Colour Cubbies! Countdown to Summer Art Camps Begins

Even though it's only April I have started thinking about and planning for my summer art camps deciding what projects to do, what supplies I need to order, and how to organize my art room.  Last year about midway through the summer I had the brilliant idea to give each student a coloured cubby box to store all their drawings and other free time artworks.  My art room space is limited so I needed something that I could hang on the walls.  I also wanted something I could make due to my budget.  Well the kids loved them and with small groups this was fairly easy to do and definitely kept paper artworks organized.

This year I went a step further, making each cubby sturdier and easier to clean off from messy hands so that they should last the entire summer and hopefully into Fall. 

What brilliant organization solutions have you had?  Were they homemade or store bought?

my colour cubbies!

Just a few more and I'll have one item done and ready to go for this summer!

Today's Artistic Inspiration - Hohokum

For today's inspirational art I have a few images from the art video game Hohokum.  The game's art design was done in collaboration with artist Richard Hogg.  In Hohokum players control an ever changing multicoloured snake-like creature called the Long Mover to explore the levels in a meandering way that resembles flying a kite.

Check out the videos below for a behind the scenes look at the art and music of Hohokum.  The music of Hohokum video also gives a nice variety of the game play and the interactions that occur with the visual elements of each level.

Wild Beast Masks

While learning about the art of Henri Matisse a group of my students created these Fauvist "wild beast" masks.  The kids created these masks over several days during a spring break art and drama camp.  I talked about how Henri Matisse led a group of artists who became known as the Fauves or Wild Beasts due to the use of bold colours and wild brushstrokes in their artworks.  Since the kids were involved in theatre I thought that creating masks would act as a nice bridge between both art and drama.




For our masks we used a template as the starting point since I had a ton in storage, but you could easily have each student create a basic mask out of card stock.  Due to time constrains we also used templates for the feathers/fur and the beaks/noses, tracing them onto construction paper.  We then used acrylic paints to add pattern and details to each part of the mask before layering and gluing all the pieces together.

The Final Artworks:

This artist was the only one who decided to add ears to her wild beast!

Andrew Holder Inspired Penguin Paintings

This year my after school art class has been learning about contemporary artists who are alive and working today.  My last group of kids looked at the art of Andrew Holder.  We focused on Holder's work as an illustrator, and in particular we drew inspiration from his untitled penguin filled artwork below.

Our Inspiration:

I chose this artwork as our focus since it provided a nice way to introduce warm and cool colours, as well as how to create a wash of colour.

For their artworks, we started with painting two colour washes - a warm colour for the sky and a cool colour for the water.  Once the paintings had dried we then drew the icebergs and penguins.  I did a step by step with the group for some of the penguins and the basic shape of the icebergs before having the kids divide their icebergs up into grids. We then did another round of warm and cool colours for the icebergs, and black and white for the penguins.  Since this was my younger group (6-8) some of the kids had difficulty outlining, but overall they did a great job.

The Final Artworks:

You can view more of Andrew Holder's works by visiting his WEBSITE.

Art Fun For Fridays - The Gluten Free Museum

If the whole gluten free trend makes you sigh and roll your eyes, then you're sure to enjoy this Friday's bit of art fun.  The Gluten Free Museum on Tumbler is an ongoing collection of images from artworks and stills from famous movie scenes that have been altered to remove any offensive trace of wheat.  Below are a few examples of Van Gogh, Millet, and Arcimboldo altered artworks.  To view more 100% gluten free images you can visit the site HERE.