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

Poppy Printmaking

As we move forward to Remembrance Day I have been trying a few printmaking projects with the students.






This one was done on a black painted background but black construction paper would work.

This one is just on plain white paper.












MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- craft foam, white or lighter colours work best.  You could also use scratch foam or a foam plate or container
- pencil
- cardboard
- acrylic or liquid tempera paint
- paintbrush
- pencil crayons
- paper for printing on

PROCEDURE:

I really like using craft foam for printmaking.  Kids can just draw on it with a pencil, pushing hard enough that they can feel the design with their fingertips.

Scratch foam also works good and if you can't get your hands on that you can cut the middle out of a foam plate or container.

Here I just drew out pieces of a poppy.  Flowers, leaves, buds, and centres.  Adding contour and texture lines will enhance the print.

I buy sticky foam.  I cut the shapes out, peel and stick to some cardboard, cut out the general shape from the cardboard and then add a handle to the back with more cardboard.

I use my glue gun to stick on the handle as I'm impatient and want to get printing right away.

You could also use a loop of masking tape and tape the foam to the cardboard if you don't have sticky foam.  You could also tape them to the clear Plexiglas blocks if you use those for printing.

You can use printing ink if you have it but I tend to use acrylic paint.

I add just a touch of water to help it flow.  Now you could use a brayer to apply or a paintbrush.

If using a paint brush make a circular motion when painting, that way you won't get brush marks on the print.

Flip stamp over, place where you want on design and press.

The second print from the stamp, (without reloading with paint) is called the ghost print.  Sometimes that is the better print.

I work with 2 pieces of paper and sometimes I mix first prints and ghost prints together in a composition.

Here I'm giving my stamp a spritz with water before doing the ghost as I waited too long between prints.

That one turned out pretty good!

Continue printing.  I added some stems with a paintbrush.  Printed on the leaves and buds.
Finally I added the centre in black.

When the print is dry you can add some extra details and shading with pencil crayons if you want.

Another great thing you can do with sticky foam is cut it into thin strips and "draw" out your image.  I used cardboard as the base.


This will give you an outline of your  image.

See you next time.

Gail

Poppies in the Art Journal

Looking for a poppy themed art project for the art journal…..or maybe the bulletin board.


This is a very easy poppy project, no special supplies.










MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- paper or journal page
- reference photo
- black washable markers, the regular crayola, Mr. Sketch, etc.
- disk tempera paint
- red paper, optional
- glue, optional
- fine sharpie or your favourite pen if you want to add text to your page

PROCEDURE:

A big thanks to Mrs. Werbicki who was the inspiration for this project. She used this technique a lot, doing leaves, then pumpkins, and finally poppies in Grade 2.

Provide students with a reference photo to point them in the right direction.

Have them draw some poppies.  I like to stress that poppies can be irregular, no perfect petals.
We also tend to see them at different angles, not all straight on.  We may only see half of one, the side view of another.

This will make the drawing look more realistic right off the bat.

Add a pod or 2.

You now need those washable markers. Most kids have them with their school supplies.

Outline all the flowers.

Using disk tempera start painting in the poppies.  We work from lightest colour to darkest.

We want variation in the colour of  our poppies so paint some parts yellow.

Add some orange and then some red. The colours all start to mingle and we get that variation I mentioned.

Add some green for the stems and pods.  Finally add some black in the centres.


I also splashed some paint on my background.

Here is where the magic happens.  The water in the paint makes the marker start to smear creating   a great soft look.

Take some red paper.  Here I have some extra painted paper I had.  I ran it thru my cuttlebug with an embossing folder to get some nice texture.

Cut out the letters for Poppy.

Glue the letters on your page and then add some text, a poem, or just your thoughts on Remembrance Day.





That's it.

Gail