May 7, 2012
The “Colours of Spring” project was created during spring with students from S20 campus. First they all imagined and created a nice landscape. These pictures were the base and inspiration for our big paintings on boards.
After drawing the outline of our landscape, we stuck pieces of masking tape on the boards to create a pattern for the sky. We subsequently applied layers of blue acrylic paint. The children enjoyed working on such a big-scale painting.
After allowing the paint to dry, the students then removed some of the masking tape, leaving some interesting white lines in the sky. After which, we started adding more colours to make the hills, mountains and sky. The colours were a mixing of warm and cool colours to create a feeling of spring.
Using tissue paper and Chinese drawing paper, the students then applied colours on them and stick them on the boards, thus creating more texture and perspective in the painting. This was a very interesting process and they managed to create a very colourful field that matched the light blue sky.
A lot of students included flowers, butterfly and bees in their original paper drawing. We therefore decided to add some of those into our final painting. Every student did either a flower or a butterfly using cardboard and paint. They enjoyed mixing and applying colours to create amazing pattern on the flowers and butterfly.
The last part of the project consisted of putting everything together to create our final artwork. The students placed and glued their flowers and butterflies on the boards. Some changed the position a lot as they were undecided whereas other had a clear idea where they wanted their flowers and butterflies to be on the painting.
After all the hard work done by the students, I applied several layers of PVA glue on the whole surface since the Artwork will be displayed outdoor. The final work looks very nice, with a clear colourful landscape with blooming flowers and butterfly flying happily around. The S20 children can be proud of their work.
Tamie Nakamura, Artist-in-Residence
