Kids Art Classes

Give the gift of art! Check out the classes page for the winter session. Class sizes are small and fill up quickly.

Here's some shots of the finished guitar and keyboard paintings.

Students started by doing 4 quick sketches of different composition ideas.

Using colored pencils, students sketched their drawing onto the canvas.

Students were limited to a color palette of complimentary colors for this project.

By the end of the first class all students had a base coat completed.

Day 2, students completed their paintings. The second layer of acrylic paint is nice and thick, brush strokes are visible and the paint has a nice satiny finish. I think they all turned out fabulous! The paintings are a  11x14.

Drawing lessons

A few shots from the last few weeks with one of my private students. So much growth happens during private lessons, each lesson directs what we will do next. A spontaneous portrait in a printmaking project  a few weeks ago turned into a few weeks of observational drawing. Instead of tackling the whole portrait we focused on the individual features.

Week 1, the top left eye was the first attempt with no instruction, a 5 minute drawing. The larger eye took 45 minutes of very careful observation. The nose sketches were done the following week.

My 9 year old student did such an awesome job on his eye I decided we should turn it into a collage piece. We assembled a variety of elements and then edited to make the final composition.

This is the completed project as a collage. We considered composition, color palette, texture but making sure that the focus of the finished project was always  the drawing of the eye. Its really easy to get lost in all the pretty papers and possibilities.

Here's a shot of the engraving that started the whole project. I love the spontaneity of the drawing. It was also a good reminder to do a lesson on portraits.

Paul Cezanne Apples

I love to have the students work from real life. For this lesson I set up a still life of apples on a plate with a colorful table cloth. We talked about Paul Cezanne and looked at photos of his apple paintings and then got started on our own apple still life paintings.

Week one, we penciled in our whole picture, painted the apples and outlines with a combination of tempera and acrylic paints so that they would be very rich color.

Week 2, students added some oil pastel pattern to the backgrounds and then painted with water color inks for a really saturated, vibrant finish.

I used 11x 14 multi media paper thats holds up nicely to the paint.

Students were encouraged to draw big and cover the entire page so that there was very little white paper showing.

Fall Colors

We started this lesson looking out the window and observing all the beautiful fall colors. Students painted gloss acrylic medium onto heavy mattboard and then painted on the tissue paper. 

Week 2, we again started our session looking outside, this time observing and describing the shapes of tree trunks. Students then painted their tree silhouettes.

Our artwork is never complete without a signature!

Drawing lessons

Bicycle studies to kick off the fall session. This lesson is all about composition, different types of lines, creating value with charcoal, and getting messy. Once they have their 3 boxes drawn, i take away the erasers! Mistakes are opportunities to continue your drawing.

Students start by doing 3, 5 minute studies in pencil.

The first study is a contour line drawing of the entire bicycle.

The second study, I ask students to do a close up of one part of the bicycle.

Often, students do not zoom in very close, the 3rd study is another close up of a different part of the bicycle. A second chance to zoom in on details.

Students then have about 1/2 hour to do a detailed charcoal study of the bicycle on the rest of the page.

Kids Fall Art Classes

Fall classes are now enrolling! Classes are small, reserve your spot soon.

Here's a few shots from this summers Color Camp for 6-8 year olds.  

Students started with primary colors, mixed their own secondary colors and then created tints of all their colors to make a bicycle color wheels.

We used our color wheel paintings through the week to understand complimentary colors and create color palettes for paintings.

Kandinsky inspired watercolor paintings with oil pastel resist.

Oil pastel self portraits with ice cream! 

A 7 year old student

0ne of my 8 year olds...

another 7 year old

a six year old student

Printmaking and Kids Summer Art Camps

Still a couple spots left  in the summer camps. Find the dates and details here.

One of my favorite classes of the last year! Reduction, lino-cut prints. Reduction printing is the process of printing multiple colours from the same block.  Students start with a quick sketch to plan the process, the colors and the order of carving. The lightest color is printed first with a small amount or nothing carved away. The added to challenge to this project was the tile effect and radial symmetry.

 All four corners of the block should have a design or interesting negative space in them.

The lightest color is printed first with a small amount or nothing carved away. We always print proofs to test colors, registration and to see if we if we like it.

The sides of the blocks also need to line up so that when block is printed a larger image is created.

Ready to print the second colour.

A very strong graphic image, we decided it didn't need its second colour.

Seattle Skylines and Kids Summer Art Camps!

Their are still a couple spots open in each of the summer camps. Click here for all the details.

Seattle skylines are always a popular theme. Students mixed tints and shades using black, white and a colour of their choice.  

Drawing through wet paint is great way to add lines and textures.

Paintings, guitars and summer camps

Summer camps are now registering, click here for all the details.

New musical instruments in the house mean new musical instrument still life subjects in the studio!

I had the students do a few thumbnail sketches to start. A close up of the guitar needed to be the main subject and the keyboard incorporated into the background.

Choose a colour palette...

Complimentary colours...

More complimentary colours...

Cool colours...

Cool results...