English Photography

Backyard Art: Summer wrap up with Monet, self portraits and garden gallery stroll

This post is long over do well worth the wait.  One of my new year's resolutions this year was to make Backyard Art a wonderful experience for all involved and looking back, I definitely feel the goal was accomplished.  Let me catch up on the last couple projects of the season.

Monet is such a favorite when it comes to famous artists.  I really wanted to give the kids some exposure since he will be one of the first major artists they will learn about in their education.   My kids have amazed me with their ability to remember the artists we learn about.  Jackson Pollock, Monet and Van gogh are artist they can easily recognize no matter where we go and they are eager to point them out. Our Monet lesson started with talking about how much magic gardens have growing in them and how painters have been trying to capture this magic.   

We started our Monets with shreds of tissue paper which were glued in layers using liquid starch as our glue.  The kids had two rules they had to follow... first, all the tissue papers had to go the same direction and second, they had to cover up all the white.  The project was great for kids of all ages.

Once they had covered the entire paper I pulled out the other tissue paper for the lilies,  We cut basic circles and the crumped them up only glueing the center to give it a 3D effect.

I absolutely loved how they all turned out, each very different yet all very Monet.  This is most of the morning class showing off their masterpieces.

Thinking about the final project, we just HAD to do a self portrait.  I thought all summer long about the best way to do this with such a huge age range in the kids.  These collaged self portrait turned out to be pure gold... they were so lovable and perfect.  I started by photographing each childs face the week before and having an 8x10 printed up.  We cut out just the major features of the face and then finished the collage by cutting up all my old National Geographics to create the hair, shirt and other details.

It's a crack up to see the kids with a life size picture of them selves with there real features showing through.

Each childs personality came shining through on this project.  They loved searching through all the magazines for the images that most excited them. It's amazing how much they really do look like their self portraits.

I love how these features are cut out.. so Picasso!

Love the crown and jewels!

This boy used volcano pictures to create his red hair.

Jo's makes me laugh everytime I look at it.  He is so proud of his spider hair and his brain shirt.

Below is ALL of my fabulous backyard artists this summer... only missing the TN crew.

We capped off the whole summer with a Garden Gallery stroll to show off all the kids had accomplished.  Reinforcing a childs creations is so important to their whole attitude toward art and the artistic process.  We had invitations so the kids could invite their extended families to celebrate.  I surrounded the entire backyard with all the wonderful art from these kids, we had goodies and even had a few art projects to do that night so that dads could get in the action.

I absolutely loved how these letters looked together with all the books we read.

These are the programs which showed off our "Featured Artists".  On the back I listed our projects and the goal of Backyard Art.

The art was displayed with each childs art all together and then next to their siblings.  These three cuties are standing in front of all their summer masterpieces.

Here is a dad getting to do spin art with his boy, definitely a great moment to have a little father son creation.

Besides the art, the Jelly Belly's were the next biggest hit.  No one can resist picking out their favorite flavors.  Although i didn't capture this on film, one of my favorite things was seeing the kids art turned into mugs , thank you cards and mouse pads. 

I was so tickled by all the aunts & Uncles, fathers, grandparents, and friends that came to this special evening.  I was honored to have been part of such a fun and memorable night, Thank you for taking the time to come and celebrate.  Thank you to each of my sweet artists and their moms for making my summer so joyful and creative.  I loved every minute with all of you and hope you will remember all the fun we had everytime you look at your magical art, I know I will. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!

As good as it gets...

Everything about this session was as good as it gets.  I am not saying this session was easy, but nothing worth having is gained through ease.   We might have gone through a whole bottle of bug spray because the misquitoes were so thick but you would never know by the images.  People ask me all the time why I don't shoot many weddings any more.  I simply tell them because of the stage of life I am at right now families are my passion and where I want to focus.  These family images below are masterpieces, but only a little bit because of me.  They are masterpieces because of the family that is inside.  Raising a family requires blood, sweat and many, many tears. It takes days and years of nagging and persistant prodding hoping your kids are absorbing some of the life skills you are trying to teach them.  The pay offs during these early years are only minor triumphs that a mother and father can appreciate.   But these family pictures are one of those monuments that will always be a reminder that creating a family also has laughter and beauty, joy and wonder and a whole lot of love.  

Thanks so much R family for making the effort to have these portraits created.  It was a truly magically evening and I thank my lucky stars I was the one who got to be there to witness it all.   So many images to show.. it was hard to narrow it down.  These are the sessions that I dreamed about creating one day...back when I was in high school.... It is funny how our paths have brought us both to this place after all these years.  So glad our paths could come together once again, it was an honor.

It runs in the family....

I had this outstandingly good looking family a couple weeks ago.  Usually when I am working with an extended family we as do each little family too.  This time we went quite a bit further with additional groupings and as I ws editing them I just couldn't believe home beautiful and well behaved all this kids were.  I am only posting the tip of the iceberg of what we created. 

Thanks so much C family for letting le be a part of your family for the evening.  You have so many fun images for you to sort through.  Although we had to deal with some interesting weather, you wouldn't know it from looking at the portraits.  Thanks for toughing it out and not being blown away!

Backyard Art: 3D Letters

Summer is over, I realize that, but I am not quite done posting our art projects.  I feel that kids often make the assumption that all art has to be done on paper becasue that is what they do most all the time.  I wanted to work in a 3D project this summer to get the kids to experierience another meduim.  I put this project together in my head during the cold months last spring when I was making the summer outline for Backyard Art.  I find that if I write things down then I accomplish them.  I am so glad I committed to do this project because it is my favorite for the summer.  These paper mache letters took 2 weeks but it was well worth it.

I started out reading "A color all his own" and talking about letting the kids show their own personalities through in the color choices of their letters.  The S above is Sasha's and it looks just like her. The first step was cutting out two matching letters out of card board.  I had the parents to this at the end of a previous session.  The letters ranged from 12 inches to 20 inches tall.  Free handing the letters was great and showed such personaity.  During the week I prepped everything by sandwiching the two pieces of cardboard with paper bathroom cups.  I glued them in alternating direction and let it sit over night.  Using a simple paper mache recipe of equal parts water and flour with a tablespoon of salt added as a prservatives we used shreds of newspaper to go around the edges.

Although we could have added a second layer of paper mache, piling is on during day one seemed to be enough.  I was shocking how hard these letters dried.

I just loved seeing everybodies letters sitting together after they dried.  The newspaper was almost cute enough to stop but we needed to personalize them.

The next week we started off by sanding our letters with sandpaper to take all rough edges off and smooth things out.

Each kid could choose one color for the base, we used Basic acrylics and foam brushes.

We had tons of glitter and gems and marbling spray available.  It was amazing how each letter looked like their owner. 

 

I was a little worried when this cutie chose black for his letter but then he added teal glitter and it looked just like Star Wars, I absolutely loved it!

What a fun time and a fun souvineer from our backyard art the kids can proudly hang in their rooms.  Definitely a highlight of the year.