Experimenting with Texture, Paint, and Collage

"Paris Eiffel Tower"
Beth S. Macre © 2008

Acrylic Paint on canvas

As an art teacher, I am constantly looking for new projects for my 3rd and 4th year students. Since these students have been with me for 3 and 4 years, they need more and more challenging projects each year. Some of my students really love a challenge and I really enjoy seeing what they come up with. The latest challenge that we all took on together, was to create a map relief textured painting. They could choose a map of any place, pick out the interesting lines and shapes to create an abstract or semi-abstract design. The only other requirements were that they should use a gel molding paste to create textured relief parts. I told them they could add pieces of fabric, wire, paper, or other items if they wished to create a collage effect. I also showed them a few ways to add texture to the molding paste to create different effects. Some of which I included in my "Eiffel Tower Map of Paris" piece shown here.

When I applied the molding paste, I laid a piece of wire mesh on top of the wet paste and pressed it on, using a pallette knife, then removed the wire mesh, leaving the texture. You can see a close up of the textures in the 2nd and 3rd photos here. The textures show up after they are painted with layers of paint of a variety of colors. To see it larger, click on the image.

For my painting I used a map of Paris, from my trip last summer. I also collaged a cut out photo that I took of the Eiffel Tower and printed in grayscale, then painted around the edges and some on top of the paper.

This was one of those projects that I really had fun with and plan to do more using the molding gel. I really love the effects that you can create with the textures. One of my goals for 2009 is to do more of this type of painting.

Tomorrow I will be doing some studio cleaning and thinking about the rest of those goals for 2009.

Hope you have a happy and safe New Year!

~Beth~

Latest Tile

This is my latest tile to come out of the kiln. I tried some different shapes and colors on this one and I'm still trying to decide whether I like the combination or not. The colors aren't as bright as the last ones.
The first photo is the tile before it was fired. The second photo is after the glaze firing.

Fish Tile ~ greenware stage

Fish Tile ~ Glazedware

Beth S. Macre © 2008

I've got one more tile that will be fired Friday. That will be all of the tiles for awhile. I have started a colored pencil piece that I hope to work on this weekend and hope to post it soon after. I'm definitely counting the days until school is out! I'm preparing for my trip to France and I hope to spend lots of time at the drawing table this summer!

Hope you have enjoyed the fish tiles. I've enjoyed creating them. I like to play with my whimsical side. These little guys are lots of fun.

Student Art Work

Student self portraits using a grid.

I started a pencil portrait commission of a family today. I will not be able to post it for privacy of the subjects and also because it is a secret for the recipients, so I will post some samples of my students' art. This class recently completed a project where they were to paint a self portrait using a grid, like the artist Chuck Close. (I would love to see that exhibition!) I wanted the students to learn to draw using a grid and to be creative in the way they painted the individual squares in the grid. As Chuck Close uses simple shapes in the squares to create the images.

These two students chose to pose in their reference photo together and match up their paintings as they were in the photo. The students really grumbled about this project in the beginning, but in the end, most of them were surprised and proud at what they accomplished! These two gave me permission to post their pictures here. (The cute guy may look like his mother...ME!) I may post some more later if the others want their pictures posted. They really got creative!