Category: Visual Arts

yellow orange pink and blue coloring pens on white notebook
For The Love of Art Supplies!

For The Love of Art Supplies!

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calligraphy tools on the white wooden table
Photo by Antoni Shkraba on Pexels.com

I often contemplate one specific difference between me and some of my friends that don’t participate in visual arts. These friends will buy a lunch, clothes, shop around for this and that to treat themselves to something small. I’ve been known to do that too, but my real enjoyment lies in the possibilities of getting a new book or maybe a new piece of art supplies. “Wow! Have you tried this pen?! The ink goes on the paper so smoothly. The color is fantastic!” “Yeah, I know I have one of these but it’s a different shade.” “These are double sided!” Oh, my reasons go on from there. I have lots of pens. Buckets of paints. Don’t even get me started on my yarn, fabric, pencils, wool, and so on.

Now I would like to say this, it is okay to have buckets and tubs full of art supplies stacked around your house. However, make sure they are items you use. A person needs to feel connected to and enjoy the process of creating Art. They also need to know the difference between organized clutter and chaos. Sorry all, cleaning is another part of the balance. Piles of unlabeled, uncared for, miscellaneous odds and ends just take up space that better things can be allowed to fill, things that can help you grow as a person rather than just bury you alive in “stuff”.

Here is my side story about clutter. You know what is clutter in your house. I’m not talking about garbage, that is easy, toss it/recycle it. Now. Put your sketchy papers in a binder if you are keeping them. Put treasures in a “treasure chest” or something. I have had well meaning friends come by in the name of trying to help me organize my “clutter”. Half of them asked if I really needed so many books or toys around the house. Yes. Yes I do. Just throw out half my kitchen, or my wardrobe, something. We all have our happy places. The boot worn through the sole? Toss it or make a flower pot if it’s worthy of that. Electric sandwich grill? Gift it or donate unless you are a sandwich fiend. Dead house plant? Dump it. Clothes you look awful in? Donate, not everyone looks bad the same way. Haha.

If you already have gobs of art supplies, as I do, don’t forget to do some Spring cleaning. Clear out pens that don’t work, paints that are past their prime, adhesives that have a foot in the grave, you get the idea. Upcycle whenever possible but get it out of your way. All artists, old and new, never stop experimenting! Work inside your current budget and discover ways to create. I’m not saying blow $60+ on those midrange watercolors if you don’t have it. What about trying some craft quality acrylic paint? Surprisingly those are still less than $2 a bottle around here. Buy a cheap pallet and start with some primary colors. You don’t have $$$+ for Copic Markers? Neither do I! Look for some other markers to learn with a little and see if you even like drawing with markers. Do you see where I’m going with this?

I tried out 3 new to me types of markers/pens to draw this picture from a favorite show today, and the average price was $1 each:

Learning doesn’t have to break the bank. I like to play around with hand lettering, in other words, turning writing into art. I don’t feel particularly skilled at this as of yet, but I experiment with it off and on. On that note I bought some calligraphy pens I thought I would like. They were NOT pleasant to use. As they scratched their way across my notebook I knew we would not be “friends”. My daughter liked the angles of the chiseled tips on them and was not as annoyed by how dry the tips of the pens were. I gave them to her. Within the hour my two year old found them and made himself extra colorful, he loves trying out new art supplies too. Moral #1, it’s okay to pass on supplies to others, we all have different tastes and sensory needs. Share and move on. Moral #2, two year olds are very good at finding not-exactly-washable ways to express their artistic selves.

Don’t be afraid to say you want to try something new. Don’t be afraid to say you don’t like it. While you’re at it, feel free to say, “Huh.” occasionally. Art is a way to test out your feelings, thoughts, and practice making choices. I venture to say that the type of results you produce might show you what priorities are in your mind. Creating something takes time. If you don’t wish to put time into a project ask yourself why. This also teaches you something.

