une peinture par jour: Reuse, Recycle.....Transform!

Happy New Year!
It's the end of semester- only one more week of class before exams and then my semester long classes are done. I get a new crop of students the end of January. I always find myself wishing my classes were all year long because I find students really get into projects about this time. We've done a lot of observational drawing in my introductory classes and covered different mark-making techniques, using value, texture and color. This is the point in the semester when projects can become a little more creative and students (especially beginning students) are a little more confident in their abilities. In my introductory class I've been doing some kind of transformation project with my students for years. In this incarnation I've asked them to pick out something from the recycling bin at home (and, I have a cabinet of recycling in my room for those who just can't seem to remember to bring in something from home) and to bring it in.

I've seen a lot of Starbucks cup transformations over the years...

In six steps I have the students transform the object into either an animal, insect or person. I tell them they can be inspired by the designs on the packaging or it can be completely unrelated. The objective is to change both the object and its background gradually in six steps. A lot of students get caught up on "what does this can look like?!" but I always remind them that this doesn't actually happen in real life- they can turn it into anything! Once they figure out the basic steps they will use in a rough draft they map it out on watercolor paper. The results are always really fun.

When I show this to students we talk about how it is lovely but would be even better if the color scheme was also trransformed. (Energy Drink/Bee by Ingancio)