Art Project # 15; Dragonfly Silhouettes

Yesterday's art project was just for Alec and myself.  We decided to make dragonfly silhouette paintings.  We figured they were perfect for spring and we were both in the mood to paint on canvas... something we haven't done in awhile.



Part of the 100 Days of Art Challenge was to not only inspire my boys to create but to force myself to keep offering OPPORTUNITIES to do art; I never force them to participate and that is why it was just Alec and I.

I had started this challenge as a way to hold myself accountable for consciously planning something fun and creative for us to do each day; something I had really been slacking off on doing for the past few years.

Ian really did not want to join in on today's art project and Evan had so much fun with his watercolor dragon kit that he wanted to work on another one.  I got him settled and then Alec and I prepared to paint.  Evan worked all on his own and did such an amazing job!  I still can't get over my little "I HATE art" boy having so much fun painting.  It was an even greater bonus that he had a whole made up story to tell me all about his dragon!


His golden dragon

Now onto today's art project:

Alec and I started with our backgrounds.  We used large brushes and starting with white we painted a large circle in the middle of our canvas.  We then added colors getting gradually darker as we got towards the edge of the canvas.  It was a great lesson in blending and complementary colors.

Getting darker.. 

My completed background

Alec's completed background
We set our paintings aside to dry in the sun.  It only took a few minutes!  Meanwhile we cleaned off our brushes and got some new fresh water.

Once we were ready to start we used small brushes, black paint and some water to draw dragonflies, grass and flowers.  We did not sketch anything out first and while we both made a few mistakes we figured out how to fix them (either we wet the area down and blotted it off of our canvas or else we turned it into something else).  I tended to start in on the drawing first and show Alec how I was approaching it but he often had his own technique that worked just as well.  Sorry I have not pictures of us working the canvas... I was kind of busy painting.

My completed picture 

Alec's completed picture



Our other art projects:
Project 1: Painting with Hexbugs
Project 2: Tissue paper flowers
Project 3: Star Wars Crafts
Project 4: Watercolor compass circles
Project 5: Floral pens
Project 6: Watercolor outlines
Project 7: Scratch art jellyfish
Linking Up:
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Comments

  1. Kym ThorpeJune 9, 2016 at 1:51 PM

    Wow - beautiful!! Thanks for sharing this on the Virtual Fridge. This is something I really want to try!

    ReplyDelete
  2. SarahJune 10, 2016 at 7:58 AM

    Whoa! These paintings are amazing! I'm like your son who says he doesn't like art, and it is, in fact, because I'm terrible at it. The way that you've described your process for creating these pictures makes it seem possible to achieve, even for a non-artist. And so worth it. Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mother of 3June 10, 2016 at 8:01 AM

      Thank you! I try to find easy to create paintings that look pretty but are simple enough to achieve; you could even use a stencil for the dragonfly or turn them into butterflies (which Alec and I both agreed would have been simpler). I know if my boys are happy with the end results often enough they'll gain confidence in their skills and hopefully enjoy art even more.

      Delete
  3. SarahJune 10, 2016 at 7:58 AM

    Whoa! These paintings are amazing! I'm like your son who says he doesn't like art, and it is, in fact, because I'm terrible at it. The way that you've described your process for creating these pictures makes it seem possible to achieve, even for a non-artist. And so worth it. Beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mother of 3June 8, 2017 at 9:32 AM

      Thank you! I try to keep the art simple and the steps achievable so that they feel successful at it.

      Delete
  4. Lisa HealyJune 8, 2017 at 8:21 AM

    I love them all, but W.O.W. on the dragon!

    ReplyDelete

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