I could drag this on but I think I’ve communicated what is on my mind today. If pens are your thing go ahead to the craft store and if they have those doodle pads test out a few sample pens. If you think wood carving, painting, felting, crochet… any of that might be your creative outlet, give it a go! Endless possibilities! Express yourself your way. Discover your senses. Keep creating!
Improvise A Comic -A Giggle Game-

Improvise A Comic -A Giggle Game-

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Family game time doesn’t always need a board game.

Today’s art exercise was lead by my brother. I think it is an excellent activity for a variety of ages to learn from and enjoy. Select a scribe to take down notes, grab some blank paper and your favorite drawing tools, you are ready to go. The challenge was to loosely write a three panel comic together, then split up and illustrate it separately. How would our different styles look on paper?

There are lots of great skills to learn here and it can even be a good party game if that’s how you roll. For starters you practice collaborative creative writing by thinking up a common story. Just say whatever comes to your mind. Make a list or whatever is easiest for you to refer back to as you draw. You can refine this part of the project as little or as much as you like. Try not to over think it though.

This is a nice freestyle project to use as a warm up for a bigger art project too. Get into the game, focus, relax, have fun.

For our comic we came up some random characters to put in our silly story; a dinosaur, a chicken, a shark, and Batman. Then it was decided that there would be a volcano. Everyone else in the group tonight chose to also somehow incorporate the dinosaur chewing bubble gum, they were on a tour, and Batman had to end up in the shark’s mouth somehow. I chose to skip those last elements but still tie in sweets, only differently.

Set a time limit and go have fun! During the unveiling we talked about ways to polish our work if given more time. I also highly recommend telling each person what you like best from their comic too. One thing that immediately came to our attention was that we like to draw on different scales. My daughter got around the size limitations of the paper by using a separate piece of paper for each panel in her comic. One of my boys chose not to draw panels. That’s okay. In this case, to quote a fun movie, rules really are ”more like guidelines”. 

Keep scrolling to see all of our masterpieces!

Hide and Seek

Up above all the characters were playing hide and seek. Next to an active volcano. A volcano that is lobbing fireballs. Batman is tiny and hiding in the shark’s mouth. The green smudge is the dinosaur not realizing his bubblegum is visible and giving away his hiding spot. I think the chicken is hiding behind the volcano.

The picture below has a lot of different stories happening at once. Most notably something has gone very wrong while trying to throw a shark in the volcano and a dinosaur has a sweet tooth. I also love that the dinosaur is an ankylosaurus.

Scribble and Sticks
Cartoon comic

There is the 3 separate paper approach. (Sorry for the lighting differences in the frames. That’s on me.) This artist also chose to use known cartoon characters from different sources and bring them all together. Given more time this comic would have been even better but we had to cut her off or she would have been drawing all night.

Snack emergency

Above, I decided that making s’mores sound like an emergency sounded funny. I wasn’t going to ink it but I had a little extra time so I went with it.

Below, I love my brother’s sketchy little comics! All I will specifically say for now though is check out the dinosaur’s face in the last panel.

Sketchy tour

There you have it. Now you give it a try. 
Be creative and keep shining!
Exercise those hands!

Exercise those hands!

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Today I want to talk about a fun way to exercise your hands. I also think that this practice teaches you how to not worry about making perfect drafts of your work. An artist needs to be able to quick draw. I have some variations on this that I will introduce later.

You will need some paper and a pencil. Choose 5 objects, random stuff, it can be a whisk from the kitchen, a sock, or a leaf. Whatever. If you would like to do this with a friend you will swap items at the end of each round.

Round 1, draw an object in just 1 minute. For each round you will have less time to draw. The following rounds will be 30, 20, 10, and 5 seconds long. You can mess with the timing. What’s important is that you need to go fast and you won’t have time for a finished drawing. Besides lots of laughs you will have loosened up your wrist and got yourself in a drawing mindset (hopefully).

Mix Match Madness

Mix Match Madness

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This project is for bigger kids to do on their own or a grown up can make it as a gift for them. You will need to be able to draw the basic template and then change it based on your own drawing skills.

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