Imaginary Mixed Media Flower Paintings

This is a gorgeous lesson based on French/Canadian artist Sandrine Pelissier who lives in Vancouver, BC.  Students started off by looking at her flower paintings on her website HERE.

She has instructional books on how to create there- check it out HERE.

Here is the description from her website: 

Forgo reference photos and discover a more organic and joyful way of painting! With its friendly step-by-step format, Painting Imaginary Flowers features a simple, three-stage approach to creating flowers only you can make…

Drop in color (ink, watercolor or fluid acrylics) to create abstract backgrounds full of beautiful textures and “blooms.”

Just like spotting shapes in the clouds, search for shapes in your background that suggest blossoms and leaves. Paint around them and watch the flowers emerge!

Add patterns in pen to create a lovely, faux collage effect.

With plenty of mixed-media techniques throughout for building up luscious texture and color, even beginners can achieve happy results.

We used 9 x 11" heavy white paper. Students used the wet on wet technique to add drops of colour to their painting is a freestyle way.

Then they drew a vase in any shape and added flowers and leaves.

Paint the negative space with white paint. 

Use acrylics and paint pens to add colour to the vase and flowers and then add patterns. 

Grade 7-9 artworks!

 I love how they turned out!!

 

Winding One-Point Perspective Drawings

 

This is a lesson that has been floating around the art blogs for some time. I originally saw the lesson on the now defunct the Waunakee Community School District website, by art teacher Sophie Wagner-Marx. She had some great student examples and a handout posted- thanks Sophie!!

 

 This is a great lesson in both one-point perspective and creativity.

See all the steps I previously posted about HERE.

These are 12 x 18". Students used media of their choice to colour them.

Grade 7-9 finishes artworks:

Charcoal Water Droplet Drawing

This was a quick lesson I did with a Grade 7-9 class. It took 40 minutes to complete. I demonstrated the different qualities of different types of charcoal, then showed the how to shade a realistic looking water droplet. 

There are lots of tutorials on Youtube if you'd prefer to show a video. 

We used the following types of charcoal: compressed, vine, and charcoal pencils (black and white).

They toned their white drawing paper first with vine charcoal blended out. Then they traced a circle on top (we used plastic lids and yoghurt containers as tracers). Students could do one or more than one. Draw a curved highlight at the top. Add some dark charcoal at the top then blend it downwards in a curved fashion. 

Always blend with the shape of the form. 

End with white charcoal/chalk pastel to touch up all the highlights.

*NOTE: some students have sensory issues with charcoal, so I always have soft tissues/kleenex available- they just wrap their finger around that. 

This is a super messy project and charcoal gets all over the kids and their clothes, so you've been warned! Allow at least 10 minutes for clean-up as the kids take forever to wash their hands at the sink!! I will say most of my students absolutely hate using charcoal and chalk pastels, ESPECIALLY my high school students!

This lesson had a pretty high success rate with students. 

It's a good introduction to shading a sphere!