Splish-Splash

PRELIMINARY WATERCOLOR

BEGINNING 2-D ART

watercolor, charcoal, india ink

These watercolors were done by my beginners after we did a 10 day unit of practicing watercolor techniques.

My students really seemed to enjoy working in watercolor and I was very pleased with their first attempts at a composition. 

Subject matter was of their choosing.

And several of them brought in a bit of charcoal to enhance the value range.

Junior Elias Rodriguez also brought into his work an india ink self-portrait which I felt was a brilliant design idea.

And I think the class favorite was done here by senior Yoo-Bin Han from a photo she took of our team captains of our baseball team, seniors Alex Arias and Cole Mesa.

 Her skill with the watercolor as well as the portraits blew us away!

Next we have this lovely floral work by junior Karen Malcolm.  

Notice the beautiful wet into wet background along with the great greens she was able to mix so the leaves would look more realistic.

Junior Michael Cantu, who always gives us the most moody, thought provoking landscapes, does not let us down here.  

I really like his monochromatic color scheme with the paynes grey and how it sets the tone for the piece.

And his birds, once again, are so very realistic!

Youngster Nari Park, one of my few 8th graders this year, is really pushing herself out of her comfort zone in this work by altering the edges of the paper as well as bringing in charcoal to make her dragonfly pop.

Very pretty piece Nari!

Junior Smurthi Maganti brings us tranquility and peace with her design and soothing color choices (above) while junior Sunny Kim (below) really captures a pooped out kitten just before it falls asleep.

Senior Annie Ro was one of my braver students, not afraid to bring in quite a bit of charcoal for detail and value (above).

And notice her wonderful sky with the puff clouds?

These were practiced in our 10 day unit before this piece.

By dropping a bit of clean water into the wet pigment on the paper yields fantastic cloud formations.

And lastly one of my favorites, this classic Mustang from the 1970's.

How do I know this?

My boyfriend's dad owned one and allowed us to drive it to the prom in 1973, only it was blue with white racing stripes.  :)

Alex Arias, yes, one of the young men in Yoo-Bin's portrait, who found he had an artistic gift his senior year is the maker of this very cool watercolor.  

Notice the great cast shadow under the car, and how he mixed a bit of red into the grey to make it more interesting to the eye?

Brilliant work Alex!!!

I sure hope you explore more art classes in college.

Belinda Wu - Student Art

Every year I get a couple of very artistically talented kids who come to me and ask if they can challenge my beginning level 2-d class and go right into the Intermediate class.  In order for them to do the challenge they have to jump thru several hoops first.

This year I had 2 students ask about the challenge.  One declined after she heard what she'd have to do, the other took the challenge and made it, with flying colors, in fact.  And she is junior Belinda Wu.  I took pix of 2 of her challenge pieces that I'd like to share.

In this first piece I asked her to watercolor a flower and then to bring in more value range with some charcoal.  As you can see the piece is quite lovely and very well designed with wonderful range of value, color choices and sound watercolor technique.  I was impressed.  

Belinda tells me she is completely self taught which really surprised me because her work is very sophisticated.

Below, I asked her to compose a self portrait collage with some bas-relief elements, text, interesting background, and also to work to a theme in her life.  Again, she brings me this incredible work.  And I think, where have you been all these years?  Her reply, focusing on her academics. 

Well move over math and science cuz we have a few art classes to get thru before this girl graduates.

Needless to say, Belinda passed the challenge and I'm really looking forward to see what else she will be creating for me.

Preliminary Watercolor with Charcoal - Student Work

Junior Michelle Lee bringing in fabulous texture with charcoal on top of watercolor.

Above senior Marivel Aguirre's most outstanding piece of the year.  I was so impressed with you woman when you turned this beauty in.  Way to go!!

4th Quarter for my Beginning 2-D kids is all about color, and introducing them to many color media and the techniques to use them.  After about 2 weeks of practice with watercolor, these were their first attempts to put it all together in a subject of their choosing.  We also a few days with charcoal and combining it with watercolor, so you will also see a bit of charcoal in each of these pieces.

Above senior Rachel Kim did a lovely work with both her charcoal and watercolor.

I was also really impressed with junior Gary Fong's sensitive depiction of the French countryside.  And just look at junior Sarah Zhang's incredible piece below, what a great design, something you would see illustrated in a children's storybook. 

And then there is senior Tiffany Wang,who masters everything she tries in all these courses she's taken with me, 2-D, 3-d and Ceramics.  A very talented young lady.

What's really amazing is that these were their first attempts in watercolor, a very difficult medium!