Comic book art

Another lesson for our city theme was comic book art.  I found these very cool pads of paper that are "non photo blue" layouts.  I bought a pad of comic book layout pages, a pad of comic strip boards, and a page of comic book cover pages as well as some non photo blue pencils and some professional type markers in a gray scale and your basic colors.  Here's a couple of links to Canson's Fanboy papers (the second is a video that does a pretty good job explaining the products):  http://www.fanboypaper.com/products.php  and  http://www.dickblick.com/products/canson-fanboy-comic-and-manga-papers/#videos
Okay, I realize I may have used a few vocab words that not everyone might be familiar with. 
"Non photo blue" is a special blue color that does not show up when photocopied.  Typically when doing an illustration you want to sketch out your ideas and be able to play around with them or change them a bit.  If you draw your idea in pencil and then draw ink over it you will need to erase the pencil lines or they will show up once printed- even very soft light lines (I had a frustrating experience finding that out once).  Using a "non photo blue" pencil allows you to sketch and then draw with ink right over the top without worrying it will show up once printed.  Most of you reading this blog might not be planning on printing a book but the non photo blue pencil and layout outlines are still very useful because you can sketch your ideas, outline in ink, and then make a few photocopies without your sketching showing up.  Once you have a few photocopies you can play with different shading and coloring options or if you mess up one you have a copy of the basic outline and don't need to start over.  Another reason I love the non photo blue pencils is while there are harder lead pencils to sketch lightly with I have found that I tend to want to press harder with those in order to see the line I'm drawing which causes a dent or groove in the paper which cannot be colored over.  The non photo blue pencils are a nice smooth and soft lead allowing you to see your line without pressing too hard and to add in some shading.
"gray scale" is another term I used.  A gray scale is gray going from light to dark or dark to light.  Gray scale markers are a set of markers all different grays from lighter to darker.  They are labeled with a % -the higher the percent the darker the marker.  These are great for shading.  When using markers you can add the shading to your comic page before you color it in.  This allows you again to be able to make a few photo copies and then be able to play with different color schemes without needing to start from scratch every time.
"Layout" is basically your plan of where everything goes and your story or ideas.

After explaining this to the kids and showing them the materials I let them create.  Here is what they came up with in our hour time frame (I think a few enjoyed it and could have spent more time).

Charles Demuth inspired Watercolors

Charles Demuth is maybe most known for his painting of the number 5, but he has also done a number of buildings and still life watercolors as well as a few painting of vaudeville America, but for this project I wanted to focus on his buildings and the famous number 5.

For this project you will need water color paper, water color paint, a ruler, a pencil, water, brush(es), paper towels, masking tape, and a hard board.
I gave my students a choice of doing a number or letter or a building.  If they chose a building I had a few photographs I had taken printed off for them to look at as a reference.  If you think you will want to paint a building a photo of a building is something you will want to add to the supplies list.
First thing to do is tape your watercolor paper to a hard board (I use a clipboard typically, but this time I taped ours directly onto the table since it is a hard plastic).  You will want to tape along the edges of all four sides.  This helps the paper dry flat instead of wavy.

Next draw the number or letter as a large outline or "block" letter or draw the basic outline of your building.
Now take your ruler and draw a few lines at random angles across the entire paper.
Look at each new shape you have made as it's own shape and begin filling in each shape with paint one at a time.

You can paint each shape a different color or similar colors.  If you choose to do similar colors I recommend using a slightly different color- for example if you are painting a red brick wall you would want to do one shape red, one darker red, lighter red, orange red, red violet, etc.  Hopefully you get the idea.  You could also make certain edges of your shape darker or lighter to keep the lines across the page distinctive.  Another option is to layer colors of paint over other colors (i.e. paint an area yellow and add green over some of that area and then blue over some of that area).
Once your painting is completely dry  and flat you can carefully peel off the tape.  While waiting for your painting to dry remember to wash out your brushes and clean up.

