Creativity Challenge

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Looking back at the second half of January, I am happy with the time spent on creative projects. Due to a change in my teaching schedule, I dedicated more time to painting and felting. I created something on five days of the week spending between one hour and almost four hours on a certain artwork at one stretch.

During a weekend at the cottage, I created a drawing of snow-covered trees (see above). I also spent some time preparing drawings for my Cartooning and Comics classes, one of them was a drawing of the cute Sonic the Hedgehog.

Of Flowers and Butterflies, acrylic, 16" x 20"

I finally finished a painting that was a challenge for me. At last year's Navan Fine Arts Exhibition and Sale, we were asked to paint to the pianist's live music. It was a very different experience to let myself be inspired by music instead of painting something that was in front of me. Before the event, I was sure that I would create an abstract piece, but when the pianist started playing, nothing came to my mind. I was very aware of the visitors looking over my shoulder and felt panicked. Finally, I started painting flowers and butterflies, but I was very frustrated with my composition when my time was up. I could have considered the painting as a write-off, but I wanted to prove to myself that I could save it. I increased the size and texture of the flowers and added some additional butterflies. "Of Flowers and Butterflies" is not my style at all, but I am happy with the result.

Real or Not, mixed media, 16" x 20"

I also finished the playful 16” x 20” painting "Real or Not" from my outing to Du Moulin Park with friends last September. My mixed media piece contains real and painted leaves. It was a lot of fun to create this collage of leaves.

As for my latest felted artworks, the first one was inspired by my painting “Hidden in the Fog”, the second is a landscape with trees, this time during the colourful fall season. Both pieces are still unfinished.

While I will not continue with the Creativity Challenge in February, I hope that my new schedule will help me to create more art. Being absorbed in the world of art is a wonderful way to forget about stressors, to re-energize, and to have fun. I feel so much more balanced when I regularly take the time to create something. My next goal is to use new materials or techniques to playfully explore new possibilities. I will keep you posted.

If you are looking for ways to bring more creativity and fun into your life, please check out my winter and spring programmes at https://www.kerstinpeters.ca/product-category/registration/.

March Break Projects

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March Break is around the corner, and you might be looking for easy art projects that you can do with your children. Here are three mixed media examples from projects that I did with my art students who were between 5 and 12 years old. However, I am sure that these projects would also be a lot of fun for teenagers if you pick a theme and characters that they enjoy.

Project 1: Underwater World

Materials:

• Poster board, 22 x 28 inches
• Pencil
• acrylic or poster paints
• palettes or white plates
• brushes
• water containers
• paper towels
• Liquid glue
• scissors
• newspaper
• table cover

optional:

• tissue paper
• wool
• pipe cleaners
• buttons
• googly eyes
• foam shapes
• clothespins

I actually cut the poster board in two as we had a big class of students but you could use a full board for the art project. Maybe, your children would like to work together on one project. In this case, I would definitely use one whole poster board.

Step 1:

Draw the animals first onto the newspaper and then cut them out.

Step 2:

Most children in the course preferred to paint the animals first before glueing them to the board to avoid getting the paint on the poster board, but you could also glue the animals onto the poster board first and then colour them.

Step 3:

Wool, tissue paper, pipe cleaners, buttons, and foam shapes can be glued on the paper to create the vegetation or bubbles. I used clothespins to keep the glued on pipe cleaners in place while the glue was drying. The googly eyes can be used for the animals.

My version of Mike Wazowski from "Monsters, Inc."

Project 2: Paper Collage Superhero

Materials:

• Poster board, 22” x 28” or cardstock paper 8 ½” x 11”
• Glue sticks
• Old magazines
• Pencil and eraser
• Black maker

Step 1:

You start the project by drawing an easy character (either from a movie or comic or invented) on the poster board or paper. The character should be quite big as it is hard to glue tiny pieces of paper into small areas.

Step 2:

You rip small pieces of paper in the colours needed from magazines and glue the pieces to fill the shapes of your drawing. It looks best if the paper pieces are slightly overlapping.

Step 3:

You outline the character, eyes and mouth with black marker.

Project 3: Mixed Media Self-Portrait

When I had been looking for ideas for my mixed media projects, I came across the excellent book “Van Gogh and the Post-Impressionists for Kids” by Carol Sabbeth. One of the suggested activities is related to van Gogh’s painting “Portrait of Père Tanguy”. The background is covered with little paintings inside of the painting that frame Tanguy’s portrait. The suggested activity was to create a portrait that would be glued onto a background covered in images from magazines.

Materials:

• Magazines
• Scissors
• Glue sticks
• Cardstock paper for the background
• Regular white paper for the portrait
• Pencils
• Erasers
• Markers
• Crayons
• Coloured pencils

Step 1:

Create a self-portrait (full person or just upper body) with pencils, markers, crayons or coloured pencils. The portrait does not have to be realistic. It can be you in the form of a superhero or in the style of the Lego movies or Minecraft characters.

Step 2:

Cut out pictures from the magazines that appeal to you (favourite foods, travel destinations, animals, etc.)

Glue the pictures onto the cardboard until it is completely covered.

Step 3:

Glue the portrait on top of the pictures so that it is surrounded by the images that you cut out.

I hope you have fun creating art with your children. It is not only fun, but you will also create lasting memories.