Worktable Wednesday: Watercolor Monsters

Every once in awhile, I get the urge to pursue other art mediums to get my creative juices flowing. If you know me only as a plush monster maker, you may not know that I love to paint. I painted a lot in my senior year of high school and then in college.

Watercolor pencils were a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law years ago. I made a chart to see how the pencils look on paper and when water is added.

I've always had a bit of a love/hate relationship with watercolors.  They intrigue me, but there is very little room for error.  When I used to paint a lot, I preferred acrylics.  But my interest in watercolor keeps creeping back every once in awhile. I tend to use them a lot when teaching art to kids. They are quicker than acrylics in terms of cleanup. I like the look.  And I've recently tried to embrace their slight unpredictability.

I've also started combining watercolors with black pen.

I am debating whether I should add watercolor paintings to my KiraArts products or just keep it as a "just for me" creative outlet, with no pressure to make them to sell. Because I do admit, sometimes that pressure saps the creativity from me. I actually am feeling very uninspired to make plush lately for some reason.  I'm hoping maybe this brief foray into watercolor can help bring back the spark.

My Leonard Nimoy Tribute Monster

 I did this little sketch in the waiting room while getting my car inspected! I recently watched Big Hero 6 and was inspired! I am absolutely in love with the design of Baymax. The simplicity of that face! That squishy belly! And he's just the proportions I tend to favor in my monster designs...long torso, long arms, stubby legs. I just want to hug him!  I love Baymax!

Some Big Hero 6 & KiraArts crossover art!

Art Lesson With Little Kids: Watercolor Splatter Monsters

We made "Splatter Monsters" today in the little kids' art class. (known as "Drippy Monsters" at the blog that I got the idea from, "smART Class" ).

This first one is my example I did the previous night so I would have a final product to show the kids. 

 It's pretty simple...just splash a little puddle of watercolor paint onto the paper, then blow through a straw to make the paint go all splattery!  Do this until you get the desired amount of splatter effect.  Add eyes and mouth from colored paper/cardstock...and voila!...a Splatter Monster!

I like that the kids used multiple colors for their monsters.  The merging paint makes a cool-looking effect.

(the writer of the blog I got the idea from said that she used liquid watercolor paint, which I went out and bought and used as well, but I learned while experimenting that regular watercolor paint works as well.) 

 This goofy little orange tripod guy was the step-by-step example I did during class.

The kids had a lot of fun with this one!  I'm sure their older brothers are chomping at the bit to do their own Splatter Monsters next week!

The "Mega-Nubbin"!

At Mayday Underground, there was an art exhibit called "The Root of Art Over Craft", the theme of which was the concept of "Challenging the boundaries between art and craft".

"How do you differentiate art from craft? Are they connected? Are they two separate entities? This exhibit, which occurs concurrently with Mayday! Underground, seeks to extend publicity to artisans in the area and help shoppers and viewers gain a better understanding for art and craft."

This was my submission to the exhibit...the "Mega Nubbin"!

I had put bags of rice in his feet to try and help him be freestanding. At one point before the show had opened, and we were all still setting up, he was standing (I wish I'd gotten a picture!). But the exhibit organizers moved him later (I'm assuming because he wasn't that stable and was easily knocked over).


This picture of me holding him really gives the sense of just how big he was!

I also did a painting of a Nubbin as kind of an afterthought, inspired by the theme of Art vs Craft.

A far as my thoughts on the "difference" of art vs. craft...because the lines of what constitutes"art" have been so blurred, I think of "craft" as the process of making "art". I think of "Craft" as a verb, and "Art" as a noun. Art is the result of Craft(ing).

Post-Art-Class Inspiration

After teaching art class, I often feel inspired to play around with the supplies and make some art myself.

So I made a little ATC (Artist Trading Card) using the watercolors and my monster rubber stamp (custom made by my friend John of Jackbear Stamps).

I also did some extra watercolor and rubber stamping on the paper I used to show the kids how to do the sticker & watercolor project.

Then I made myself another button painting. I think it would look cute framed on a wall. I can't decide whether to keep it or to try and sell it in the shop.

And here's a look at the beautiful mess the dining room table is! Sure, it's chaos, but all the color makes it look so pretty! (and besides, it won't be that hard to clean up!)

Art Show: "Growth"

Tonight was the opening of "Growth - A collection of work by Lisa Barker & her friends" at The Owl House in Rochester.

It's an art show that a friend of mine organized and I contributed a piece to.

This is one of Lisa's pieces. My favorite one. I've talked about it before. I still want a print.

Some more of Lisa's work. (My photos don't do them any justice at all.)

The lovely Lisa!

It occurred to me tonight that this is the first time I've had a painting in a real art show! (school art shows don't count!) My piece is on the wall in the upstairs dining area. (the small, green painting in the middle). Any long-time blog readers may recognize it from a few years ago.

The central theme for the show was based upon growth and the idea of healing, and/or learning through and even rejoicing when things are hard. Quite an appropriate theme for this painting to be included in.

I may have posted photos of the painting before, and even mentioned that it, along with its companion piece, were born out of intense emotion, but I never gave the specifics. I don't often talk about our infertility. I try to stay positive here on the blog and don't want to be a "downer". I read something once on an infertility site that hit the nail on the head. It said telling people "we can't have children" is "one of the great conversation-stoppers of the world, about on a par with ‘I have cancer’ or ‘my mother was an axe-murderer’."

