Florida Saltmarsh Marsh Landscapes

For the 500^th Anniversary of Ponce de Leon, The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens partnered with artist Jim Draper to celebrate the beauty of Florida’s native habits with Jim Draper:  Feast of Flowers.  The twenty-nine paintings in the exhibition showcase nine of Florida’s ecosystems. 

Through his paintings, the artist developed a deep appreciation for the native landscape of Florida and considers himself an environmentalist, who uses his art to promote conservation of these special environments. 

Art Adventures students studied the painting Willie Brown's Marsh then compared it to other Florida landscapes within the exhibit. They learned that salt marshes are a vital part of the Florida seashore environments providing a valuable nursery habitat for marine wildlife.  After this discussion, students returned to the studio to create their own version of a salt marsh landscape. 

 

Feast of Flowers Butterfly Paintings

 

To kick off the new year, students in Mrs. Woodlief's Art Adventures Class at The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens explored the environment through art as they visited Jim Draper's Feast of Flowers, a collection of large scale paintings showcasing nine of Florida's ecosystems.

Students focused on one of Mr. Draper's large paintings of a Buckeye, a common Florida butterfly, as the inspiration for this months art project.  They studied the life cycle of the butterfly as well as learned how mother nature gave the buckeye special markings as camouflage to help protect it from predators.



Once students returned to the studio, they selected an image of a butterfly as inspiration.  After folding a piece of newsprint, they drew and cut out half of the butterfly, then used it as a template to trace on to their 8 x 10 inch canvas board. This technique provided for perfectly symmetrical butterflies allowing every student to experience success! 


 

After studying the intricate designs on the wings, they began painting the insect's details with acrylic paint on canvas boards. Students worked at artists easels to create beautifully symmetrical butterfly paintings. Each student felt successful as they showed their paintings to their families.

Mix it up!

Art Adventures students learned that printmaking takes on many forms. After viewing  the prints from the Museum’s permanent collection they returned to the studio to do a little “experimenting”  and explored some unique forms of printmaking. 

Inspiration for this project came from the painting Abstraction by American artist Rolph Scarlett.  Students sat on the floor in the gallery before the painting and used three dimensional forms, creating a variety of compositions for practice.  This allowed the them to work out their ideas before actually making their plate for printmaking.

Once in the studio, students used foam sheets to create their own version of an abstract composition on heavy cardboard.  After a printmaking demonstration made by the museum educator, they used printmaking tools (brayers) to apply printing ink to their plates.  Next, they ran their inked plates with paper on top through the press resulting in beautiful, abstract prints.  Students were encouraged to use a different colors of both ink and papers to achieve a variety of results.

Another successful Saturday Art Adventures class at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens!

Out of Africa Landscapes

This month, my Art Adventure students explored the photographs in the Histories in Africa: 20 Years of Photography by Liz Gilbert exhibition at The Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens then created mixed media African landscapes with animals and plant life. 

Back in the studio, students began by painting the landscape using a variety of tools to apply the tempera paint. They used rollers and brushes to create feelings of movement in the sky. They used sea sponges for applying paint to create the texture of the soil.. and leaves of the Acacia trees.  The project was completed by adding animals typically seen in an African savanna.

Symmetrical African Masks

 Lois Mailou Jones was a successful textile designer.
These students are using geometric and free form shapes made
of felt to recreate the experience that she may have had as a
textile designer in the beginning of her career as an artist.   

This month students in October's Art Adventures class learned about symmetry in art and created an oil pastel mask inspired by the works included in the Lois Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color and Histories in Africa: 20 Years of Photography by Liz Gilbert exhibitions.

As the students toured the exhibit, they compared the layout of the exhibit to a timeline of Jones' life because the paintings and drawings were displayed in chronological order.  They were able to see that she tried many things during her life as an artist. We focused on a group of Jones' paintings that featured colorful African masks then returned to the studio to create oil pastel drawings of Africans masks in their own design.