Category Art

Let’s Paint

Painting is the application of pigments to a support surface that establishes an image, design or decoration. In art the term “painting” describes both the act and the result. Most painting is created with pigment in liquid form and applied with a brush. 

Painting media are extremely versatile because they can be applied to many different surfaces (called supports) including paper, wood, canvas, plaster, clay, lacquer and concrete. Because paint is usually applied in a liquid or semi-liquid state it has the ability to soak into porous support material, which can, over time, weaken and damage it.  To prevent this support is usually first covered with a ground, a mixture of binder and chalk that, when dry, creates a non-porous layer between the support and the painted surface.

What feelings can you show in a painting? In a painting of a stormy sea, you can show the power of nature. In a quiet forest scene, you can express peace. A picture of food can send a message of plenty. Or a painting of empty bowls may say “hunger”.

What can you express in a painting that doesn’t show anything real, like people or objects? You can use colours and designs to show feelings. You can put across your own feelings this way.

In Stitches

There are huge machines in factories that sew most of our clothes and other items. But many people still enjoy sewing by hand or with their own sewing machines. One reason people like to sew their own clothes is because, that way, they can choose exactly what size, colour, and material they want. Some people like to sew special things for their homes, such as curtains or pillowcases. People also sew gifts for their friends or families.

Embroidery is a craft that is related to sewing. It is used mainly for decoration. A person who embroiders uses a special needle and coloured thread called embroidery thread to make different kinds of stitches on cloth. The stitches can form pictures or designs.

You may have a shirt or sweater with words or pictures on it that have been embroidered by a machine. But many craft-workers enjoy embroidering by hand because it is creative and it relaxes them.

Picture Credit : Google

The Roots of Ringgold’s Art

When you think of a painting, what do you see in your mind? A piece of canvas, painted and framed, hanging on a wall? That is probably what most people would think of. But artist Faith Ringgold makes paintings and other works of art by using materials in new ways.

Ringgold started experimenting with fabric in 1972, when she was teaching art at a college in New York City, U.S.A. At that time, Ringgold was insisting that museums show art by African American women. Much of this art was made of beads and fabric. Faith Ringgold encouraged her students to use beads and fabric in their art. So why, asked a student, did Ringgold always use canvas and paint in her own work?

The question made Ringgold wonder, too. After all, the women in her family had worked with fabric for almost 100 years. Her mother made a living by sewing and had taught Ringgold how to use a sewing machine.

But how could Ringgold mix fabric and painting? On a visit overseas, she discovered a way – tankas. These are cloth frames that Tibetans use for sacred paintings. Faith started framing her own paintings with tankas.

Next, Ringgold began making cloth sculptures. They looked like African masks. One such sculpture – Mrs. Jones and Family – shows Faith, her mother, Willi, her brother, Andrew, and her sister, Barbara, with their mouths wide open. The open mouths stand for the tradition of storytelling in Faith’s family.

Ringgold used quilting in her paintings in 1986. She used an African design – squares of four triangles – to make a quilted border around her painting Groovin’ High. She even quilted large squares onto the painted canvas.

Picture Credit : Google

The first settlers in America, called colonists, had no factories or shops, and many communities had no craft-workers either. People had to build their own houses, grow their own food, and make their own clothes.

To make clothes, colonists had to do more than just cut out cloth and sew it together. First, they had to grow flax for linen and raise sheep for wool. Next, they had to spin the fibres into thread or yarn. Often they coloured it in dyes made from boiled plants. Then they wove or knitted it into cloth.

When the clothes the colonists had made became ragged, they didn’t throw them away. They found other ways to use them. Some cloth was cut into patches and then pieced together to make blankets called patchwork quilts. The craft of quilt-making is still popular today.

A quilt is a kind of fabric sandwich. The top and bottom layers are cloth. The filling is made of raw cotton or some other soft material.

Today, quilters sew the layers together with tiny stitches. The top and bottom layers can be made out of many coloured patches. Sometimes the stitches form designs like diamonds, leaves, or stars over the patches.

Picture Credit : Google

Carle’s Collage Creatures

They have pictures made with colourful scraps of painted tissue papers, which he paints himself. The caterpillar in The Very Hungry Caterpillar is a collage.

To make the very hungry caterpillar, first Carle made a drawing of the caterpillar. He placed that drawing on top of a piece of red tissue paper and cut along the outline of the face. He put glue on the back of the tissue face and stuck it to a white board. One by one, Carle cut out the other parts of the caterpillar and added them to the red face. Then he drew details, such as hairs, with crayon.

In 1929, Eric Carle was born to German parents in Syracuse, New York, U.S.A. As a small child, Eric took many walks with his father. They often stopped to look under rocks and dead leaves. There they discovered tiny creatures, such as insects, spiders, and worms. Eric Carle’s love of nature began with these walks.

Eric went to kindergarten in Syracuse. He enjoyed experimenting with the fat brushes and bright paints in his art class. Eric’s teacher saw that he had talent. She urged his mother to encourage his drawing. But he learned more about animals and art outside school than inside.

As an older student, Eric was living in Stuttgart, Germany. On summer visits to farms, Eric milked cows and watched bees. While in the city, he visited his Uncle August, a storyteller, who inspired the young Eric. Eric Carle went on to make up his own stories with the collage creatures that delight children and adults today.