Painting and drawing with pleasure

Color

Constellation, Art to help children grow and connect

Lines

What you need to know about…

Perspective

Strokes

Chapter 3

• Color

• Strokes

• Lines

This slideshow explains the main principles you can follow to create a work of art.

We will see:

• Perspective

Color

The painter is showing how

to blend colors:

« I encourage them with colors. To begin, they only use yellow, blue, and red. Then I teach them about the other colors and how to obtain new tones. It’s vital that these young artists lose their fear of blending colors or of making smudges. » Sylvia in Ecuador

I am a color magician

I learn to seek out my colors and to use my brush.

Note: during workshops, reference painters who take liberties in choosing their colors.

I choose my colors

I take the chance to use the colors that I choose.

I choose the colors that I like

From the

first lesson

on, you must

teach that

paper is

white so that

you can

color it. The

children will

then only

turn in their

works once

they’ve

colored

everything.

Sylvia

Colored grey with red in the clouds.

I add color to black

I can include other colors in black:

Cool black like

shadows with blue.

Warm blacklike a fire’s glow

with red.

I cover my page with color(painting on the right)

and I make my own white so none of the white of the paper

shows.

A painting is not just a bunch of objects that I fill in with

color.

I paint the entire page

I can add a bit of white to my tube to make a white that’s more warm or less warm, more reddish or yellowish (for example the snow under the setting sun or the yellow of a horse) or more or

less blue (for example snow in a shadow)

White is a color

I can choose what I want to highlight and make a choice of

light: I create a contrast between the buildings which are dark and the

countryside which is light.

Light creates contrast

Estefania painted the background of the volcano in gray. The gray is colored. There’s red in it. It goes together with the volcano’s flame.

Estefania created a gray that’s colored with complementary pairs:Red+green, Blue+orange, Yellow+purple.

These colors really pop when they’re next to each other; unless they’re of the same value (see the following page).

Complementary colors

When complementary colors are of the same value, that means that if you looked at it in black and white, it would be the same

gray, neither lighter nor darker.Colors of the same value lose their liveliness.

Here, the red and the green, complementary colors, have the same

value. They don’t enhance each other. There’s little difference between the grays

Colors with the same value

Original painting Painting in black and white

Strokes

The stroke is

the way in

which you

handle the

brush.

The hand is a precious tool. Its movement accompanies the flow of the water, the growth of the grass or trees, and the texture of the objects or animals.

Depending on what I’m trying to show, I can make longer or shorter movements with my arm, which is extended by the

brush.

Brush movements

With the brush,I can paint small flames in different colors.

Small strokes

I paint the texture of the animals in the direction of the

feathers or of the fur.

The stroke changes with the subject

Lines

Lines don’t surround the shape; they accentuate it.

I can draw over the shape that I want to highlight with a small brush. Out of all the shapes, I’ll choose those I want to highlight.

A brush or pen line is lighter and more lively than a pencil line. It doesn’t keep the same thickness throughout.

Lines which change thickness bring out the shape

A line doesn’t constrain a shape. It lets it have its freedom.

I can give some vigor back to the shape with a line

that isn’t black.

Lines can give a certain vigor

The line has to take the shape into consideration when I’m drawing. The line helps me think about what I’m drawing. I have to understand what I draw:

• I have to draw the leg under the clothes so that it connects properly to the torso.

• I draw the head under the hat so that the skull stays attached to the hat.I draw over the horse’s knees, horseshoes, and jaw.

• I draw every finger on the hand, I don’t lump them together.

A line is not the outline of a shape. Lines express volume.

Avoid markers (painting on the bottom right) because they draw a line with the same thickness throughout and it constrains the shape, a bit like wire.

Don’t surround all the shapes. Choose the ones you wish to highlight.

Black marker surrounding all the shapes doesn’t work

What you need to make a shape stand out is:

• The contrast between lights and darks (see page 12 on color values)

• To use complementary colors

Outlining a shape in black isn’t necessary

Perspective

Painting and drawing in perspective isn’t necessary.

If the child asks for it, you need to showthem the right ways.

Horizontal and vertical lines

The point at which horizontal lines converge is at eye level. Vertical lines remain vertical.

What’s in the foreground (people, rocks, houses...) is larger. You can accentuate the differences.

Far/small- Close /big