visual art 10
Markers & Charcoal
First project in grade 10! we're going to use a very familiar medium to get you started - markers. But we're going to combine those markers with a likely unfamiliar medium - compressed charcoal. Don't wear your white clothes for a few days....
Look at the example below. Notice how the colours glow? This is due in large part to the rich deep blues and blacks surrounding the colours.
Another thing that works in the picture above is the colours - notice that little splash of orange in the seahorse's eye. The orange acts as a complimentary (which means contrasting) colour to the blues/purples/greens. This idea of a contrasting colour is very important! It is also a good idea to understand warm and cool colours, a topic we covered in grade 9. The colour wheel below shows the separation between the warm yellows/oranges/reds/pinks and the much cooler greens/blues/purples. For this project it will be important for you group either warms or cools together, and then add a colour from the other side of the wheel to create that strong contrast and "pop". Remember also that warm colours typically appear to come forward on the page, while cool colours seem to sink into the back.
The trick is always deciding which colours to use. What works and what doesn't is a skill you need to hone by trying and trying (and trying again) different colour combinations. But we can get some ideas of where to start by looking at images from the natural world. We are going to spend some time looking at macro photography I've included several macro photos below. Take a look through them and think - Which of these have colour schemes that work well? Which have colour schemes you think look terrible? And lastly, how does the black appear in the images - is there enough black for our purposes, to create those glowing colours we want for this project? Remember, in the end we are going to add layers of compressed charcoal over our colours to create the illusion of form and depth.
Now that you've spent some time thinking about colour, it's time to think specifically about using the charcoal. At first the charcoal will feel clumsy - it's too fat, too messy, too whatever... But compressed charcoal is the next step up from pencil, as it increases by a huge margin your range from the (pretty limited) silvery greys of graphite to the deep rich blacks of the charcoal and every shade of grey all the way to the white of your paper (assuming your paper was white). As an example, check out these charcoal drawings by the artist Robert Longo (if you haven't seen his work before click on his name to go to his website - wow.) Look at those sharks! All charcoal drawings.
Now i'm not telling you to draw the way Robert Longo draws with the charcoal - that's a pretty high bar - but you should spend some time just with the charcoal and try and draw with it. Draw an eye, draw some mountains, draw a moon floating in the clouds. Play around with a black and white drawing without worrying about colour. In the end, the project is about laying a black and white charcoal drawing over top of vibrant colours.
Here are some student examples of the project. All of these are 18"x24" pieces using markers and compressed charcoal. A lot of them are eyes, but that isn't required, just coincidence i guess...
Watercolour & Oil Pastel
For our next project we are going to work with watercolour and oil pastel. Below is a video which demonstrates some basic ways to use watercolour, so if you want to try it at home go ahead. You don't need to use the exact colours shown in the video, feel free to experiment with what you have. This is just a fun example to take a look at and try if you want, not required for marks.
Here a couple of videos that we'll try so we can get better at our watercolour skills. I know how much you all love watercolour tutorials! This is a two part video, so load up the first one below and then finish up with the second one.
Note that in these videos the artist, Ekaterina Smirnova (check out her website at ekaterina-smirnova.com), emphasizes layering your media. She uses watercolour and white gouache to create effects that simulate nature, without trying to carefully place every mark on the page. We are going to do something similar with this project, including the addition of oil pastel to create light or dark colourful textures and details on top of a watercolour base. But first, we need to remember how to use oil pastels.
In keeping with our theme of looking at Canadian artists, here are two more exceptional Canadian artists who work with landscapes in Canada: Randy Hayashi from Edmonton Alberta, and Jennifer Woodburn who is originally from Saskatchewan! You can choose one of their paintings, I will print it for you, and you are going to give this project a test run. I will provide you with a 9x12" 140lb. watercolour paper and you are going to decide - which aspects of these paintings would be best rendered using watercolour, and which parts would be best to layer on top with oil pastel? (Note - for a couple of these images I don't know the artist, sorry!)
Once you have completed your exercise, let's take a look at some of the most famous artists who have worked on landscapes in Canada. For example, the image below - what do you think??
