November 8, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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WATERCOLOR PAINTING: A Snowy Forest. These girls love to draw and paint. In a style similar to Monet’s Poplars, we used a variety of watercolor techniques [salt, kleenex, masking tape, sponging] to achieve this landscape scene with birch trees.
November 2, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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A VISIT WITH CEZANNE IN MY KITCHEN. My watercolor class recently spent a session “painting with Cezanne”. Instead of reproducing one of his works, and rather than paint the Still Life we set up for our class, I chose to do my own “study”, pretending he was looking over my shoulder as I sipped my mug of Earl Grey and had a TCM marathon day. Even though I may see things differently than Cezanne saw them, his techniques and treatment of ordinary kitchen elements definitely challenged me to expand my personal style.
October 23, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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FALL IS IN THE AIR. When you don’t want to carve your pumpkin until closer to Halloween, you let your grandson use sharpies and markers to design a funny face! Radiating Leaves has become an interesting art project. First the children draw “real leaves” and then outline them with pens, keeping the lines as close as possible without touching, until the radiating lines “bump” into each other! Op-Art with vibrations!
October 17, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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FLORAL STILL LIFE. Using oil pastels, this homeschool class demonstrated their expressive use of color and shapes. The fall bouquet was a hostess gift from friends visiting from Tucson, AZ and repurposed a few days later for this Still Life study!
October 3, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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KINDERART. Alphabet Sampler Project. Even though needlework samplers are the most common “samplers”, we created a papercraft Alphabet Sampler. How many different kinds of paper and styles of lettering? Each student had to create 26 “different” letters for their own Sampler and glue them onto posterboard.
It turned out to be so labor intensive, AND so much fun, that we didn’t attempt another project during this session. Available paper/medium supplies: scrapbook paper, cardstock, wallpaper, construction paper, markers, pastels, paints, glitter crayons, stencils, magazines, etc.
October 3, 2009
by Bonnie Porter
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INTERMEZZO LADIES. Fall Colors!
Our centerpiece project this week was a pumpkin, picked up at a local fresh market. An excellent values study. An opportunity to contrast warm/cool yellows and figure out how to add those light green smudges on some parts of the skin. Discussed background and shadow color choices, including the use of complementary colors. And Voila! Two artists sitting next to each other “modeled” the Blue & Orange complementary color principles!
A visit to the produce market and I get carried away with the bounty of Fall colors! What am I going to do with all of these watercolor Gala apples after I get the Cezanne urge out of my system? If I continue to eat An Apple A Day. . . how many days are going to have apples in the house?