Category Archives: Teens

Charcoal Self Portraits

After practicing charcoal drawing with the teen class when they drew paper bags, they were ready to move on to something more challenging: self portraits. Personally, I have never enjoyed drawing myself. I think it is extremely difficult because beyond drawing faces, you are representing yourself. However, the teens did such a great job andContinue reading “Charcoal Self Portraits”

Exploring Charcoal: Paper Bags

A few weeks ago the teen class drew paper lunch bags using charcoal to practice value. We really wanted them to be able to look at their bags, find where the darkest areas and lightest areas were and use charcoal to express these values. Many of the students had never used charcoal before and weContinue reading “Exploring Charcoal: Paper Bags”

Aperture – Day 1 Photo Camp

Today was the beginning of our three day mini photo 101 camp.  As we are learning to take our camera’s off auto, we focused on Aperture Today. The photos in this post were taken by students during the workshop today. APERTURE:  The aperture of a lens is how wide the lenses opens when you takeContinue reading “Aperture – Day 1 Photo Camp”

Teen Landscape Watercolors

The teens completed their landscape watercolor paintings. There were a lot of lessons wrapped up into this project. We started with an introduction to watercolor painting and all of the different types of marks you can make with watercolor. We learned about color mixing and painted our own colorwheels. We also had an in depthContinue reading “Teen Landscape Watercolors”

Teen Value Ornaments

This week the teens learned about value and made value driven ornaments. Value Lesson Value: Value is the amount of light reflected from the surface. Value creates depth in a picture making the object look 3 D. We started by sketching a basic sphere and a five-value scale.  We talked about the different kinds ofContinue reading “Teen Value Ornaments”

Acrylic Pour Painting

As I explained to my students, I don’t have a great appreciation for modern art.  A lot of the time I just really don’t get it.  But I do have an appreciation for expressive art – art that tells a story, makes you feel something, shares someone’s unique view of the world. I have hadContinue reading “Acrylic Pour Painting”

Sumi-e Ink Paintings

For our last project of the year, the Wednesday night teen class created Sumi-e Ink Paintings. Sumi-e is a Japanese word that literally means “Ink Picture.” “Sumi” is the ink.   Adding “e” makes it “ink picture.” The art of Sumi-e originated in China about 6000 years ago as Calligraphy. Calligraphy led to painting pictures.    WeContinue reading “Sumi-e Ink Paintings”

Observational Value Drawings

It was so nice to be back in class this week and working with the Teens on creating Observational Value Drawings. We practiced observational still life drawing – drawing from real life set ups using measuring techniques. I started by letting the students pick the objects they wanted to draw and setting up their ownContinue reading “Observational Value Drawings”