Pop Artist, Andy Warhol!

Art For Two Students  and their favorite adult study works from 

50 Forward: New Additions to the Permanent Collection 

to learn about a world famous pop artist, Andy Warhol.

The exhibition presents a sample of the art objects that entered The Cummer’s collection in celebration of the Museum’s 50^th Anniversary in 2011. After viewing several samples of his work in The Cummer galleries, then finding his work featured on the Art History timeline, my students view a slideshow of Andy Warhols work set to special music featuring the story of his life.  They were so excited to learn how to make Andy Warhol prints by using soft-cut linoleum and real printmaking tools and ink. Here are some images of my students as they create Pop Art - just like Andy Warhol!

 

Salt Brings Art and Science Together

 Students ages 6 - 12 years learned a lesson in science as well as art at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens during the children's monthly art class, Art Adventures. 
They learned how salt can be hurtful to our plants and helpful in creating exciting effects in their painting. 

After a visit to the museum's garden, students assessed the damage to the gardens caused by the flooding waters of tropical storm, Beryl when the St. Johns River overflowed the bulkhead. They discussed how the St. Johns River joins the Atlantic Ocean, creating a salt and fresh water mixture or "brackish" water.  Brackish water is water that has more salinity than fresh water, but not as much as seawater. When the brackish water washed up into the lower tier of the garden, it left behind debris and salt causing the damage to the plants. 

After a discussion of the kinds of creatures which live in salt water verses fresh water, the students returned to the studios to draw and paint beautiful creatures from the salty sea. They drew coral, starfish, sand dollars and shells in pencil then added beautiful colors of the ocean with watercolor.  They experimented with a variety of watercolor techniques including adding the very ingredient that caused damage to the garden - salt. They discovered that when they sprinkled salt onto their wet painting, it caused a chemical reaction that left a mottled, textured appearance to the painted surface. 

I Get The Point! Garden Landscape Painting

 Students ages 6 - 12 years came to the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens for a children's monthly art class, Art Adventures. This month we explored the galleries to study landscapes in our collection that showed how artists  created  depth by overlapping.   The students learned about the horizon - where the sky meets the ground and learned the science behind the earths rotation. 

 They also learned about foreground, middle ground, and background in a landscape composition and how artists used aerial perspective to create depth in their paintings.
To experience this first hand, they walked to the back of The Cummer Garden and looked out over the St. Johns river.  Imagining that they were actually in a painting, they stood in the garden (the foreground)  and examined the horizon (the background). 

After a quick study of trees and plants in the garden, they took their newfound knowledge back to the studio to paint their own garden landscape.  

Art Adventures Students Make a Good Impression!

Students in April's edition of Art Adventures studied works from the impressionists and post -impressionists in an exhibition on loan from the High Museum.  They compared the different styles possessed by the famous artists as well as studied the techniques they used in their paintings. They were inspired to return to the studio and create their own masterpiece using tempera paint and oil pastels. The session ended with an informal critique with the students making quite a good impression on parents who stopped by early to "sneak a peak" of what was going on in the Art Adventures studio at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens!

En Plein Air Painting in the Cummer Garden

En plein air (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ plɛn‿ɛʁ]) is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors, which is also called peinture sur le motif ("painting on the ground") in French.

Students ages 6 - 12 years old took part in an exciting garden tour then painted plein air, or in open air in the Cummer Museum Garden honoring the annual celebration of Garden Week! What a glorious day it was!

March Edition Art for Two: Print Like Our Japanese Friends

Students ages 3 years to 5 years and their adult friends studied the art of ancient Japanese as they visited the Cummer Museum of Art & Garden's current exhibit...

Beyond Ukiyo-e: Japanese Woodblock Prints and their influence on Western Art

Event Details:
December 15, 2011 - August 9, 2012
Location: The Joan Wellhouse and Martin Stein, Sr. Gallery

After a tour of the Japanese Woodblock Prints, students returned to the studio to create prints using modern printmaking materials. In the pictures above you see my Art for Two artists as they create multiple prints of birds seen in the Cummer Garden.

Something's Fishy!

Students in Art for Two and Art Adventures Saturday art classes learned about Japanese culture and art by exploring The Cummer Museum’s current exhibit of Japanese wood block prints. After a discussion of Japanese culture presented in the prints they learned about the tradition of Gyotaku - the art of Japanese fish printing.

The art of Gyotaku has been used in Japan for more than a century to record catches of sports fish. Fishermen would take their catch, paint their fish then press fabric or rice paper on top of the fish to record the size. The artist’s print showed how large the fish was so there was no doubt that thier “fish story” was true!

The images shown are of our special artists creating their own Gyotaku. The short video shows the process the students followed to create them.