Yeah.

And everyone's first response is "Oh, I'm sorry." and then, inevitably, "Have you thought about adoption?" [sarcasm] no...the thought has never even crossed my mind![sarcasm]...here's your sign! No, really...I don't get snippy with people. I know they mean well, and...well...what else can they really say? I know they only say it because they don't know what else to say. So anyway, that's why I don't talk about it much. The bane of my existence is the dreaded question "So, do you have kids?" when meeting a person for the first time.

As for adoption...the answer is yes...but we are waiting for God to let us know when the time is right. And as for the whole "I knew someone who dealt with infertility, and after they adopted, they got pregnant!"...the way things are with our situation, us getting pregnant naturally would literally take a miracle. Which, of course, I still believe that God works miracles, but sometimes when you have the cold, hard facts, it's hard to keep that tiny spark of hope alive.

Whatever. We have accepted that God has had this happen for a reason. I have my good days and my bad days. Sometimes I'm fine with it all, and some days something will set me off (like baby showers or a friend's pregnancy announcement) and, usually combined with whacked-out hormones, will reduce me to a teary, moody mess.

Wow. I totally didn't mean to get all super-duper personal in this post, but there it is. I suppose if I am able to be this open publicly, I have had a lot of growth indeed.

Rediscovering Watercolors

I've been rediscovering watercolors this week. I babysat one of my friend's daughters this afternoon, and we spent a good chunk of the time painting wit watercolors (since I still had them out from teaching my other friend's son an art lesson earlier in the week). The following two pictures are what I painted today...

I had some printouts from a lesson I did at a homeschool co-op last year. The project we did was taping some line drawing printouts onto a window, taping paper over it, and tracing the lines with a white crayon. After the tracing is done, you paint it with watercolors and the white crayon acts as a wax resist. I think the piece I used for these two paintings was from a line drawing of the bronze ballerina sculpture by Edgar Degas.

The flowing hair on the first one was an accident while painting the color on the face, but I liked it and went with it with the brown. I don't think this painting is as good as it could have been if I'd stopped working on it earlier. I think I "ruined" it in my mind by working on it further. Sometimes you just need to know when to stop!

The second piece I am more satisfied with.

Watercolors aren't usually my favorite artistic medium to work with. If I'm going to paint, I usually prefer acrylic. But I like the look of watercolors and often admire other artists' work done with the medium. My mother-in-law bought me a lovely set of Prismacolor watercolor pencils a few years ago. I use watercolors when I'm trying to "play" with art and let myself go...to combat the perfectionist control-freak that primarily dominates my artistic nature. That part of me often gets frustrated at the transparent nature of watercolors (and prefers the mistake-covering opaqueness of acrylic).

I find it interesting that I tend to paint more during or after I have been teaching art to kids. Most other times painting goes by the wayside while I focus on making plush...because plush is the moneymaker right now. Do you ever wish you could just split yourself? I need a Painter Me, a Plush Maker Me, and a Puppeteer Me. I am interested in so many artistic mediums that it's hard to satisfy the urge for all of them.

Homeschool Co-op Art Class (5-7 year olds)

A lot of my friends homeschool their kids...and a group of them decided to do an unofficial homeschool co-op for the kids to get together and socialize and learn subjects like art and science and phys. ed. I don't have any kids, but I end up being one of the artsiest girls of the bunch and seem to have been dubbed the resident art expert. And I was asked if I could teach an art class for the co-op.

This week I was teaching the 5-7 year olds...10 of them. And I was teaching about color-mixing...with paint. 5-7 year olds x 10 + paint = messy disaster...right? Nope! Everything went so smoothly! I think one reason is because the kids didn't actually get to use paintbrushes (this time). I did 2 activities with them that had the paint pretty contained...

I took shoeboxes and taped a piece of paper inside...had the kids pick 2 colors of paint...squirted the paint in...add a few marbles...let the kid tilt and shake the box.

The second activity that we did was the classic "Ink Blot"/Rorchach Test project. I gave the kids pre-folded paper...asked them to pick 2 colors of paint...dripped somepaint on their paper...and had them fold it in half. Surprisingly enough, they liked this project even better than the marbles! When given a choice between doing one of the projects a second time, they all chose the "ink blot" project! (I would have thought they would pick the "marble roll"!)

All in all, the class was a rousing success! All the kids seemed to have a lot of fun.

I know you're not supposed to have favorites as a teacher, but this "ink blot" (shown above) was my absolute favorite out of all of them! Everyone unanimously thought it looked like a big pair of lips! There was another one I forgot to take a picture of where the kid used black and blue...he said the black part looked like a sheep head (which it did!), but I thought the blue part on top of the black sheep head part looked like a hot water bottle. So I said it looked like a sheep with a head cold! (Oh, I wish I'd thought to take a picture of it!)

The hardest part is finding a place for all the wet paint to dry!..and then having it dry in time for the kids to take them home. We globbed way too much paint on the paper for the "ink blots"...because the hole is so big on the caps of the bottles of tempera paint I have. I need to find some clear condiment bottles (like the hot-dog stand style ketchup bottles) so I can have a bit more control of how much paint comes out. (I should just make sure I don't store the red or yellow paint in the refrigerator!)