A.Y. Jackson - The Red Maple, 1914
We are going to spend some time with a very famous group of artists that painted the vast Canadian landscapes all across the country. They became loosely associated and known as the Group of Seven. There are however a couple of so called non-members who we will include in our overview, including Tom Thompson and especially Emily Carr (not a lot of women in the Group of Seven club...)The above painting is by A.Y. Jackson, called The Red Maple. What do you notice about the painting? The bright red leaves, for sure, but look at how the image uses so many colours layered together to represent water and rocks.
Here are a few other noteworthy paintings you should look through - notice how diverse the styles of the paintings are! (I did include several Lawren Harris and Emily Carr paintings however... check out the Group of Seven link above for many more examples).
The idea for this project is pretty simple. You are going to choose a location in Canada that you have been to - anywhere at all. Might be your cabin at a nearby lake, or a trip you took out to B.C. If you have a picture of the spot you are thinking of, great. If not, and you feel able to, you are welcome to work from your memory of the location. You are going to create a watercolour painting as a base, and you can then add oil pastels on top to crisp up details or add highlights, etc. Look at the examples above for ideas about how to use colour, how to place your landscape on the page (composition!!), and to find ways to represent nature in a couple of different media choices.
Below are some student examples from past years. All are 18"x24" on140 lb. watercolour paper.
Drawing with Graphite
Every grade 10 students' favorite - drawing with pencils! This is also the first project where I'm giving you complete freedom to draw whatever you want (within reason). There is no theme or specific style we're going for, just as long as you include some good contrast and think about the way your piece functions on the page, I'm happy. So hopefully you've had a project in mind for awhile that you really want to try.
But first, let's get some practice in. Below are the images we are going to use for our exercise. You are going to choose one of the photographs below and print it out on 11"x17" paper. Set your printer option to "full" or "fill" so the image fills completely the paper we are using. Then tear it into 8 or so pieces, remove half of the torn pieces, and draw the missing parts. We will carefully use glue-sticks to stick down the half of the torn pieces we want to keep onto a fresh piece of 11"x17" paper. This method will give you a guide and also allow you to see and try and match the darks, lights and grey tones that make up each photo. We are going to use a 3B pencil for both the exercise and the project.
Once your exercise is all finished up, let's get started on the project. I would recommend two ways of starting the project. Some of you will want/need a reference photo to use. Remember that obviously your reference photo CAN NOT be someone else's drawing. We want to make our own artwork, not copy others'. But you could certainly use a photograph as a reference. Spend some time looking through your own photos, or make a point of going out and taking some of your own. Once you have a photo it often helps to turn the photo into black and white, then play around with your contrast and brightness settings so you can get a well balanced image with a nice range of lights and darks. Alternatively if you are not able to take a photo of your own, the interwebs i hear are pretty full of photos.
Others of you though will want to just jump right in, no reference required. This is also great, though it does make it tougher for me to help you get rolling (since I can't yet read your mind). Nonetheless, if you've had an idea or you want to try tossing some around, go for it. Below are some graphite drawings that other grade ten students have created over the years. As usual, all are on 18"x24" paper.
Comics Project
Our comic brook project is pretty straightforward - you are going to use an existing comic book character (or create your own!) to create a pencil crayon picture. The key is using the pencil crayon in a strong, rich way to get bright, vibrant colours. Then we are going to work with an all-stabilo pencil on top of the colours to add in rich dark black. The first important aspect of this project is to learn how to cross hatch. Watch the video below and follow along as David Finch demonstrates some of the theory behind cross hatching. Don't worry about trying to do the whole Flash figure at the end, unless you want a real challenge!
Once you've got the basics of hatching and cross-hatching down, look at the next video. This video is time lapsed, so the artist appears to be working incredibly quickly. Just watch a second (literally a second or two), pause it, and then try and draw the image just as the artist is doing. Best to work on an 11x17 inch piece of paper so the scale is close. We aren't going to do the entire video - we are just going to get to the point where he adds in some of the shadows and starts the hatching process, up to about the 50 second mark. Again, if you want a challenge, try and work in layers further into the video, all the way to the end if you want. In order to get a feel for the style AND the materials we are going to use, we will do all the layout in regular graphite pencil, but at the end we are going to add a layer of all stabilo on top so you can see the effect of the true black - trust the process! The black pencil will change your drawing dramatically.
