Beginners Watercolor Workshop (in January 2015)

Tuesday Evenings in January (4th, 13th, 20th, and 27th)
5:30pm – 8pm

About the Instructor 

At The Well - Felicia Follum

Resume blog post can be found here.

Felicia Follum is a watercolor artist and graphic designer. Her work often focuses on cultural diversity, social issues or the mixing of cultures. Her watercolor paintings can be recognized by their bright colors, and bold textures.

Felicia recently moved to the Tri-Cities from Laramie, Wyoming and is excited to become a part of the arts community here.

Though not a traditional art teacher Felicia has experience teaching art to a wide variety of students including at risk teens, adults with disabilities, and young children in the favelas of Brazil as well as women and children in a small village in Haiti. She absolutely loves sharing art with people in a variety of ways.

She is looking forward to meeting you in her next class.


Beginners Watercolor Workshop

This workshop will cover basic watercolor techniques, supplies, and color mixing. We will also discus how watercolor is different from non-water mediums and ways to use this to our advantage so we can resist the urge to fight against it.

Eden Watercolor - Felicia Follum

"I have a love for bright colors so of course we will discuss some strategies for achieving bright and vivid colors."

Optional homework will be given to offer the chance to reinforce what we practiced during the workshop and to encourage some review throughout the week.



Supplies - Paper, Paint, Brushes, Other

Art In Haiti

Me sharing a a Paper Bead Lesson

Here is a post from my religion blog. I talk about my experience teaching art in Haiti leading art lessons. I will edit the post a bit. To see the original and more about the religions of Haiti and my spiritual experience check out my SckRlgn Blog.

As many of you know I was fortunate to be able to take a trip to Haiti last summer (2011). The goal of our group was to build a chicken coupe in a small village community while spreading the Good News.

One of the cultural differences led to the Haitian males taking away most of the American women’s jobs while working on the chicken house (polaye in Creole). Though frustrating for some of the ladies in our group, this was a good thing for two reasons. First, I strongly believe that it was our job to equip people rather than do for them. And second (third, fourth and fifth), this dynamic led to me being surrounded by tons of kids, and the opportunities to lead art lessons, learn some Creole, and having the chance to spend quality time with one of the older girls. One-on-one time with a role model of some sort is a major need for many young women in Haiti. In fact if I go again I plan to take nail polish to share with the young women (probably women of all ages).

The photo above is me teaching some of the order girls and young boys how to make paper beads. You can read more about the Upcycled paper beads in my tutorial. I also took around 60 friendship bracelet kits (just cut string ready to be braided or knotted) Using art to connect with people was a unique and beautiful experience. I went in with no Creole and some of the older kids knew how to count to 5 in English and say Miami. The art lessons allowed me to make friends with one of the families as well as some other kids and leaders in the community. Using art allowed us to teach each other basic language skills but also forces us to use sign language (actually having sign language experience was more beneficial than my Spanish) and other forms of communication such as body language and sounds.

I would love the opportunity to go back to the small village again, to show the kids that it was not a one-time event, but rather a sincere investment in their lives. I also have a small amount of money to take back from selling my art in response to the first trip.

Sharpton: Creating your own Graffiti Tutorial

Reverend Al Sharpton is a significant player in the field of African American religious culture.

Since I have a couple decent photos of this graffiti name drawing, I thought it would be appropriate to talk a bit about my process of creating my graffiti style letters.

 While I was creating these name drawings,
 I drew several versions for each name both in pencil and in ink. 

I always begin with doodleing some letters and seeing if I can get any to fit together.

Sometimes I will look up graffiti I like or have photographed to see if there are any inspirational graffiti styles or letters that I like.  If I find one, I create a font based on the characteristics of that letter.  The letters(s) I sue for inspiration allow me to create a unique style or font. 

I then continue to work on other letters of the name using a consistent style.

My typography class plays a huge role here. 

I learned about parts of letters such as the x-height, serifs, ascenders, descenders and several more aspects of developing fonts and typefaces.  I know to keep a consistent x-height and I usually drop rounded letters just below the baseline.

Once I decide on the rules I can create most any word I want out of that style.  I think I have created around 7 different graffiti letter styles.

After creating the outline I decide whether I want the text to be 3-D or flat.

The last step is to add a background and value.

