Welcome to today’s art podcast, and today we’re going to chat about prioritising the fun stuff with your art. What we mean about that is making sure you make time to do the creative work you enjoy, rather than worrying about your art or getting bogged down by the business side.
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Some of the things we chat about
Create a scribble and then make it into a character
Collage is a fun way to loosen up, just place bits on your sketchbook and work over the top of it
I had been getting a bit inside my own head trying to decide what to paint and in the end decided to just paint how I felt rather than worrying about if it’s commercial or not.
Playing with a new material or using it in a different way can inject fun back into your art.
Try applying materials in a way that is harder control
Do a blind contour
Do something fun in your sketchbook that’s different to what you paint
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This week’s creative question
Q. How do you balance experimenting and having fun with new styles and mediums while staying true to your existing voice?
The best answers will be read out on a future podcast.
You can Tweet us your answers @KickCreatives or let us know in the Facebook Group, which by the way if you haven’t already joined, I highly recommend that you do! We will put the question up there and also on the Facebook page… and of course, on our Instagram page @kickinthecreatives.
If you have any suggestions for the podcast or our challenges please feel free to get in touch.
Op Art is so much fun to study with your students (I’d say 2nd on up!). There are so many interesting works to look through, and so much inspiration to be had. Think about things you are trying to cover (standards/skills/elements/principles), and focus your lesson in that direction. It really is so versatile.
If you need to bounce ideas off of someone, leave me a comment here or find me on my other social media. I’d be happy to help.
I wanted to share a few awesome art supplies for kids that I either recently discovered or just really love. I’m always on the lookout to spice things up in the art room. I know some budgets are tight, but you can always buy one set for a whole table and then the kids can share them. I used to think I needed many sets of everything, but honestly sharing, manners and taking turns are very good skills to practice. Similarly, you can have some of the special art supplies in a central location and kids can choose to try them out during the class period. In the next few sections, I will share the art supply and why I love it. And I will also give you an example of a project you can try with this media.
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I recently discovered these from a suggestion in a Facebook art teacher group. These beeswax crayons are like regular crayons, but are nice and smooth and give a solid coverage. They have vibrant colors.
One project you could do with these crayons is an abstract artwork and tie it in with the artist Kandinsky. He was a Russian artist who has many beautiful abstract works with brilliant colors, shapes and lines. Here is the artwork titled Composition IV.
And here is an example of an artwork using the Beeswax Crayons that your students could try to make. Using lines, shapes and colors inspired by the works of Kandinsky, create an abstract work with your own creative ideas.
I saw these on Instagram and couldn’t believe how bright the colors were- super bright, in fact. I had to try them out myself and they did not disappoint!
The name of this supply is Super Bright Flourescent Paint Daubers. They are just like any other paint dotters you may have tried, but they are definitely brighter.
Here was what I made playing around with these paint daubers. No filter on this picture!
I have several other blog posts about using paint daubers in art projects and you could easily substitute the regular paint daubers with the flourescent colors.
Speaking of flourescent colors, if you haven’t had neon paint to try out, it’s so fun! I try to incorporate neon paint in a few art projects a year. I like Sax Versa Temp for most of my tempera paint needs. Handy art is another brand I’ve tried. And I know some people like the flourescent tempera cakes.
One art project I like to do is have the students create their own alebrije. Alebrijes are colorful, fantastical creatures from Mexican folk art. They often mix different animals—real and imaginary—into one fantastical design. The idea came from artist Pedro Linares in the 1930’s after he had a fever dream filled with these wild creatures shouting “alebrijes!” He turned them into art using papier-mâché, and later, Oaxacan artists began carving them from wood.
Today, alebrijes are a big part of Mexican culture and are often linked to Día de los Muertos. They also became popular when they were featured in the Pixar movie Coco!
I saw an awesome exhibit of huge alebrijes when they were at an outdoor exhibit in the Chicago area. The size, creativity and patterns were amazing!
Speaking of Posca paint pens, kids just seem to love them. My older child really enjoys using them for drawings and kids will ask to use these special sets. I don’t recommend using them with younger kids as they tend to shake them too much and splatter paint out of them and they are expensive, so save these for your older students.
I’m a big fan of the Mungyo chalk pastels. I don’t know how I discovered them. I think I may have got them from an art resale swap or something, but I love the variety of colors and they are fairly inexpensive.
We use these Crayola Metallic markers a lot! Anything metallic is fun to add to your art supply stash.
I like to use these on the backgrounds of other artworks, especially on black paper. The silver and gold in this picture were definitely the Crayola metallic markers. Some of the other colors may have been the chalk markers or paint pens that I mentioned before. The project below was inspired by the artwork of Yayoi Kusama and her dotted pumpkin series.
These are some of my favorite fun art supplies to use with kids! Do you have any awesome art supplies I should try out? Share in the comments!
