Course Overview: VISUAL ART Project Specialist: Taintor Davis Child If you or someone you know is interested in attending one of the MindsEye Designs classes, please contact: Taintor Davis Child 603-516-9300 tchild@communitypartnersnh.org Throughout the 16-week term, students will learn and experiment with the following foundations: Drawings are made with all kinds of lines. Goal/Objective: Participants will further develop their understanding and vocabulary of the variety of ways artists use line in visual art to express, create shape and add texture. Example: Take a dot for a walk! Using drawing paper and pencil, participants discover that they can take a dot for a walk! This lesson celebrates everyone s own way of making lines.
Playing with Color and Shapes. Goal/Objective: Using a variety of visual art media participants will develop a better understanding of how artists use color as a tool that communicates feeling, light and substance in their work. Example: Is it warm or is it cool? Compare colors and identify the differences between warm and cool colors. Make a warm and cool color collection using paper and other scrap materials. Arrange and glue. Learn how artists work with space in visual art and design. Goal/Objective: Using a variety of approaches and art media, artists take on the challenge of defining space. We will look at visual artists works who exemplify the use of color, line, texture and space in design and representation. Example: Across the line, how is space created with line and shape of the paper? Using drawing skills and observation, participants complete the other side of a line drawing. Will the results be symmetrical or asymmetrical? Self-Expression and Continued Exploration with Art Materials. Goal/Objective: Experiment with materials and ideas. There are so many ways to see and create! Artists use a variety of media and approaches to develop themes and bodies of work. Example: Using drawing materials, apply the range of value to the drawing of an object that is naturally lit. Repeat until the object has been drawn at least 4 times using different art media every time. Lessons and examples of participants designs throughout the term will be compiled in the individuals artist journal or binder. Successfully completed works will be displayed and available for purchase at agency open studio sales, MindsEye Designs Gallery at 660 Central Ave, Dover, various galleries and retail locations throughout the seacoast area. If you or someone you know is interested in attending one of the MindsEye Designs classes, please contact:
Taintor Davis Child 603-516-9300 tchild@communitypartnersnh.org
VISUAL ART Celebrating the most basic element of art: Line Participants will further develop their understanding and vocabulary of the variety of ways artists use line in visual art to express, create shape and add texture. A. Exploring a paper with line. Sample Activity: Take a dot for a walk! Using drawing paper and pencil, participants discover that they can take a dot for a walk! This lesson celebrates everyone s own way of making lines. B. Create a sampler of all kinds of lines. Sample Activity: Lines are expressive! Participants create a line collection to express the characteristics of different kinds of lines using pencils and black markers. Connections are made between descriptive words and expressive lines. Drawing to a variety of music connects motion, pattern and rhythm in art. C. Sharpen observation skills to develop a drawing. Sample Activity: Lines create shape! Using basic drawing tools, participants use their observation skills to draw the contours or edges of a chosen and familiar object. D. Learn how artists begin to draw objects from observation. Sample Activity: Dotting the eye! Focal points in nature. What do you see? Participants look at a collection of bird photographs (and/or flowers or other animals) and images, and identify the focal points as well as a place to begin their drawing. With a graphite pencil all the shapes and textures of the subject will be explored on paper.
Celebrating Color: Playing with Color and Shapes. Using a variety of visual art media participants will develop a better understanding of how artists use color as a tool that communicates feeling, light and substance in their work. A. Develop a stronger color vocabulary: is the sky cool or warm? Sample Activity: Is it warm or is it cool? Compare colors and identify the differences between warm and cool colors. Make a warm and a cool color collection using paper and other scrap materials. Arrange and glue. B. Mixing it up with colors. Sample Activity: Experimenting with colors! Refresh color understanding with a color experiment using primary colors to create secondary colors. Make a color wheel using primary colors with color pencils and/or water based paints. Create your own color mixing experiments! C. Using color temperature as a way to emphasize a self-expressive design with markers. Sample Activity: Warm Hand Designs! Look at the spaces between the lines. Using permanent markers, participants will use warm colors to emphasize the inside spaces of their traced hand in a field surrounded by a variety of cool colors and linear designs. D. How does the element of color affect and direct your eye? What is a color telling us? What about the shape of a color? Sample Activity: Creating and making designs with a variety of colored shapes. Using color construction paper create a collection of cut-out shapes with 5-6 colors (the primary and secondary colors). Draw and cut out two contrasting shapes in each color i.e.
