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