to go. Because this is ink it was applied by an adult.

Shake bottle well and then spray mist on.  Click on the next 2 photos for a closer look.

We used gold and pearl.

When the paper is dry cut out with scissors.

Mount on paper or just display as is.

That's it.

We also have been making lots of Mother's Day pieces.  I have made hundreds of these stepping stones in the last few days, buying concrete like crazy at the hardware store!

See you soon.

King Tut Pastel Resist

One of my all time favorite techniques is oil pastel resist.  It never fails, always amazes the kids, and produces fantastic results.




I've been taking an Ancient Civilizations history class as inspiration and although there is lots of great material to pull from I couldn't resist trying it on the nemes headdress, which is the striped cloth worn by the pharaohs.

King Tutankhamen's golden mask is probably one of the most well known representation.












MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- brown kraft paper
- reference photos
- pencil and eraser
- oil pastels
- blue disk tempera paint
- black paper for mounting
- white paper
- black and blue sharpie or felt marker
- red and turquoise colored/painted paper
- glue
- gold acrylic paint
- a few jewel embellishments

PROCEDURE:

Take a piece of brown kraft paper.  Using a reference photo draw an outline of the mask.

Take yellow oil pastels and start to fill in the lines on the nemes. 

You want the lines vertical on the top of the headdress, horizontal on the sides.

The Pharaoh's also wore elaborate collars. This is represented in the golden mask as well.  Make these lines curved along the neckline.

Taking blue disk tempera paint, paint over the oil pastel.

On white paper draw out the face and neck.

Paint in the face and neck with gold acrylic paint or yellow tempera.

I like to add yellow acrylic to my gold acrylic paint to brighten it up a bit.  I also find most metallic acrylic paint to be quite translucent these days.  By adding yellow or brown to gold, white or grey to silver, and orange or brown to copper you will brighten that color and make it more opaque.

Paint some extra gold while you are at it for the cobra and vulture heads at the top of the headdress.


Cut out the headdress from the kraft paper.

Cut out the head and neck from the gold painted paper.  Glue into place on the headdress.





Using the black oil pastel add some shading to the face and neck.  Put in a chin line, shade the cowl around the neck, put in the nose and the lips.

On a scrap of white paper trace out the eyes in pencil.  Outline them with blue sharpie or felt marker. Put the pupil in with black pastel.  You want the pupil to touch the top of the blue outline.

Cut out and glue into place.

Using the black sharpie or marker add heavy brows as well as some eyeliner.


You could also use black paint here if you wish.

Take some red and turquoise paper.  This could be cardstock, scrapbooking paper or better yet some painted paper.

Using the extra gold paper make the vulture head and the cobra for the top of the headdress.  Add the mosaic (inlay) to the collar as well.  Add the braided false beard on the chin.  In the gold mask it appears to be quite blue/ almost mauve.

Add a few jewels for embellishment if you wish.

Mount on to black paper.  You can also add a few gold touches with leftover paint if you wish.

That's it.


Have a great weekend everyone and I'll see you next week.

Easy Easter Art Project

I had honestly thought I posted this project years ago....oh well this one's for you Kim!  (you'll notice a theme here with the last post)



I have been immersed in Pysanky classes for about 2 weeks now.  Usually not all students will finish at the same time.  You have your ones who race to the finish, those who try to take as much time as they can, and then everyone in between.

As the kids finish their Pysanky egg they then can complete this pastel resist paper egg.

You then have a nice display for your bulletin board.


This is Grade 1.















MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- white paper, use heavy sketch or wc
- pencil and eraser
- oil pastels
- disk tempera paint
- scissors

PROCEDURE:

Draw a large egg shape on your paper.  For the younger grades you can provide them with a template.

Sketch out your own Pysanky design in pencil.  You want fairly large shapes.

Use the oil pastels to add some color to your egg.  Bright colors show up best including white.


Keep some areas of the egg uncolored.



You can also outline the egg shape.

Using watery disk tempera (a wash) paint over the entire egg.  The pastel areas will resist the paint.

When dry cut the egg out.

That's it.  Before you know it you'll have dozens of decorated eggs.

Here are some pictures of our Pysanky in process.


This is Grade 2.

Here are the Grade 3 eggs waiting for the wax to be taken off.

And even though I'm teaching Pysanky all day long I come home and work on my own eggs with my kids as well.

I'll have some completed Pysanky pictures for you Friday.  In the meantime why not do a large pastel resist paper egg!

See you soon.