See more of my graffiti photographs and inspiration.

The ArtsVan

A short slideshow from my summer with the ArtsVan.

The ArtsVan travelled to various parks in and around Yakima, Washington, giving art lessons to kids.  Art is something that has almost completely disappeared from the school in Yakima.  Allied Arts also provides art lessons in the schools to help the kids get some exposure. 

Some of the communities that we worked in are heavy with gang violence, poverty, and single parents.  A goal of the van is to help these kids have a positive outlet as well as some positive role models, all while teaching them some basic skills (such as using scissors).

In the future, I would love to go back to Yakima and work with kids who are into gang tags and help them to put their efforts and talents into making artwork.  I will post some of my ideas for projects in the near future.

My artwork analysis

Fetus - Social and Ink

Last night I was given the opportunity to go on the Art Walk in Kennewick, WA. It offered a great opportunity to talk to some working artists. They all had excellent advice to offer. It was great timing too because I had just been talking to my husband about some of the specifics of improving my art that I am focusing on.

Currently, I know that I want to do art and I know some of my strengths. I am in-between knowing that I need to find a niche and being able to tell what that niche should be. Its almost like I have two areas of focus that are semi developed.

My favorite two areas to work with are “social justice graphic design posters” and “small intimate ink and wash drawings.” I am not sure how these areas will evolve or if I will focus on one for a while and then focus on another.

It is possible (and seems likely) that my niche will have more to do with style or concept than medium.

Great Lesson Plans Online

13 Art Lessons that I found on a great blog for art teachers.  I think that these would be perfect for the boys I give lessons to over the summer.

1. Back to School Backpacks

2. Surrealism and Picture Consequences 

3. Paper, Scissors, Glue   
Lesson 2

4. Mehndi Hands

5. Dia De Los Muertos

6. Spectacular Skies

7.  Boxes
Boxes 2

8. Draw what you Build

9. Cardinals in the Snow

10. Chinese New Year

11. Crazy Hair Day

12. Molas 

13. Artist Trading Cards

Composition project.

Take an artsy photograph. I selected one of wire fences in a field.

Benton City, WA

Use your photograph to come up with as many compositions as possible. The compositions should all be different and it should not be obvious that they were all the same photograph. Using Photoshop (or another editing program) to crop several sections of the photograph. Feel free to play around for a while. Create as many compositions as you can. Look at them in black and white and color.

Modifications to the lesson plan and final photos below...

Summer Goals

My summer art goals.
1. Complete work for my African American Black Beauty/Social Justice/Culture show. I would like to have some extra work and then narrow it down from there. Here is what I would like to create (I am not sure what will go in the show yet and these are just ideas )
   a. 5 – 10 poster designs
   b. A black hair care line
   c. Some (5 - 10, see below) ink and wash drawings or water color paintings – for a challenge. I am not sure that they will be included in the show.
   d. A t-shirt stencil or some type of graffiti art (maybe ink and wash)
   e. C and d can be used in a poster design and will still count.
   f. zines

2. Along with having all the work for the show, create promotional materials and press releases given out to the community on time. I know little about this, so it will be a learning process.
   a. I would like to find a checklist of some sort and
   b. actually use it.

Is Art Necessary for Society?

An older lady, that I met a couple weeks ago, believes that the government should not support art/the arts at all.  It came up because she was in favor of cutting the National Endowment for the Arts (an article from Psychology Today).  I was outraged but managed to stay calm.  I decided to research some reasons why this view is inaccurate and detrimental to our society. 

Innovation as a Nation

My watercolor based on the Weary Blues by
Langston Hughes.  The Harlem Renaissance is
a grand example of the arts playing a huge role
in society.

I began by research the benefits of art in American Society and found that Americans are always wishing we were as smart as those in China, but realized that we forget that the Chinese are always wondering where America’s creativity and innovation come from.  It is clear that our creativity and innovation do not come from getting rid of the arts (I am focusing on Fine art because that is what I am familiar with but I do think that many art forms fit in this broad category of having the ability to generate creative minds) in our society.  Art influences society though politics/political movements, religion, the sciences, and cultural awareness.  Art can have both positive and negative cultural effects on society, which is a reason individuals should be visually literate.

