Paint Love// Collaborative Mural Project

I am so excited to be a part of Paint Love.  Paint Love's mission is" connecting artists and nonprofits for a positive impact on youth."  They help connect artists with organizations throughout metro Atlanta. Julie McKevitt, founder of Paint Love, is a dear friend of mine and a very talented artist.  She works hard to seek out and organize some amazing opportunities for artists to get involved in their community!

 Last month I worked with Paint Love to create a unique art experience for the students at Norton Park Elementary School.

We worked with 3rd and 4th graders as well as their awesome art teacher, Sabrina Barilone to create a collaborative mural using photographs of their school!You can also check out Paint Love's blog post about the project here

Before going to the school, I put together a few different photos of the school that Julie(founder of Paint Love) captured for us. In Photoshop, I layered some effects and colors to make the image fun for the students to paint!  We printed the image, and cut it up into a grid, giving each student a small section of the picture to enlarge on their canvas!

During our time there, we taught the students about the work of Andy Warhol, how to work from a grid, and mix paint!We had less than 2 hours with the group, so we were working fast!

 

Then it was time for the installation!

Woohoo! Some color for all of that space!!

Thrilled I had this amazing opportunity to get involved! If you are an artist interested in being a part of this organization, contact them!

teach art: relief printmaking

Relief Printmaking is one of my favorite mediums to work with, and I think I have convinced some of my students that they really like it too:) I do printmaking projects with my drawing and painting classes and my AP studio art class.  Each year I change up the assignment a bit. This year each class had a different objective. My AP students worked on the idea of a landscape, and my drawing and painting students created prints based on patterns. They had to create 6 prints total, and one had to be printed on an unusual surface, or texture.Each class used reduction printing methods meaning that in order to create different colors, they carved out more of the printing block for each print of a new color, working from lightest to darkest ink colors.  Although relief prints can be made using lots of different materials, we used linoleum and water- based speedball printing inks. My students learn so much about the art making process during this project!

 

 

teach art: jim dine + cubism

I found the idea for this project while attending an AP studio art teacher workshop earlier this year.  We did this project as teachers and had so much fun! I then went back to school and did a variation of this project with my AP students.  We discussed synthetic cubism and  how it progressed from cubism, invented by Picasso & Braque.  More mediums and textures arose in synthetic cubism with  repetition of objects and symbols, and brighter colors! We then talked about the familiar work of Jim Dine and his incredible tool drawings.  The students were challenged to incorporate the styles of these artists in their pieces.

The day before we did the project I told them to each bring a tool to class with them. I gave them 2 days to complete it, a table of materials, they had to draw the object on at least 5 different papers, and incorporate the elements and principles of design to create a successful composition. I loved watching how each student reacted to this project.  It required a more spontaneous work flow and less planning than most were comfortable with, which was awesome! It required that they work outside of their comfort zones and try things that they normally wouldn't take the risk on.  Some students even suggested we do every project like this! If you feel like you have been stuck in a project routine, or the students just need some change in their work flow this is a great project to try!

a visual journal update.

Recent pages from my visual journal:

Some photos from our travels.

Catch up.

My addiction to throw pillows.

My love for food.

And desserts.

Abe Lincoln.

It  rained all week.

Papercut

texture.

It's a new year.

black & white

construction paper triangles.