TECHNIQUE 1: Mondrian Trees - Oil Pastels with Baby Oil

  
Not sure this is a Mondrian Tree.......don't really like it that much....
 

   I am going through my Mondrian-stage at the moment....hopefully it will wear off soon.  I thought we would look at some more Abstract Art and Mondrian's trees seemed a little less daunting for a young child than other abstract art "subjects".
   We will be using oil pastels and then applying baby oil with a cotton bubs (q tips) to create a sense of the artwork being an oil painting. I used this technique many years ago and thought it would be fun with my students. They really love making artworks with non-traditional media.

PROCEDURE:
1. Discuss with students how Mondrian's tree paintings changed in style from realistic to abstract. Large images of artworks to view with a laminated information sheet for each student.
 





2. Discussion about how Mondrian applied the paint to his artworks - thick, lumpy, directional, etc.
3. Materials: A3 watercolour paper, lead pencil, no erasers allowed, oil pastels.
4. Students will be issued with a Resource Image on which they will base their own Mondrian-style abstract tree.
 
5. Students will sketch up their artwork using lead pencil with sweeping curved lines. No straight lines. No erasers are to be used as this inhibits the spontaneous approach (stop-start)
6. Students will then apply oil pastels to the artwork They will need to decide on a particular colour group - Warm or Cool Colours including white. No black is to be used at this stage. The pastels need to be applied as a "thickish" layer but not to the extent that the pastel is destroyed. Press hard but not too hard.
7. When this Step is completed, students will go over the oil pastel with a paint brush and a little baby oil. Excess oil should be avoided. Use a brush with stiff bristles.
8. The baby oil makes the oil pastels incredibly easy to smooth out and blend. Texture can be created in the oil pastels with the stiff bristles but most be controlled. Don't over paint with the oil and brush as the oil makes the pastel dissolve. Too much oil and the pastels disappears.
9. Because the artwork is on watercolour paper, the baby oil is absorbed. A hairdryer can be used to further dry the artwork if need be.
10. Last Step - Optional. With a black oil pastel add some defining lines on various parts of the "tree". Not too many lines. A demonstration is advisable as some students will over do the black lines. Minimal lines appropriately placed to help define the tree branches and tree-shape. I also added some white posca pen lines by dragging the pen along to create random lines.




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