Art Cards

This week at work we've put up the end of year art exhibition. On Tuesday night we had the private view where some of the students get awards for their work this year. The Head of Art asked me if I had some handmade cards we could give the winners, so I made these 6 especially for them. 

The starting points for most of the cards were these paint experiments that the students made throughout the year and then abandoned in the 6th room. I scooped them up and put them to good use. 

For these cards I cut out a geometric pattern using a craft knife and layered the patterned paper underneath. I stuck pieces of coloured paper on some of the triangles, picking out colours from the patterned paper.

For this card I used a Sharpie to draw mandala style doodles over patterned paper, which I spray mounted to a folded piece of red card.

This was the quickest card to make. I just made water colour paint splodges and when they dried I drew feathers using a fine liner on top.

Which card is your favourite?

Model School Detail

Here's another detail from the model school I'm working on. At the top on the building there's this thing which I don't know the name for.

When thinking about how I was going to make it I remembered a technique I'd seen in David Neat's model making book. It said to use polyfiller to build up the shapes.

The book recommended applying the polyfiller using a small squeezy container with a small nozzle, which I managed to find at school. The filler I had from when I tried to make mini cardboard gingerbread houses.

Once I'd got the filler in the container, and added a little bit of water, it was ready to apply. I'd printed off the image I was creating at the right size and stuck it to a piece of mount board. This meant I could just trace over the picture with the filler. I found that once the filler has dried a little and formed a skin I was able to work into it with a cocktail stick to sculpt it.

I applied about 4 layers of filler altogether, allowing each layer to dry first.

Once the filler was completely dry, which happened over the weekend, I painted it with acrylics.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out and how well the technique worked. I think I'll be using it a lot more.

Miniature Steps

Remember the model zombie I made? Well part of the project is a model school for the zombies to invade. I'm making a replica of the school I work at, which has a big set of steps leading to the main door, so I made those this past weekend.

I've made a few model staircases in the past  (like this one, and this one) but I think this one is my best yet as I tried a new technique which worked really well. I cut out the sides of the stairs from mountboard and made slots for the vertical pieces.

Then I slotted in the vertical pieces with PVA glue on the sides. This took two attempts as after the first time I did it I went to move the whole thing and it collapsed.

I then stuck the horizontal pieces in place.

The tops of the sides curve slightly so I used some left over kapa-line foam from the model making course. I stuck it to the card and then used sand paper to round the edges.

I added the pillars at the bottom from more mount board encasing the bottom of the stairs.

This is how it looks attached to the rest of the school. I've still got quite a bit to do, for example it doesn't have a roof yet!

Miniature Zombie

This is something I've been making at work. A zombie student!

It'll be part of a workshop I'm running in a few weeks.

I used this method to make the figure, which I learnt at the scale model making course I did at Central Saint Martins a few years ago.

I used white Sculpey and built up the body in layers, using a heat gun to harden it. Then I painted the figure with acrylic paint.

Making the zombie look gross was really fun and I hope the students enjoy making theirs.

Woodland Wall Painting

With this painting I did for a classroom display in mind my Head Teacher asked if I would paint something on to a bit of wall in a corridor at school. A couple of weeks ago when I told him I was applying for other jobs his main concern was whether I could get the painting done before the end of term/before I left. So I spent the last week of term working on this painting. 

The classes in the school are named after different animals so it seemed pretty obvious what I should paint on the wall. I painted white emulsion over the parts of the wall that had poly filler on them and used acrylic paint which the school had for the painting. I roughly drew out the picture first and had some reference photos to work from. 

My favourite parts of the paintings are those I got to sit down for, as a lot of the painting was done standing on a chair and later a step ladder which is not fun.

I'm really pleased with how it turned out and one of the children said it was the best painting he's ever seen. That's either a really big compliment, or he just hasn't seen that many paintings.

This Week I...

 ...made the title to go at the top of the seaside themed classroom display at school. I used colouring pencils to make the brown parcel paper look like driftwood and I think it turned out pretty well!

One of the boys in the class left the school at the end of the week so I made him this card which had notes from all his classmates stuck inside. I think I was channelling Buster from Arthur with this character.

How was your week?

