Printmaking Geometric Animals with Roberto Montenegro

PREPARATION: as students arrive for class ask them to brayer one color onto the paper
we used grey for this project

Take a look at: 

Jaguar and the Moon

Oil on canvas, circa 1950s. 

By Roberto Montenegro Crocker Art Museum

DISCUSSION: 

what do you see here?

Is it flat?

Does it appear to be made from paper?

What about the colors the artist chose?

How many colors?

What is the purple shape?

Why did the artist chose purple for the moon?

Why is the jaguars head Black and the rest of it’s body yellow?

What about the shapes and dots around the Jaguar?

ARTIST: Roberto Montenegro Nervo (1885-1968) 

he was a Mexican painter, illustrator, and stage designer.

In 1903, Roberto Montenegro began studying painting in Guadalajara under Felix Bernardelli, a Brazilian-Mexican artist

He lived in Mexico City, and in 1904 began studying architecture. 

It wasn't long after he abandoned it to study at the Academia de San Carlos under many talented artists

Some of his fellow students were Diego Rivera and Francisco Goitia.

An influential promoter of popular arts, Montenegro organized events like the first popular arts festival which was held in 1921. he also published "Pintura Mexicana del Periodo 1800-1860" in the 1930

PROJECT: printmaking animals

Step1: Encourage students to see any animal as a series of shapes. ex: cat: two triangles for ears, circle for a face, oval for a body, rectangles for legs. add pieces of sticky foam to create the shape of any animal

Step2: For the cat: cut out two triangles and place them on the top of the card board piece

Step3: continue adding shapes to your cardboard until you have your whole animal created.

Step4: On a small piece of cardboard create a shape to be added around your animal like a moon or stars

For printing: LIMIT COLOR CHOICES FOR THE STUDENTS. we were able to choose form three red, yellow or blue.

Step3: Print your animal on your prepared paper using one color for the animal and one for the shape

Step5: using a q-tip add dots in and around your animal

Step6: using forks, wine corks and any additional items, add pattern in your background

Materials,

Paper in white black or grey or all three

Paint

Sticky foam rectangles

cardboard base

q-tips

scissors

cork

forks

Symmetry and Asymmetry with Tino Rodriguez

Look at: Xochipilli's Estatic Universe

Oil on panel, 2004 by Tino Rodriguez;  Crocker Art Museum

Discussion: 

What do you see first in this piece of art?

Is this a photograph? 

Could this really happen OR is it more like a dream?

What parts are the MOST dreamlike?

What about this piece is the same on two sides? Symmetrical

If we cut it in half, both sides would be the same: the bird, the butterfly, the face

Let’s name more things that are the same on two sides

What about this piece is Asymmetrical?

ARTIST: Tino Rodriguez

Tino Rodríguez is a Mexican-American painter. 

Born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, Rodriguez was influenced by the symbolism and themes evident in the Catholic churches of his youth. His work was also influenced by his absorption of fairy tales.

His work incorporates fantastical imagery combining animal and human forms, as well as dream-like backgrounds and settings.

His work has been exhibited at numerous venues in San Francisco.

Rodriguez studied at the Sorbonne in 1990. 

He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico.

Project: Balance (symmetrical) Butterflies vs Asymmetrical background

Step1: Fold a piece of large paper once about the 1/3 mark

Step2: On one half of the folded page draw half a butterfly in oil pastel

Step3: Fold the paper and rub until the butterfly transfers to the other half

Step4: draw in the lines so the two sides match 

Step5: using oil pastel draw in details on the wings, line on the body any ideas to make your Butterfly unique. Remember every detail you add to one wing must be added to the 

  opposite wing

Step6: using a pencil draw the background around your butterfly. Add some dreamlike ideas into your environment, remember this is your asymmetrical opportunity.

Step7: Using paint, paint additional symmetrical details on your butterfly

Step8: paint your background asymmetrical

MATERIALS: 

Paper

Oil pastels

paint

water cups

brushes

Organic and geometric Repetition Animals with Maija Peeples-Bright

 3 Day Project

Day 1

Take a look at the work: Woodpecker Wimea with Weightlifters

Oil on canvas 1982 by Maija Peeples-Bright

Discussion:

What do you see in this piece

What is repetition

Do you see texture

How many different colors are used

Are the birds always painted the same?

If you can forget for a  moment that they are birds what does the painting look like?

do you see any shapes? what shapes do you see?

What is a shape? Name some

What is an organic shape? Can you name some of those? Where do we see them?

Artist: Maija Peeples-Bright  (1942-)

Maija was born in Riga, Latvia in 1942.  Maija and her parents then moved to Northern California when she was 8

She is known for paintings, prints and ceramic sculptures of zany lovable animals and bright flowers.

She was well into completing her math degree at UC Davis in 1963 when her counselor advised her to take an art class to fulfill general education requirements. 

On her first day in the class, she unknowingly stepped right into the middle of what's known today as the California Funk movement. 

Eventually she ended up palling around with such notables as Robert Arneson, William T. Wiley, Peter VandenBerge, David Gilhooly and Roy DeForest. 

"I was so lucky that Davis was just this hotbed of art at the time that I was there," says Peeples-Bright,    

In 1967, Maija lived in San Francisco in a house she helped paint every color that Dutch Boy produced and called her work "The Rainbow House."  

