Archdale Elementary School hosted a day of the arts on Friday, Nov.12 of which I was invited. Each participating artist was set up in a specific classroom while the students rotated to each class every 20 minutes. I brought a couple of my most colorful paintings to show, "But Noah Found Grace" and "The Seed Sower". Instead of going through a boring lecture about my art and how I paint, I decided to do an actual painting demonstration so the kids could see first hand how a painting is started and how it progresses.
I found a simple landscape online that caught my eye. It was filled with these beautiful pink flowers and was a vertical photograph, which intrigued me since most of my landscapes are horizontal. So, I printed out the landscape and used it as a reference being very careful not to copy it in its exact form, but to use some artistic license to make the landscape my own.
Throughout the day, I began with my background as I always do. The sky was painted first, along with the clouds. The next class witnessed the making of background mountains which always have a blu-ish tint which gives the illusion of distance. I try to keep the top edges of the mountains "fuzzy" and not too sharp which also helps give the illusion of distance.
Next, I painted the background trees using hunter green, ultramarine blue and mars black, with a touch of white. This gives a dark base color for the trees which will help make the highlights on the trees pop.
The field was then painted in using yellow oxide, a little hunter green, and burnt sienna. I keep the grass in the distance a lighter tone than the grass in the foreground which was mostly black and green. The flowers were painted in last starting with the darkest pink as a base and later adding light pink highlights.
Overall, we had a fun day and I think the kids enjoyed themselves. I know I did, and I completed a painting in a couple of hours, which is a plus!
No comments:
Post a Comment