Sunday, October 30, 2011

Oil Pastel Pumpkin Vines


The first part of this lesson focused on Contour lines, Positive & Negative space, 
and Organic vs. Geometric lines and shapes.  

 I introduced this piece by Lisa Congdon because I liked the use of a collaged background with the negative shapes

and also a selection of Cary Smith's prints that show great examples of simple yet interesting positive and negative compositions. 

This lesson was focused on organic lines and shapes and we used a pumpkin vine as the main subject. 
Each student drew an organic diagonal line as the vine- and then only the contour of pumpkin leaves and pumpkins. They painted them in with white tempera.

 One of my old high school students was a very active graffiti artist but also a remarkable painter and collage artist. He would always insist on painting white under anything he would paint in order to make the colors and image brighter. He was my inspiration for this base step. (Thanks Rascal) :)

 Day Two... color blending with oil pastels. We went over tertiary colors and I gave the kids yellow, orange, lime green, and grass green oil pastels. They also got a q-tip for blending and a pointy stick for scratching details.
I specifically showed them how to make the pumpkin look more round by highlighting the side with yellow first and then blending orange. I also demonstrated blending the various greens for the vine and leaves. Most of my students have never done much color blending before so they were enamored by this and also very successful. They could also scratch back into the oil pastel with the stick. 



 Unfortunately they did not translate as well to camera :( 
I love how they match up though and look so striking when they are all arranged together. 


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