The City Art Show

In August for art lessons I went with a city theme.  I had a lot of fun with this one.  We did water colors inspired by Charles Demuth, graffitti art, comic book art, and we built a city.   I also came up with a playlist of music during this art show too.  Music is fun and a big inspiration.  It's fun to throw together some music that sounds like the mood I'm going for with the artwork.
Playlist:
City of Blinding Lights -U2
Beautiful -Moby
Ride -Vines
How You Like Me Now Original -Heavy
Atomic -Blondie
The Passenger -Iggy Pop
Honey -Moby
Last Night -Strokes
Tick Tick Boom -Hives
God Moving Over the Face of the Waters -Moby
The Fly -U2
London Calling -Clash
Know Your Rights-Clash
Colleen -Heavy
Heart of Glass -Blondie
Zooropa -U2

Here's some pics from our show:

The Circus Art Show

After all our circus themed art lessons were through we put on a little show.  I hung up most of the art work in my garage.  Some students were not able to attend the show so they decided to take their art home at the end of each class.  This art show had some extra special features.  One was a friend of mine's daughter is into photography so I let her have a spot in the show to get a chance to display some of her art.  She took some great photos of our local town's fair.  She also helped with the set up of the show for the experience.  Thank you!
The other special extra everyone was invited to dress up.  Another was a show.  We set up a stage and let anyone who wanted get up and show off.  We had strong men, odd tricks, a magic trick, hula hooping, hand stands, and more.  I haven't edited the video yet (or figured out how to embed that in my blog) so maybe another time I'll get that up.
We had fun despite the terrible wetness and heat in the air.

circus parade sculptures

the stage area for showing off

Circus Parade

The first day of our week of circus art we started with sculpting animals, things, or people you might see in a circus parade.  We used Cloud Clay that I purchased from Dick Blick.  The colors we great and vibrant and easy to mix together to make new colors. 
To mix a new color you take some of two colors and knead them, squish them, stretch them together.  We came up with some fun swirl patterns too when mixing the colors. 
The clay is almost more of a foamy feel than a greasy feel you might get with other clays.  Cloud Clay is air dry so you don't need to bake it.  It dries quickly so you want to take a little at a time and keep what you aren't using in the package.  I put each pack inside a zip lock bag and sealed it while it wasn't being used to make sure it didn't dry out.  I let the kids pretty much do what ever they wanted and they didn't really need a lot of help- which was good because I stayed busy the whole hour of each class just passing out clay and putting it back in the bags.  Here's some results:  (sorry the last one is fuzzy- we had a very steamy day on our art show and I couldn't keep my camera lens from fogging up).

Posters!

The next day of our circus/carnival themed art lessons was painting posters.  I ordered a large roll of yellow paper. The kind you typically see used for bulletin boards at school.  I asked the kids to paint a poster advertising for an act or performance at a circus or carnival.  I showed them some vintage circus poster examples online (googled images of vintage circus posters) so they would have an idea.  We don't see a lot of circus posters here in the suburbs.  I also showed them a couple of Toulouse Latrec posters and the classic "Chat Noir" (again googled images).  I emphasized making sure the most important words are largest and the rest are smaller.  I also pointed out how in the Chat Noir and in many toulouse latrec posters only a couple of colors are used and the posters really stand out -sometimes keeping it simple is a good idea.  I also demonstrated drawing a sketch of the poster first on scratch paper and writing out the words so you can find the center of the words, start in the middle and work your way to the sides so the words are centered.
After my intro I passed out the paint and let them go at it.  The older kids seemed to catch on, but for the younger ones that is getting a bit complicated.  If I had a class with all younger ones I skipped all the centering advice and just let them paint.
Improvising is okay- some kids made a mistake, like spilling or painting something different then how they wanted, but that's okay.  I spill can be turned into something else.  Or for example, my son wanted to paint two lions fighting, but painted one too big so he didn't have room for the other lion.  I gave him the option of starting over if he really wanted, what he thought he would have to do, or painting the other lion on another piece and then taping the two posters together for one giant poster.  He decided he liked it with one.  One looks great.  My point is be willing to be flexible and creative with what you have.
For this project we used tempera paint.  I have not always been a fan of tempera.  It always seems to dry way lighter and powdery.  It's pro is it is thicker than water colors so it is easier for young children to use, is washable, and is cheaper than acrylic paints and that's why I decided to go with it for this project.  I am now going to have take back my comment that Crayola has the best art products.  I bought the Dick Blick brand tempera paints and am amazed!  The Dick Blick tempera has great colors, great for mixing, nice and bright, and they didn't fade when dry.  I highly, highly recommend them. I am very excited about this product. :)  We will be using it again for our next set of lessons coming up.
Using big bright yellow pieces of paper was a lot of fun.  I love the pictures of the kids busy working so hard to create their fun ideas of a circus down on paper.