"I do art in just about everything—my shirts, crochet my blankets. 

Maija studied under Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley and Robert Arneson to gain her Master's in only one year at the University of  Davis.  Maija prefers to isolate herself from the art world and work in her garage studio in Eldorado Hills, California.

Project: over several days and steps create a work inspired by the work of Maija Peoples-Bright

Step1: Blue Tape 1/2 inch border around a large piece of thick paper, tape to a board

Step2: Draw three large geometric shapes the same or different

Step2: Draw three large organic shapes within and around the geometric shapes

Step3: fill in any blank spots with shapes both Geo and organic

Step4: using tempura paints, Paint shapes both organic and geometric of different colors

Materials: 

Thick paper 12x18

tempura paint

pencil

Day 2: 

Discussion: revisit all discussion topics from day 1

Focus on repetition 

Tint: adding white to colors

Value: what is value 

what happens when you add white to colors?

Make Paint: 

Give each student a bowl of different color paint and a brush

add a portion of white to each bowl and have the student create the new colors

Project: 

Step1: using a pencil, choose one shape and fill it in with at least 2 of the same animal

Step2: in another shape, fill it with at least 2 of another animal

Step3: continue on until all shapes are full, some shapes could be filled with only one animal

Step4: put the new paint colors one on each table in the studio.  Have the students move about to the studio to each table to add the new paint colors to the animals

Day 3

revisit the previous two days discussions

Oil Pastels: what are they?

How do we use them?

When and how were they created?

Value: Shade

What happens when you add Black to a color?

Make Paint: 

Give each student a bowl of different color paint and a brush

add a small portion of black to each bowl and have the student create the new colors

Project: 

Step1: using oil pastels add details to your animals

             eyes, scales, contour lines, etc.
Step2: put the new paint colors one on each table in the studio.  Have the students move about to the studio to each new color
Step3: using a q-tip add dots around each original shape


Materials:
Oil pastels
Q-tips
Paint Brushes
Black paint
White Paint
pencils
bowls

Collage Painting with Roy De Forest

TWO DAY PROJECT

DAY 1

Discussion: Painting and texture

Painting: 

What does it mean to paint something?

What can we paint on?

How many different kinds of paints are there?

What did they first use to paint

How is paint made?

How is/was the color created

What is texture?
Where do we find it?

Why is it important in art?

Project: Enjoy creating texture scrappy paper

Set-up stations for children to move around and create texture scrap paper

Station 1: rolling cars in paint

2: dry brush painting

3: sponge painting

4: stamp painting

5: Qtip painting

6: fork painting

7: rolling brayers

8: painting lines

Using 4x4 to 4x6 pieces of paper have the students draw and paint tiny animal heads and faces. 

      each student should create 6. 

These will be incorporated into the project tomorrow

Materials: 

Scrapes of construction paper in all colors

4x4 or 4x6 white papers

Q-tips

sponges

brushes

pencils

paint

Pattern stampers (made from cardboard and foam stamps)

plastic forks

Brayers

DAY 2

Look at the artist Roy De Forest's work: Rainforest Painter, 1996 http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocor/5610454118/

Discussion:

what do you see

what time of day is it?

Is it a happy piece?

What is happening in the work
Where does the work take place

What is the meaning behind the piece (NO RIGHT ANSWERS)

ARTIST: Roy De Forest (1930–2007) 

American painter known for his comic-like patchwork regionalist (California) style, often depicting dogs & other figurative content in his art.

Born in North Platte, Nebraska, De Forest grew up in Yakima, Washington and attended junior college there. He then attended San Francisco Art Institute and earned a bachelor's degree and master's degree at San Francisco State University.

His first show was in 1955. He taught at the University of California, Davis, from 1965 to 1992. A retrospective organized by San Francisco Museum of Modern Art toured in 1975.

He was one of the originators of a Northern California art movement once described by Washington Post art reviewer Sidney Lawrence as a style "in which counterculture thinking fused with an anything-goes, anti-art attitude harking back to the Dadaists of the World War I era." called "California funk," a classification De Forest disliked.

"At 75, Mr. De Forest is painting pretty much what he has painted for years: dogs, men in hats or headdresses, and supernatural beings against a flattened terrain 

De Forest was born in 1930 in North Platte, Neb., the son of migrant farmworkers. 

In addition to Thiebaud and Arneson, De Forest's colleagues in the UC Davis art department included such prominent artists as William Wiley, Manuel Neri and Ralph Johnson.

Prominent American sculptor John Buck, a student and longtime friend of De Forest, called the artist "the champion of imagination."

De Forest and his wife, Gloria, lived in Port Costa, Calif., on land populated by cattle, birds and the dogs that inspired so much of his art. 

for additional information please visit http://www.fantasyarts.net/roy_de_forest_bio.html

PROJECT: 

rip and collage your patterns and texture pieces that you created DAY 1 together on one paper; trying to create a jungle environment: Trees, moon, leaves and water

Step1: find brown texture paper to form a tree

Step2: find texture paper to form the leaves and flowers of the jungle

Step3: tear out or cut a round texture paper to make the moon

Step4: using blue texture paper create some water somewhere on your page.

Step5: collage at least two animal head paintings (day 1) into your work

Step 6: paint and animal into and on top of your collaged pieces

Materials: 

Brushes

Paint

paper

glue

texture paper

scissors