Igor's Art Studio
Learning Philosophy
Every child develops at their own pace.
Rather than focusing on perfect results, the Art Studio encourages curiosity, creativity, experimentation, and steady improvement. Students are challenged to build new artistic skills while creating artwork they are proud to share with family and friends.
August Theme: Summer
Focus Skills
- Observation
- Symmetry
- Composition
- Color harmony
- Layering techniques
- Combining multiple subjects into one artwork
Art Media
- Watercolors
- Colored pencils
- Soft pastels
- Markers
- Acrylic paint
August – Composition (Part 2)
Project
Design a summer landscape featuring flowers, plants, and the insects created during the previous lesson or new simetrical inages of insects.
Skills
Composition, Foreground, middle ground, and background, Planning a scene, Perspective through overlapping objects
Media
Watercolors, Colored pencils, Soft pastels, Markers
Focus
Learning how individual objects become part of a complete composition.
Goal
Creating balanced compositions, Understanding foreground and background, Transforming ideas from one project into another
Wrap-Up
Students share their artwork, and reflect on what they learned.
Creative Warm-Up and Mini Lesson
Warm and cool
Colors that remind us of heat, fire, and sunlight, such as red, orange, and yellow are called Warm colors.
Colors that remind us of water, sky, and shade, such as blue, green, and purple are called Cool colors.
Primary colors
Three basic colors we use to create many other colors by mixing them together are called Primary colors.
Primary colors are Red, Yellow, Blue (you can add Black and White) are used to mix many other colors:
Red + yellow = orange
Yellow + blue = green
Blue + red = purple
Harmonious colors
Composition — the way an artist arranges all the parts of a picture so they work well together.
For example, where you place a tree, a flower, a person, the sun, or the horizon is all part of the composition.
A good composition should feel balanced, but it should also help us see what is most important in the picture. This important part is called the focus.
Artists can create a focus by making one object different from the others. For example, if you draw five butterflies and one is much bigger, or if four are red and one is blue, your eyes will probably notice the different butterfly first.
STUDENT'S WORK 3
August – Composition (Part 1)
Project
Design a summer landscape featuring flowers, plants, and the insects created during the previous lesson or new simetrical inages of insects.
Skills
Composition, Foreground, middle ground, and background, Planning a scene, Perspective through overlapping objects
Media
Watercolors, Colored pencils, Soft pastels, Markers
Focus
Learning how individual objects become part of a complete composition.
Goal
Creating balanced compositions, Understanding foreground and background, Transforming ideas from one project into another
Wrap-Up
Students share their artwork, and reflect on what they learned.
Creative Warm-Up and Mini Lesson
Balance
Balance — when the different parts of a picture feel like they belong together and no part feels too heavy or too empty.
An easy way to create balance is to make two objects similar in size, shape, or color. This is called symmetrical balance.
But balance does not always mean things have to match. Artists can also balance different objects—for example, one large light-colored object can be balanced by a smaller dark-colored object. Even though they are different, both can attract our attention and make the picture feel balanced.
Composition
Composition — the way an artist arranges all the parts of a picture so they work well together.
For example, where you place a tree, a flower, a person, the sun, or the horizon is all part of the composition.
A good composition should feel balanced, but it should also help us see what is most important in the picture. This important part is called the focus.
Artists can create a focus by making one object different from the others. For example, if you draw five butterflies and one is much bigger, or if four are red and one is blue, your eyes will probably notice the different butterfly first.
Transforming ideas
Artists often practice their ideas before creating a larger composition. They may make sketches or paintings of individual objects first, and then use what they learned in a bigger picture.
For example, an artist might first learn how to draw a flower or a butterfly, and later use that flower or butterfly as part of a landscape.
In our last lesson, we learned about symmetry by drawing butterflies and flowers. Today, we will use those ideas and skills to create a larger composition.
We are taking something we already learned.
STUDENT'S WORK 2
August – Symmetry
Project
Create an image of the decorative or a realistic butterfly or other insect in its natural environment.
Skills
Symmetry, Shape construction, Observation, Color blending, Pattern design
Media
Watercolors, Colored pencils, Soft pastels, Markers
Focus
Simple shapes and symmetry, encourage bold colors and decorative patterns.
Goal
Recognizing and drawing symmetrical forms. Practice shading and color transitions
Wrap-Up
Students share their artwork, and reflect on what they learned.
Creative Warm-Up and Mini Lesson
Landscape
Landscape — an artwork that shows an outdoor scene and the space around us, such as the sky, land, trees, water, flowers, buildings, or animals.
Landscape orientation — when a page or canvas is placed horizontally, so the surface is wider than it is tall. This term describes the orientation of the paper or canvas, regardless of the image being created.
So, if the teacher says, “Place your paper in landscape orientation,” it means the paper should be placed horizontally.
If a line on the paper goes from left to right (or right to left), it is called a horizontal line. In a landscape, a horizontal line can represent the horizon—the place where the sky appears to meet the land or ocean.
Portrait
Portrait — an artwork that shows a person, especially their face and upper body.
Portrait orientation — when the paper or canvas is taller than it is wide, so it is placed vertically.
So, if the teacher says, “Place your paper in portrait orientation,” it means the paper should be placed vertically.
If a line on the paper goes from top to bottom (or bottom to top, it is called a vertical line. In a landscape, a vertical line can be trees or street lights.
Symmetry
If the right side of an object is the same, or nearly the same, as the left side, we call it symmetrical. The human body and face are approximately symmetrical. Symmetry is especially easy to see in insects and animals such as butterflies, ladybugs, and spiders.
