Potential Art Project Plans

Art

I've long considered myself a creative-type person, one with lots of ideas swirling around in my head, and lots of clutter in my house. [Creative types tend to accumulate clutter -- everything looks useful, so why throw it away! ::sigh::]

However, the truth of my past ten years has been that, combined with an accumulated sense of being buried in my clutter, I just avoid art in my home school like the plague! Why? ...Because I don't want a mess! I don't want to have to clean up the project, let alone any unexpected spills...

But every year I seem to come back to this point of wanting to retackle our art program with new vigor, particularly now -- at a time of year when there are so many months ahead for my son to accomplish things to that he can enter them at the County Fair, which he loves to do. So I have come up with some possible activities for us to direct our energy toward for 2013:

• Ceramic Mosaic - I originally saw an art idea about a ceramic wall mural. It wasn't exactly what I was looking for, so I looked again using different search terms and came up with a ceramic art project that looks close to what I am trying to accomplish. There was a real good "how to" at this link. There was a pretty idea for a garden stepping stone as well. I also really liked the clay-tablet method of mural described on the Deep Space Sparkle blog. I wonder if I can think of a way to make the mosaic out of small clay squares...

• Koi Fish Art - For the Koi Fish Art Lesson you want to start with a sheet of paper either 8-1/2" X 11" or 9" X 12 ". Using chalk pastels, have the artist draw either one or two koi, using the sample illustrations from the Deep Space Sparkle lesson page. The student will then paint in the fish using either water color, tempera, or acrylic paint. Let dry, then mount to mat board.

• Chalk Bird Art Project - The Chalk Bird Art Project starts with  letting the student see some black and white bird photos (I wouldn't mind color, either). Then, using a standard sheet of art paper, the artist draws a black outline picture using black oil pastel. Then the student uses chalk pastels to color in. It is helpful to have a sheet of paper to set on the artwork for the child to rest the drawing hand on so the oil pastel doesn't smear. After coloring in, a fixative needs to be applied to keep the pastel from smearing.

• Abstract Acrylic Painting Project - This is one I think we can do, that I found on a website called Art Made Easy.   It's a link to a page called My Cool Homeschool for Abstract Fun. I found searching about Abstract Painting to be very helpful, because I wasn't sure what that fair catelog entry was asking for. It can be anything from art where you blow the paint with a straw, to splatter painting, painting with the wheels of a car driven through paint... Lots of possibilities...

• Calligraphy Art Project - I was looking for lessons on calligraphy so we could maybe do a project for the fair.  I found one five-day caligraphy lesson page here, but it didn't give real concrete ideas of what to caligraphy...  But it gave some suggested links which I followed.  The first link led to Calligraphy Lessons On-Line, which may give more calligraphy information than the average homeschooler would ever want... So I finally found some samples of framed calligraphy art here.  That looks achievable. I'm just not sure if it would still be considered calligraphy if it were like a painting of a geisha girl (to the right on the link), or only if it is the words. I think only the words. Like one could do a trio of faith, hope and love...

• Acryllic Painting - Building - There was a promising lesson plan on this at How do I Paint With Acryllic Paints (E-How)

• How to paint Portraits in acryllic -  on e-How - this is excellent! A video series! She instructs you to paint this one on canvas, so I did a little more research and learned you are supposed to prepare your canvas. I had no idea! So there is something called Gesso that you paint the canvas with before you do your painting. Then Jacklyn LaFlamme teaches you about different types of brushes. If your child is interested in painting, follow through this woman's series. She is a professional artist, and these videos are well done.

• Charcoal Drawing Project - I really loved this reverse charcoal technique. Look low on the page to where it talks about starting with a simple subject to draw, like an egg.