In the Style of van Gogh: Painted Collage

One of my favorite paintings, especially this time of year, is "Siesta" by van Gogh, 1889 - 1890.  It also sometimes titled "Meridian" or "Rest".


I had the pleasure of seeing it in person at the Orsay in Paris and the texture of the brushstrokes immediately places you in that field.

What a good place to start with a painted paper collage.

MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- wc or heavy sketch paper for painting
- newspaper
- brown kraft paper
- disk tempera, liquid tempera, and/or acrylic
- sponge
- scissors
- glue
- charcoal
- colored pencils or crayons
- reference photos

PROCEDURE:

So this is a 2 session project.  One for painting and one for cutting/pasting. 


Take your heavy sketch paper or wc paper, this will be your background substrate.

With blue paint  cover at least half the paper on the diagonal.  Now with kids I just have them paint the entire page.  Set aside to dry.

Newspaper is one of my favorite art materials.  You will need 3 1/2 sheets.

With the same blue paint you were using paint over one 1/2 sheet.  Add a little white so you have a page that goes from dark blue to light.


Set aside to dry.

Paint the next piece brown and one yellow.

Take the brown sheet.  Using liquid tempera and/or acrylic paint 1/2 of the sheet with darker colours and one with lighter colors.  You also want different brushstrokes for each half.


One side has skinny diagonals and one side has wavy.

It's up to you what you do just be consistent on the half.

Here on the yellow I'm using a piece of cardboard to make my lines.

Leave your newspaper to dry.

By now your background should be dry.

Grab your sponge.  Now it can be a sea sponge or a manufactured one.


Put a little white tempera or acrylic on a plate.

If using a manufactured sponge make sure your tear a chunk off.  You want an uneven surface on the sponge.

Sponge on some white paint on the diagonal.


I ask the kids to turn their hand each time they sponge so you get variation in the sponging.




Let dry.

Take your brown kraft paper and cut a rectangle that fits in the lower 1/2 or 2/3rds of your background.  I pencil in a mark on the kraft paper so I know where to cut.


Don't attach just yet.

Using the painted newspaper start cutting out the other parts of your background.


Here is the light field.

The medium value haystack.

The dark value haystack.

Using glue secure the pieces into place.

Add some pieces to the front, (foreground).







Now with crayon or

colored pencil add in some grass details onto the kraft paper.

With the blue paper you painted sketch out the figures.

Cut out and add to the collage.  For the faces, feet, and hands I used the reverse side of the painted newspaper.

Add some shading and details to the figures with charcoal and crayon/colored pencil.

You could also sketch out the figures on white paper.

Add colour and then cut and paste onto your collage.

That's it.

Onto the results for the giveaway of the DVD Series, "Understanding Art: Impressionism" with Waldemar Januszczak.

I had a total of 57 entries and the winner by random draw is:

Here are your random numbers:

33

Timestamp: 2012-09-28 19:35:59 UTC


Which works out to be Jess who left this comment,

"Hi Gail! I have you on my google reader and I always look forward to your blog. I teach art to grades 4-8. Would love to win the DVDs! Thanks for sharing your ideas. "

Congratulations Jess!  Please email me at thatartistwoman@shaw.ca so I can arrange delivery.   Thanks everyone for entering.

See you next week.

In the Style of van Gogh: Remembrance Day Painting and Giveaway Results

This is "Field of Poppies" by Vincent van Gogh 1890.

As a Remembrance Day art project I wanted Grade 3 to try and recreate this composition.

This was the sample I used for the class.

Those of you who attended my ECEC workshop on "From Primitive to Post Modern" will recall my comments on teaching Impressionism to kids.

The difficulty with painted art projects is that the kids get so intent on those dabs of paint that often you lose the composition...it's gets away from them.  You can try this method to help keep it together.







MATERIALS REQUIRED:

- disk tempera paint (blue, green, yellow)
- powdered tempera paint (blue, green, yellow, white, red)
- containers to mix up paint in
- water
- paintbrushes, art boards
- wc paper or heavy sketch paper, even white cardstock will suffice
- reference photos
- pencil


PROCEDURE:

Take your wc paper and tape off onto your art board.  My initial sample was quite large when I realized it was probably better for the kids to only focus on a smaller sized project. (8 x 10)

Show the kids reference photos, discuss Impressionism in terms of art history, the idea of a fleeting moment or that visual rush of movement. (i.e. spinning round in a field).  Discuss the way van Gogh used brushstrokes and heavy paint texture to achieve that movement.
I had the kids draw a horizon line and then asked them to draw another line in the ground section to create 2 meadows.

Then using the disk tempura I asked them to paint a wash in each section.  Blue for the sky and green and yellow for the meadow.







Let dry.

Mix up your powdered tempera. You want it quite thick and using small brushes get the kids to add those dabs of paint on top of the now dry wash.  I asked the kids to vary their brushstrokes so that the kind the used for the sky, say sideways, was different from the brushstrokes to represent the grass.

I also asked them to clump their brushstrokes.  I was trying to prevent them from creating just a pattern of dots.  This needed to be reinforced as they would get into this repeating action of just dabbing.  That holding back so there was some negative space on the paper proved difficult for some of them.

The poppies were added last.  I also asked them to place a few green dabs in a line in the sky to represent those far off trees.  Let the paint dry.

Finally we added trunks to our trees using a fine sharpie.  Mount on black paper for final presentation.    That's it.  I'm hoping to have more pictures of the final student results for you later today.

On to the giveaway, I had a total of 56 entries for the "Crazy for Cake Pops" by Molly Bakes. 

After a random draw the winner was my 23rd email entry which turned out to be Rhonda who emailed me yesterday and said:

"Love your posts! Would love to win book and begin making cake pops with my daughter! Thanks, Rhonda"

Thanks everyone for entering!  Due the holiday on Friday I probably won't be back till next week with more projects I featured at the conference and of course new holiday projects as Christmas is creeping up fast.  See you then.