Goldfish Fish Paintings. Inspired by Matisse

For this project students were inspired by Henri Matisse's Goldfish painting.  We re-created a setting in the studio to paint from. We learned about a complimentary color palette, drawing cylinders, and building layers of color. Students worked with liquid watercolors for a beautifully saturated finished product.

Step 1: Draw at least three thumb nail sketches to determine a composition and correct proportions. 

Step 2: Lightly sketch the composition onto water color paper.

Step 3: Start building layers of color starting with light washes. We started with leaves and stems, then areas that were blue.

Step 4: When the green and blue areas were dry, students started on the orange areas.

We keep scratch paper close by to test colors if needed.

The last step is going over  the original pencil lines in black ink. This project was done over the course of 3, 1 hour sessions

Relief Printing

This is my new favorite project with the older students,  exploring radial symmetry in the form of handprinted tiles.

Their designs start with the block positioned like a diamond and the center line going from corner to corner. Students need to draw knowing that the sides will line up to create new shapes where corners meet and sides meet!

Planning, printing stations, and a tidy work area are crucial.

 Students print with multiple colors. I have the students works from dark to light and within a color family.

On the back of each block mark one corner as "top," this is really important to make sure the image is in registration.