Winter Magic ✩ Painting/Drawing for Young Artists ✩ Davis Arts Center ✩ Autumn 2015

Class Description: A furry polar bear in the snow and a little penguin on ice are two of the wintery scenes we will paint in this magical drawing and painting class. Lessons will be guided drawings and basic watercolor painting techniques concentrating on snowy landscapes, starry skies and arctic animals to create some whimsical winter paintings.

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Our first day in class we spent time with a polar bear!  In our sketchbooks, we sketched the head and face of a polar bear since that is the most difficult part of the animal to sketch and get the proportions right. We made a little whimsical watercolor study of our Polar Bear face coming up through the icy waters in a snowy winter scene. 

 There were lots of different types of Polar Bear faces!

Our first watercolor wash was of the light blue icy water.

Then we added a second blue wash for the sky.

Many different polar bear faces!

Then it was "penguin day", and we sketched several penguins in our sketchbooks
before drawing a final penguin on watercolor paper. 

Students had the option of painting a double watercolor wash for
their background, mixing blue and green to make a unique wintery sky.

Some adventurous young artists decided to sketch a more challenging Emperor Penguin.

Two beautiful paintings with subtle snow backgrounds

And then there was "SNOW DAY"!
- where we learned two different techniques for painting snow,
then added snow to our polar bear study,  penguin study, and final snowy scene!

The careful task of adding details to an Emperor Penguin

Young Artists decided on either a polar bear or penguin to include on their
final winter scene.

An adorable little polar bear in the snow

ANIMALS IN NATURE ✩ Painting/Drawing for Young Artists ✩ Davis Arts Center ✩ Autumn 2015

Class description: Students continue their world tour, this time visiting Africa, Australia, and South America to search out their most beautiful animals. We’ll spend time in the rainforest with frogs and toucans, the African savanna with giraffes and zebras, and on top of a eucalyptus tree with a koala bear. Lessons will be guided drawing and painting techniques of animals in their natural habitat using both acrylic and watercolor paints.

Our first stop on our Animal World Tour was the South American Rainforest where we learned a bit about the Poison Dart Frog and worked on our Frog pencil sketches. Students were surprised to learn the Poison Dart Frogs are VERY small and I brought out a nickel coin to show them their actual size!

Poison Dart Frog found in the
tropical rainforest

Drawing our Poison Dart Frog proved more challenging than I expected but so many students rose to the occasion and did a fantastic frog! There were a few beginning young artists who were a bit more challenged by the task of drawing the frog and I decided to help them with an outline sketch to guide them with proportions and balance of the frog’s body. 

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While in the rainforest we also painted the Toucan, which was a fun and colorful experience for all of the young artists in class. The long and colorful beak was the most fun AND the most challenging to draw, but they came out great after a few practice pencil sketches.

Watercolor Toucan - work in progress- first layer

Watercolor Toucans - works in progress- first layer

Toucan found in the tropical rainforest

MORE TOUCAN WORKS IN PROGRESS

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Starting our drawing lesson on the giraffe….

My lesson sketch

A great giraffe sketch!

Lovely giraffe pattern which is challenging to do!

Excellent sketchbook notes!

CLAUDE MONET ✩ Painting with the Masters - ✩ Davis Arts Center, Autumn 2015

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Class description: In this beginning painting class we will also learn a little Art History and hear about the Impressionist art movement and the life of Claude Monet. Students will practice  his fanciful painting techniques and elegant study of light, and will use acrylic paints on canvas board to create a lovely Monet style painting of their own.

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During our first class we learned a little about French Impressionist painter Claude Monet and the Impressionist movement he inspired. We learned “Impressionists” earned that name because they painted what they saw and felt rather than painting something exactly the way it really looked. 

We then took a look at several of Monet’s beautiful landscapes and noticed his short brush strokes and dabs of color that emphasized light and shadows. We then took a look at where he lived in Giverney, France, and the garden and pond that surrounded his house where he painted dozens of beautiful paintings all year around so they always showed the changing of the seasons. 

