LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION

NEGATIVE SPACE PLANTS

BEGINNING 2-D ART

india ink on construction paper w/ watercolor accents

Every year the kids manage to come up with a new twist to this already complex assignment.

Junior Gauri Deshpande hit the lotto below by adding strings of lights to her piece.

The assignment:

to draw a silhouette of a subject (Gauri drew a sun motif),

and then to sit in front of a real plant/branch of leaves 

and draw them in Negative Space over top the silhouette.

Afterwards to paint in the positive spaces with India ink.

And at the end to add a special twist.

The results are always stunning!

We do this on a large format,

18" by 24".

You can see the battery packs on either side that Gauri glued down.

Because the paper was so thin and couldn't support the weight of the packs,

she mounted the work on a thick piece of poster board.

Now the artwork hangs beautifully,

and man oh man is it beautiful on display.  

Way to push this assignment even further Gauri and inspire next year's group!

This next gorgeous piece was done by senior Jocelyn Chou.

The plant came together perfectly with the tiger for a crazy balanced composition.

And the topper,

the watercolored green eyes.

Just the right touch.

In this next one by junior Mary Kim,

she picked an incredibly complex silhouette 

wherein she mixed the bronco buster with a piano keyboard.

When she first tried to explain her idea,

I told her it sounded a bit too difficult to pull off,

but Mary was not deterred,

thank goodness,

and brought this together in splendid style accompanied by bits of glass shards and buttons.

Wow,

bravo young woman,

you rocked this assignment!

Next is senior Melissa Ongko.

Instead of totally overlapping the plant with the silhouette,

she figured out a way to bring them together in a complex oval border,

with watercolored flowers underneath for a breathtaking piece.

And make sure you note the dragon morphing with the plant.

Where do these kids come up with these complex ideas??

Junior Tiffany Chen brought us this eye catching piece.

Instead of doing a recognizable silhouette,

she chose to work with geometric pieces for the plant to go over.

And for her special twist she came in with copper paint.

Her's was one of the class favorites.

Photographer senior Luna Chen,

cleverly chose to do a self-portrait for her piece.

Luna is rarely seen around campus without a camera hanging from around her neck.

She photographs most all the sports events along with other happenings at our school.

Thank you Luna for your great art and your service to our school.

I found this work by junior Madelyn Uchiyama really sensory,

capturing my attention from the moment I laid eyes on her finished piece.

Love how she used the watercolor in the background to make it come alive.

And we end with very sweet and hardworking 8th grader Ariel Kim.

She took music for her 7th grade elective 

so I didn't get a chance to work with her in the 7th grade Art Wheel class.

But she told me she really wanted to do art,

and I'm so glad she did.

She came up with this adorable young girl and her umbrella

with the plant running thru like rain.

Her special twist,

she Zentangled in each of the leaves which took a lot of extra time.

Like I said,

a hard working little one.