curvilinear vs. angular. Arrange and rearrange the collection of shapes on black, neutral and white backgrounds. Overlap some of the contrasting shapes and complimentary colors. Share discoveries, describe what happened! E. Responding to another artist s work. Sample Activity: View and discuss a selection of an artist s works, i.e. Compare Romare Bearden and Henri Matisse. How did they use the color Red? Blue? Purple? Green? Black? Create a colorful composition in response to the discussed work; use some of your shapes from the colorful shapes activity. To Space and Beyond: how artists work with space in visual art and design. Using a variety of approaches and art media, artists take on the challenge of defining space. We will look at visual artists works who exemplify the use of color, line, texture and space in design and representation. A. Space and Symmetry Sample Activity: How is space created with line and shape of the paper? Using drawing skills and observation, participants complete the other side of a line drawing. Will the results be symmetrical or asymmetrical? B. How are the elements of color, line, shape, and space working to influence and direct your eye? Sample Activity: Where does your eye go? Look at the way lines are used to structure the picture plane in an artist s composition. Use a cropping device to see smaller compositions within a larger work. Draw from three or more
cropped areas from a single work. Notice, line, shapes, values, color, texture and patterns inside of the small frames as you move them around. What does color and texture add to an artwork? A. Using texture to communicate energy and feeling in a collage of a favorite subject. Sample Activity: How does it feel? Looking at a book by Eric Carle, notice how the artist s use of textures and colors help tell a story. What is a subject or story that you enjoy? Sketch some ideas. Make a collection of textured paper for your own illustration of a subject you care about. B. How light, and how dark, is it? Looking for the range of value on an object. Sample Activity: Learn to see the range from light to dark. Draw the range of value on a scale of white to black using pencils. Experiment with other drawing materials to express value. What happens when you use black paper? White pencils? Charcoal and kneadable erasers? Graphite? Self-Expression and Continued Exploration with Art Materials Focusing on a subject, participants will create a number of visual studies using the variety of art materials and techniques that they have at their fingertips. Preparing a work for exhibition will be addressed. A. Artists use many resources to enrich the details and information in their work.
Sample Activity: Identify a favorite animal, flower, place Use books, the internet, magazines and/or direct observation to help you better understand your subject. Apply the elements of art while working. B. How many ways can you visually represent the same object? Sample Activity: Apply the range of value to the drawing of an object that is naturally lit. Repeat until the object has been drawn at least 4 times using different art media every time. Change the point of view of the object every time i.e. from above, below, one side, the other side, from near, from far. Change the color scheme, the setting, the light, the scale. C. Making a Print from a Drawing Study Sample Activity: Learn how to make a scratch foam board print from a selected drawing. Draw a feather using white pencil on black paper, sketching pencils on white paper and then scratch the image into scratch foam to make a print. Carve a rubber block print of something related to the chosen theme. Make a set of cards with the block. D. Make a collage of your chosen subject Sample Activity: Create a collection of collage materials. Using scraps of drawings, and other colorful works on paper include words, fabric, found items recreate your subject with a variety of seemingly unrelated objects. E. Drawing and painting from the self Sample Activity: Look at a collection of artist s self-portraits. Select a favorite image, what is it that makes it special to you? Make a line drawing on paper to prepare for painting a self-portrait on canvas or watercolor paper. Incorporate some of the objects and interests developed throughout the term in your self-portrait
If you or someone you know is interested in attending one of the MindsEye Designs classes, please contact: Taintor Davis Child 603-516-9300 tchild@communitypartnersnh.org