Crazy Chameleons, Whimsical Spiders, Warm Desert Discoveries!

Watercolor Discovery, Completed!

What a difference only a couple of weeks can make! There is a lot to catch up on, and about 400 Kazillion photos, but first, I have to update my awesome art kids and their projects! 

Therefore, the drama of car repairs, road trips, beautiful locales, and lack of car repairs will have to wait until the next entry.

Yesterday was the last day of my Summer art classes. Well, for now. It is definitely the last of my classes on this side of town. We'll see what happens when we're over on the Wickenburg side. I have no idea if I'm going to do it there next year because I'm not sure exactly when we're moving next Summer and the status of the house, etc. 

Anyway, we started our July session with a familiar project: Watercolor Discovery and Warm Color Desert Landscapes. 3 out of the 4 students hadn't had these projects before, so I began with the fun Color Theories and Watercolor demos that comes with these projects and then the kids went to town!

Previous Watercolor Discoveries and Desert Landscapes
And the same projects from My Heartland Days

Desert Landscape with Warm Colors, Step 1

Desert Landscape with Warm Colors, Step 1

Desert Landscape with Warm Colors, Step 2

(Two Above) Ink Pen Stage of Landscape in Progress!

Desert Landscape Watercolor Completed!

Watercolor Discovery, In Progress

Watercolor Discovery, Ink Pen Stage

Watercolor Discovery, Completed!

My one student who had done these two projects before began a Mixed Media project that had some "Watercolor Discovery" qualities. I call this project "Whimsical Spiders".  The other three kids did it once their first two watercolor projects were finished. 

After drawing a web and putting glue over it and letting the glue dry (which doesn't take as long when you set it outside in the summer sizzle), the random color is splashed over it. 

Web Portion Completed

After using oil pastel on black paper to create the spider, it's cut out and put on the web.

Again, this photo keeps uploading vertical no matter how many times I try to rotate it 45 degrees. Grrrrr......

Completed Whimsical Spider!

Completed Whimsical Spider!

Completed Whimsical Spider!

Completed Whimsical Spider!

Moving on...we tried the cool colors/warm colors technique with a "Crazy Chameleon" Project. I think this project needs more work and instruction for when I do it again in the future. It's rather straight-forward, but needs a little more modeling and demonstration than I was able to provide this time around. Plus. when I try to come up with examples, I have a hard time not making it look too complicated. I wish I could get Mikelle and Christian on board to help me with projects ahead of time like they used to. However, now Mikelle refuses to do any artwork that she didn't think of on her own. And Christian now gets too frustrated when something isn't "perfect".

The concept is to have the Chameleon "hiding" with the same shapes and patterns, but he stands out due to having only warm colors or having only cool colors.

I made my Chameleon with Cool Colors. The background would be Warm Colors.

And this is a Completed Warm Color Chameleon with Cool Colors in the Background

Cool Color Chameleon with Warm Color Background.

Our final project involves Picasso in a fun twist! I'll update that with the next entry!