We are on vacation. It may be a great idea to create something original for this season. In the video you will find some ideas and some materials you can use, just the things you have at home.
Bring your ARTWORK back to class and I will give you a VERY BIG POSITIVE MARK.
The viewfinder is an invaluable resource for artists in composing a picture for painting. Simply put, a viewfinder is a piece of card with a rectangular window cut in the middle. It works like a window and helps the artist to find compositions for painting. All the artist has to do is look through.
It can be held in various ways to edit the view in front. First of all, you can hold it to create a PORTRAIT VIEW (vertical) or a LANDSCAPE VIEW (horizontal):
Sometimes you can create more sophisticated viewfinders...
Adjustable frame to choose different formats
To place the main lines of the composition
With self-adhesive Velcro to choose the format and size
Another use of a viewfinder:
You can use a viewfinder as an isolation frame to choose a piece of a drawing which is going to be your next drawing to develop.
For example:
Susan Sorrell: "...Doodling is my main inspiration for my artwork. I like the letting go and just playing with shapes and designs..never knowing what I will come up with. I try to fill up a page in my sketch book as a challenge to my creative side. As soon as the page is filled, I pull out my trusty isolation frame to find my ideas for my next painting."
Susan Sorrell's doodle with the isolation frame to choose the part she is interested in.
Final artwork by Susan Sorrell
A doodle is an unfocused drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be abstract shapes. I'm sure all of as have done doodles.
TASK
Making a viewfinder is quite easy. We have built a simple one in class to practice with it. For homework you will have to build a better one using a cardboard.
Bomomo. It is another Web-based drawing application. Try out all the clever tools below the canvas and create amazing and colorful spirals, curves, lines and patterns.
ArtPad. Paintings can be saved to the gallery and be replayed stroke by stroke by others. Many people publish videos replaying their artpad.com creations to Youtube.
Canvastic. You can create a picture with shapes, stars and lines.
A littel bit of everything:
MoMA activities. Explore the New York Museum and learn about different artists.
Detail Detective. You will find portraits, still life, abstract paintings, hyperrealistic artworks... everything we have studied these days.
Besides, you have to explain your abstract pictures (of course in English): why you have used some colours, shapes, lines... what your intentions or your feelings are... You are the creator, so, explain your creation.