And now for the project! We won't do an exercise in pencil crayon because we spent quite a bit of time in the grade 9 course on a pencil crayon project, plus I feel like you maaaaayyyy have been using pencil crayons off and on for the last several years. Instead, spend some time looking through some images of your favorite super heroes (or villains) to get an idea for how you would like to draw your character of choice. You don't need to try and copy an existing piece of artwork directly, but references really help in capturing the style we're looking for.
Below are some student examples, all of which are coloured with pencil crayons (a mix of regular Crayola and some Progresso Woodless pencil crayons by Koh-I-Noor - well worth the investment) on 18"x24" paper, finished on top with black Stabilo pencils (available from Delta art). To get the ultimate finish, they can be sprayed with Crystal Clear Krylon which will take away the dull waxy surface that plagues pencil crayons, especially dark colours, will fix the Stabilo onto the paper so it stops smearing, and brighten everything up to create a much more professional look. Also remember Stabilo pencils are designed as water soluble, so if there are any accidents or inadvertent smudging on top of the wax of the pencil crayons, simply take a dampened Kleenex and wipe away the problem!
Pen & Ink
Take a look at the examples below. Note the way the lines are crisp black and the paper shows bright white. We are going to use India Ink for this project, using calligraphy nibs. If you're stuck at home, any black pen or marker will do. Choose one of the examples and try and draw it out using that crisp line style. Feel free to sketch it out lightly with pencil first if you'd like, but don't try and capture every line. Just roughly put in where the main features are, on an 8.5"x11" piece of paper. This will be your exercise.
You will notice there are three main elements to the India ink artwork: solid black areas; open white areas; and textured areas. Those three elements create an effective image! Carefully considering where you place the areas of dark, light, and texture creates an even better image. Below are some examples of past student projects. They are all done on 18"x24" paper. If you are stuck at home, feel free to try 3-4 small ones on regular sized printer paper instead.
Thinking Abstract
The move from focusing on realistic artwork towards abstract artwork is tricky. Generally speaking, in grade 10 you are focused on making your artwork look "real". But sometimes moving away from the real and towards more abstracted work is a relief - gone is the pressure to re-create something you see, whether that is a photograph or something you are looking at, and instead you can focus on just making something look interesting in its own way. For example, check out this image:
Now to me this image looks sort of like a street scene, but rendered in little squares and rectangles and with watercolour added in.
What does this image look like to you? To me looks like the interior of a house (a really nice house, but still). Even though the title would indicate that it is not an interior, I can't shake that view of it. Either way, again, notice the colour scheme and the use of geometric shapes to give the image detail. A lot of geometric shapes.
Streets of Gold by David Hansen
So here's what i want you to do: I want you to look carefully at your house and find a space that to you is the most interesting. Or go for a walk if you're sick of your house and take a picture of a street scene that you think has a bunch of interesting details. You are going to render the photo you take in this style - overlapped geometric shapes to represent the details in your photo. You can work in pencil to start if you'd like, but once you get a general layout going switch to something you have that is permanent - a thin marker, a black pen, whatever you have around. India ink if you have it. Fill the largest paper you have with these designs, making reference to your photo as you go.
To help with seeing your picture in this geometric way, try using a filter on your phone's photo editor. Bump the contrast waaaay up and you'll see the general forms sort of bulk up together. This might help give your work some direction.
Once you have as many shapes down as you feel is a good start, look at the artwork above again. Look carefully. Notice how the colours look so good together. Now choose a few colours you have around (again, whatever you have is fine - pencil crayon, markers, watercolour, etc.) and begin colouring in your drawing. Try and use shades of the same colour if you can, with a few complimentary or contrasting colours mixed in to give some pop. Spend time with the piece -10-12 hours is a good time range. If you have18x24 inch paper, cut it in half so you have longer rectangular paper and do two different images. If you don't have paper that big let me know, or use 11x17 inch paper. Have fun, i think you will make some really cool pictures.