Water Colour Beach Huts

At school this term our topic is the seaside and in art the children will be creating water colour paintings of beach huts inspired by the artist Lynette Amelie.

The class teacher asked if I would produce the example painting and this is what I quickly came up with. I'm looking forward to seeing the paintings the children come up with.

This Week I...

...was asked to give the Learning Powers Family a super hero make-over for use at school next week.

The costumes are our school colours, and I quite like them because they're also Sunnydale High colours! 

Deciding what kind of super hero clothes the grandparents would wear was challenging, especially the Grandma. I think what I came up with says 'sweet Grandma but could do some serious damage if need be.'  

Even the dog got in on the action!

What did you get up to this week?

Classroom Display Beach Painting

The topic for this term in my class is the seaside so the class teacher asked me if I would do a big painting for a classroom display. Since it was the Easter holidays I agreed.

The painting is 2.13 x 1.29m so outside was the best place to do it, and luckily the weather was quite warm and sunny on the day I chose.

We had decided that I would do the painting on fabric so it would be easy to roll, so I found and old sheet to use. Since it was for school I used their poster paints and I continue to be amazed what I can produce with the stuff (like with the winter painting I did for the classroom).

The is the biggest painting I've ever done and it was a bit tricky as I couldn't see the whole thing all as once as it was bigger than the table I was working on. I could have put more detail in but since it's only for a classroom display and I'd already spent over 6 hours on it I decided this was a good place to stop.

Sidenote: I binged-listened through the first half of Serial while painting it. I know, late to the party, but I'm all caught up now!

Once we were back to school I stapled the painting to the wall, trimmed the edges and attached the border.

And this is what it looks like now with all the topic words and other seasidey things added.

Learning Characters

One of my projects over the Easter holidays was to create this 'Learning Powers Family' for school.

I started by making some rough sketches of the family.

I then did a final drawing of each character which I photographed.

I loaded the photos on to a computer programme called Revelation Natural Art which allowed me to trace to drawing and then add the colour. It was similar to the way I made my Disney colouring pictures.

Each character has a different learning power. Here's Creative Christopher the Granddad, and Curious Carl the younger brother.

Watercolour Animal Paintings

The headteacher at the school I work at is leaving soon so the other teachers asked me if I would produce some pictures to go on the front of cards for each class to give to the head.

Each class has an animal name so the five paintings I produced are of each animal.

I decided to try a different technique for these paintings. I used water colour paints with colour pencil over the top. 

For the hedgehog I added another step of making marks with a candle first to get the white highlights on the spines.

I really love how the paintings turned out, and so do the rest of the staff. In fact they were a bit amazed as they were only expecting cartoon drawings. 

I think my favourite is the rabbit, but I might be a bit biased because I work in Rabbit class.

Cardboard House

The class I work in's topic for this term is Houses and Homes so over half term the class teacher asked if I would make an example house that the children can look at in their art lesson.

Make a tiny house? Yeah, I think I can manage that.

The teacher suggested I take photos of the stages to show the children since they'll only be looking at the finished piece. I'm going to teach those kids the magic of turning a cereal box inside out! 

The next stage is papier mache. I only did one layer of newspaper because it's just to stick all the boxes together, rather than strengthen the model.

And then it was time to paint! I could have put a lot more detail into this but I really didn't need to so I resisted and put my brick stamp away. I still really like it though and I think it will give the children something to aim for and be inspired by.

Hand Print Tree Advent Calendar

At work/school I was asked to come up with an advent calender with the class of 4/5 year olds, and this is what we made.

The Christmas tree is made up of green hand prints with only the palms glued down so the fingers stick out like branches. Each child filled an A4 piece of paper with their hand prints and I had just enough to make the tree once I'd cut them out. Right at the last minute I had the idea to make the star on the top out of a yellow hand print, so I chose the boy with the biggest hands to do this special hand print.

The days of advent are represented by these paper baubles which are hung on shiny thread and stapled to the tree. Each day one of the bauble will be turned over to reveal a picture drawn by a child showing something to do with Christmas. There are pictures of snowmen, Father Christmas, a Christmas train carriage, and even a dinosaur. Because nothing says Christmas like a creepy looking dinosaur.