This was a very challenging project for the students to take on but gave them a chance to learn a variety of skills and produced a frame-able artwork at the end of the month.
We began by using circle stencils to draw the moon and outline the area for the moonglow. They then painted in the moon and first area of glow with brushes and had to move into a bit of a new area for them. We created the remaining glow and the background sky using foam stampers made from meat trays and dowels. The students mixed the colors on the tray with the stamper and applied them to the canvas. It was a bit labor intensive and time consuming but produces a great result. At each days end they dried their project.
We next added some color splashes of red, purple, orange and darker yellow to the sky. Some skies were very dark blue, some were much lighter. We left an area in the right lower corner for a hillside to ground the tree.
They had gotten pretty good with the stamping when they switched back to brushes. Some of the trees have more delicate branch tips than others.
In this paining the student decided to make a wintry hillside with while which suited her idea of the ground and tree.
The class has been wanting to paint. I chose this so we could discuss modern art paintings, Picasso and have them continue to draw. I did an example with them showing them that Picasso did not draw a traditional guitar. This seemed to get their creativity going and this is the result. Some of them are quite traditional and others including the one with the lightning bolts on it are quite on the creative bent.