Curcuit Board Isprired Art

This project was from my Drawing III class where we explored a variety of mediums and pushed the definitions of what drawing is and can be.  My other circuits piece was also from the same class.

Although we did not focus on the basic terminology of design, this would be a great project to do so


What you will need: heavy paper, gesso, paint, ink, water color.  You could really use anything that makes marks and a surface that makes sense with that medium.

First you take the prepared drawing surface and you draw all over it.  I made what started as ambiguous shapes and ended up adding detail to create music notes and circuity-like objects.

After you draw on the first piece, cut or tear it up and rearrange the objects in a way that creates an interesting composition.  I mounted mine of mat board.

Here is one of the final pieces that I came up with.  I mostly used ink, graphite, and pastels.
 
 See below for some modifications to this project.

Circuits Inspired Art

To create art using this style you will need:

Gesso (or white paint from the scrap section of a hardware store)

Acrylic paints

Ink (black)

Pastel or Conte Crayon

Steel wool

Other miscellaneous supplies

Instructions and process below

Upcycled Paper Beads Lessons Plan

This past summer I was given the opportunity to go on a trip to Haiti.  I took a couple magazines, scissors, toothpicks and glue along with me.  These four items led to an amazing opportunity to lead some of the older girls and younger boys in the skill or craft of making paper beads.  It was a great opportunity to combine two of my most significant passions, people and art.  Although paper bead making may not be seen as Fine Art (Check out my Facebook Art Page), there is something marvelous about using my artistic ability and Fine Arts training to connect with others.

This is a project that could be done with kids or adults of any age.  The process is fairly simple.  You start with a piece of magazine or paper and cut it into triangles (for more oval beads) or rectangles the long way (for thicker beads).  After you do this you can roll them on a toothpick and add a drop of glue.  Finally finish it off with some sort of water proofing (spray paint or gloss medium work well).  I use gloss spray paint.  The simplest way to create a piece of jewelry is to take stretchy sting and thread it on with one or two spacer beads in-between paper beads.
 
Last Christmas break I created and sold a significant amount of jewelry made from these beads. I entered, and sold, jewelry in the Affordable Art for the Holidays show at the Works of Wyoming Gallery. Some of the jewelry that I created for gifts and the show included earrings, necklaces and bracelets incorporating paper beads.

Finished Photo Cards & Questions

25 plus images

This project/self assignment was to recreate a deck of photo cards (the images are not recreated but rather the concept). The photo cards are used to start dialog and get to know people. Ideally you would have the cards set out in a public or semi-public space and engage people as the go by.

More of my photography that I could use.

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The questions below are just sample questions. The best conversation would likely result if you ask questions in response to peoples original answers.

Alright guys so now that you have seen my 25 plus images here are some questions. You can pick as many as you want to answer. There are no right answers and no wrong answers. Do not be persuaded by what you think I want you to pick.

1. Which image is your favorite?
2. Which images best represents you?
3. Which image says spirituality?
4. Which image represents religion?
5. Which image gives you positive feelings? Negative thoughts or feelings
6. Which one makes you think of God?
7. Which image represents where you want to go in life or who you want to be?
8. Which image shows where you are in life?
9. What do you think about this game/dialog?
10. Which image represents you the least?
11. Which image would you best friend say represents you?
12. Pick an image and tell me why you picked it?
13. Make up a question of your own for me to answer after you answer it.

Also please keep in mind that these photographs are mine.  If you want to use them you at least need to give me credit as the photographer.  I would willing to trade links or something as well.  Thanks! 

Photo Cards

The student union at the University of Wyoming always has booths set up where students can get information about clubs, jobs and a chance to interact and learn with people from the community and/or other students.  One of these booths was set up by a Christian group on campus.

This particular table had a set of photo cards.  The people at the table would ask "which card they related to and why?" or "which card makes you think of God?"  The point was simply to find a creative way to engage in a conversation.  I am not sure where this idea came from or who the original photographer was, but it does seem that this game could be adapted to fit the needs of an art therapist.

I think that a fun project would be to create a set of images that would work for a game like this.  The set that I saw had a table full of 5x7 images.  Maybe my goal should be to create a set of 25 images or more to start.  These images will be both black and white and color.  When I get a set, I will update you and give you some more defined rules or question examples, but here are some possible images to start with.