Pack No.2
THE ART BOOK
Introduction Hello, my name is Emma and I am a Graphic Designer and Artist. After having had several parents reach out for art project ideas for their children in the coming months I have decided to make a weekly pack with a few ideas for three different age categories. I have loosely grouped them into ‘Little ones’, ‘Bigger Ones’ and ‘Young Adults’. I will make these available once a week on the Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ TheArtBookUK/ I will do my best to minimise mess and to only suggest ideas using materials that you may have at home. I will try my best to post in advance what materials might be needed for the next week in case that is helpful! If anyone would like to share their creations I will create a little board where masterpieces can be exhibited for the community to enjoy and celebrate! Please share this pack to anyone that might find it useful. I hope it can help anyone after a creative project in the coming weeks! If you need any help feel free to ask on the page!
Little Ones! Project One: Land Art Challenge! This week were exploring land art! Artists like Andy Goldsworthy create art out of materials they find in the natural world. If you are out and about on a walk then find 4 sticks to make a frame then make a beautiful masterpiece out of things you find like leaves, twigs and stones! If you are unable to go outside then have a go in your house. Explore and find objects you can use to make a composition! Don’t forget to take a photo of your creation at the end!
Project Two: Kazoooo! Make your own musical instrument using a cardboard tube, baking paper and an elastic band! Kazoo tutorial here.
Project Three: Decorate your name! With the help of a grown up draw out the letters of our name in big bubble writing. Then colour it in using your favourite colours and patterns. Maybe you could add in some details of your favourite things? At the end ask an adult to help you cut around the lines so you have a beautiful sign of your name. Maybe you could stick it on your bedroom door, but ask permission first!
Bigger Ones! Project One: Monochrome Art! Challenge yourself to make a whole picture with just one colour! This will make you focus on shadows and highlights. If you don’t have lots of shades of one colour try using one coloured pencil and pressing harder for the darker areas and lighter or leaving the page blank for the highlights. If you have paints then mix in more water for your highlights and use thicker paint for the darker bits, or add white and black to make different shades. For a little more help you can watch this video. Project Two: Picaso Portraits! Pablo Picaso was an artist who used a style called cubism. This is where he used geometric shapes to make his artworks. Your challenge this week is to create a portrait of either yourself, your pet or someone in your household in this style. Ask your parents if you have any old letters/magazines/ coloured papers or even old food wrappers like crisp packets to make your composition. If you don’t have glue, just lay them out on a surface and take a photo! If you aren’t gluing down your creation remember to save the papers somewhere safe for future projects! You can read more about cubism here. Project Three: Splatter Animal Challenge! This is a fun project but you’ll need to be patient to get the best results! Make some marks on a page like the ones on the right here. You can do this with any material, a highlighter pen, paints, even a coloured block or scribble. If you have used a wet material leave it to dry and when you come back use a pen or pencil to make them into animals, aliens or creatures from your imagination. I had to do mine very quickly but you can take more time to make them a masterpiece! If you are using paints check this video out for inspiration to make some cool textures.
Adults and Teens! Project One: Mark Hearld! Mark Hearld is a artist who creates brilliant collages. He uses found materials like marbled papers and also papers that he has made marks on, you can see an example of this to the right. First have a go collecting some papers, these can be old letters, food wrappers or old magazines - anything you have to hand! If you want to have a go at making your own papers you can see some cool tutorials here (using corn starch paste which is what Mark uses), here and here. You can also have a go at creating lots of cool textures using tricks like this. Once you have your paper selection complete and dry then get cutting out different shapes to create a landscape or scene! Project Two: Reduction Drawing! We’ve probably all tried drawing a scene or object using a pencil before but not as many have tried reduction drawing! This is where you either start with a dark page and fill in the ‘light areas’ with a lighter or white medium like chalk or more commonly (and more fun in my opinion) using an eraser. To have a go with an eraser you need to cover a page in charcoal or something similar and use the eraser to draw the light areas back into the page. You can then go back in later with a darker material to fill in details or very dark shadows. You can see a video of this process here. Project Three (The Big Project Continued): Web Design! Last week we were looking at designing logos. Today were testing out web design! Today I just want you to have a go at designing a website homepage. To do this I want you start out by drawing out some wire frames, aim for about 9 to really try out lots of ideas. Draw 9 rectangles on a page and block out sections like they have done on the image to the right. Then convert your favourite design using a software called XD which is one of the leading tools for web design and currently FREE from Adobe! Its a very simple tool to use, just
have a play around with making shapes. A few quick tips to get you started: When you open XD you will see a page like this. Click ‘Web’ to get your first page set up quickly. This will create you a page ‘above the fold’ which means the part of a website that would be visible before scrolling. Draw shapes and lines using the toolbar on the left hand side and select the blue arrow at the top of the toolbar to easily move objects around. Add or change colours by either double clicking on the circle or rectangle here or use the eye dropper tool to match a colour already in the document. To place an image, like your logo, go to File > Import and this will bring up a window where you can search and find images saved on your computer. You can also copy and paste using key commands or drag files from your computer. You only need to look at the Design tab for this project but if you want to look at prototyping then there are plenty of tutorials online get you started. If you want to really get thinking about how designers build websites today you can also take a look at a types of design called UX design.