Monet's Japanese Bridge painting in Spring

Monet's Japanese Bridge painting in Summer

Monet's Japanese Bridge painting in Autumn

Since it is autumn, I thought we would do a colorful autumn landscape in Monet’s painting style. Since we could not visit France (I wish!), I thought we could paint a Japanese Bridge closer to our home. My first choice was the bridge at the gorgeous Japanese Tea Garden in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. 

Autumn at the Japanese Tea Garden, San Francisco

Practicing Monet’s painting techniques…

Students begin our Monet paintings

a first layer of Impressionist painting technique

Some of our beautiful Monet-style paintings….

WORLD LANDMARKS ✩ Painting/Drawing for Young Artists ✩ Davis Arts Center ✩ Autumn 2015

Class Listing: We’ll take a trip around the world together and students will learn basic sketching, perspective, and watercolor techniques while drawing such landmarks as the Taj Mahal, Eiffel Tower, and a watercolor postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge. Lessons will be guided drawing and beginning watercolor techniques of famous structures in simple landscapes.

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World Landmarks was great fun as I traveled around the world with 12 talented young artists. Our first stop was India and the Taj Mahal. We learned a lot about the famous structure such as it took over 1,000 elephants to help bring the materials to the site to build it and it is thought to be haunted by the Empress Mumtaz Mahal, whom it was built for. 

When we were ready to sketch the structure, we simplified it down to it’s most basic shapes, and sketched them several times with pencil in our sketchbooks before we were comfortable to do a final sketch on watercolor paper. The long and somewhat complex shape of the windows proved to be most challenging for students to sketch but the most fun to draw and, once the shadows were put in, it gave the structure a lot of dimension.

When we were ready to paint the Taj Mahal, we took into consideration the idea that the famous building takes on different coloring at different times of the day, from a pinkish hue in the morning hours, to a milky white hue late in the day, and finally a golden glow at night when it is lit by the moon. Legend says that the changing colors of the Taj Mahal resembles the changing moods of the Empress. Students decided what time of day they wanted their Taj Mahal to portray and used the appropriate paint colors to represent it.

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Next, we traveled to Paris, France, to tackle the most iconic manmade structure in the world, the Eiffel Tower.  We learned some basic fun facts about the tower, such as that it is over 1,ooo feet high and was built as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair, but BY FAR the students favorite facts were, 1) that the Eiffel Tower can grow up to 6 inches in the summer because of the expansion of its steel. 2) There is a restaurant on the middle level of the tower that anyone can eat at! We even saw a photo of the city of Paris taken from the Jules Verne Restaurant, and we all decided we would like to eat there some day…

To sketch the Eiffel Tower we, again, simplified the structure to it’s most basic shapes. I kept the Eiffel Tower as a drawing lesson since it is a very complex subject and really not that interesting for a young artist to paint. After two sketches in our sketchbooks, we did our final drawing on a long, tall piece of drawing card stock and we used color pencils to put in our horizon line, as well as a few finishing details. 

A dazzling array of Eiffel Towers!

The final drawings were then mounted on matte board and young artists were able to sign their works of art with their “artist’s signature”, which we talked about and practiced during our first class.

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Our final stop on our trip around the world was, of course, HOME! Where students were really excited to learn our last World Landmark subject was The Golden Gate Bridge. We all shared LOTS of stories of walking across, driving across, and visiting the bridge with family and friends. 

A lovely Golden Gate Bridge postcard

Since this World Landmark was so close to home for us, I decided it would be fun to paint the Bridge onto a watercolor postcard, so young artists could send the card to a special person if they wish. 

The Golden Gate Bridge with blue skies!

When we began our sketches in our sketchbooks, we started with a brief but important lesson on perspective, because we wanted to try and portray the Bridge fading back into the scene on our card. Students then decided what time of day they wanted to portray in their painting and we had a lesson on watercolor washes for a sky. 

The results were fabulous!