Video transcript
Operation Art painting workshop

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MEREDITH RASDALL: Good morning, everyone. And welcome to Operation Art. My name's Meredith Rasdall, and I'm a high school art teacher. And we're going to be doing a painting workshop this morning. Now, lots of people have done painting before, maybe at school.

But today, we're going to learn how to paint so actually, you can see the brush strokes. And we're really going to look at shapes and try and look at the picture that we're working from. Our theme for today is wild animals, because I thought that really appeals to most people.

Whenever I'm doing art workshops, we always look at artists as inspiration. And our two artists-- we're actually looking at three artists. We're looking at Brett Whiteley. He's an Australian artist, and he did a series of drawings of zoo animals. He's used ink as inspiration.

And then the other artist we're looking at is an Australian artist called Lucy Culliton. And she loves to paint animals-- not so much wild animals, but she paints farm animals because she lives on a farm. And there's just been an exhibition of her work recently in Sydney.

And she paints sheep and horses and cows. And the really good thing about Lucy Culliton, which I'll show you later, is she uses her paint quite thick. And you show the brush strokes.

And who knows this artist? Vincent van Gogh. And the reason why I always use Vincent van Gogh as inspiration when we're doing painting, again, he uses brush strokes. So it's not just like colouring in, because sometimes people at primary schools, when they get paint base, they just try and fill in all one colour, like they're colouring with coloured pencils. When we do painting, we actually want to see the brush strokes. That's really important.

Who ever finds when you're drawing, you find it difficult to copy the shapes? Or if you're drawing a person or if you're drawing something, who finds that difficult? Sometimes, I do.

So when we're drawing, we're all going to be working on black paper today, too. That's a bit of a trick. And we're using chalk first. So if you make a mistake, we've got a little rag here that you can just wipe off. So we don't get worried about making a mistake.

And we really want you to start to do when you're drawing is break it down into shapes. So you look at the image that you've got, and you think about what shapes you can see.

Now, here on this leopard, what shapes can you see? Yes?

SUBJECT 1: Circles.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Where are the circles?

SUBJECT 1: The eyes, and there's one for the muzzle.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Yes.

SUBJECT 2: Kind of like a triangle on the nose.

MEREDITH RASDALL: A triangle on the nose. Anybody else? Yes?

SUBJECT 3: Triangles for the ears.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Triangle for the ears.

So really, what you do is just generally look. Break it down into shapes. And this is even before you start, because the most important thing about art is actually looking. And that's the thing that I get quite passionate about is teaching children how to look.

Don't draw and think, I know what a leopard is in my head, but actually looking at your picture. Now, I have about 50 or 60 pictures over there. So I'm hoping everyone will find an image that I will be happy with.

Now, this has been coated with gesso, black gesso. Does anyone know what that is? Yes?

SUBJECT 4: Is it a medium?

MEREDITH RASDALL: It's a medium. Good girl. It's an undercoat. So it makes the paint take to the cardboard really well.

And does anyone know what happens when you paint on black? What happens to the colours when you paint on black? Yes?

SUBJECT 5: They stand out.

MEREDITH RASDALL: They really stand out, and they're quite vibrant. And we're going to use quite a lot of white with our paint, as well, to make it even stand out more.

Now, another thing that I really want to push today, we need to take up the whole of the page. So with your chalk, very lightly sketching. And don't press. If you press really hard, it's harder to wipe it off. So if you just press lightly and you get very loosely, looking at the shapes. And if you make a mistake, you can just rub it out.

And see how I'm filling up the whole page. All right. I'm just going to hold that up, just to show. And if I was copying this one, I wouldn't spend the whole time drawing hundreds of little spots, because we've only got an hour. So you might simplify it a little bit and just draw a few spots, whiskers.

So does everyone understand? We're looking at our picture really carefully, looking at the shapes. We're drawing it very big, taking up the whole page. We're just drawing the animal. We're not drawing any background, grass, trees, or anything like that and not colouring in with the chalk.

What we're going to do now, very carefully and not running and going crazy, you're going to go and choose a picture. And then I'm going to come around and hand out some chalk. And then you're going to start drawing.

Taking up the whole page-- no tiny little animals, nice and big. All right. If you need a cloth.

This is amazing.

SUBJECT 6: Thank you.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Really good drawing.

See how he's got those shapes there. And he's a bit fluffy down here.

All right. How many people think they're nearly finished? What we might do, just because some people are ready to start painting, put your chalk down, everybody. And come back to the front.

All right. So here, we have Lucy Culliton's sheep.

Now, generally, I would say to someone, what colour is a sheep? And what would you say?

ALL: White.

MEREDITH RASDALL: White. Is this sheep all white?

ALL: No.

MEREDITH RASDALL: What colours can you see? Yes?

SUBJECT 7: A bit of blue.

MEREDITH RASDALL: A bit of blue. Yes?

SUBJECT 8: Brown.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Brown.

SUBJECT 9: Bit of a peach colour.

MEREDITH RASDALL: A peach colour. I like that name. Yeah.

SUBJECT 10: A bit of a black.

MEREDITH RASDALL: A bit of the black. That's right. So a sheep is not all white.

And even if you look at my hair, I would describe myself as having brown hair. But is my hair all one colour?

ALL: No.

MEREDITH RASDALL: So even though you might have an orange fox, he's not going to be all one orange colour. He's going to be a little bit of brown. He's going to be a little bit of sandy colour, because the light is going to be going because we've got on the photographs.

And you can see here, Lucy Culliton uses a lot of different brush strokes. And I've got very little brushes, and we really want to see the brush strokes.

Now, the other artist who uses lots of brush strokes is Vincent van Gogh. And this is part of his very famous painting, 'Starry Night.' He paints little dabs. And also, in the sky, he's got lots of different colours, lots of different blues.

So that's what we're going to be doing today. And we're going to be using a plastic plate, and you're each going to get your own palette.

Again, we look really carefully at the picture. So what side of this leopard is lighter? Yes?

SUBJECT 11: The right side of it.

MEREDITH RASDALL: So you can see here I'm going to be painting more with white here and over here, a whitish, greyish colour, which is a really good colour that I brought with me today, which is actually artist paint, which is called 'toning grey yellowish,' which is a really good colour for dirty animal colour, which animals are never usually really clean.

So the other idea is when we are painting, we don't just paint with straight colour. We dip into a couple of colours. And we're not mixing our colours on the plate. We're actually mixing it on the painting.

So if I'm going to start with my dark side, dip, dip. And I might even get a bit of that. I'm going to hold my brush like it's a pen. I'm not going to do it like that and stab someone, little dabs.

Now, the trick here is that we're not going to cover over our white lines. This is a little bit of a tricky technique because at the end, we're going to wipe the chalk off. And what do you think might happen? Can anyone guess? Yes?

SUBJECT 12: They'll be like lines.

MEREDITH RASDALL: What colour will the lines be?

SUBJECT 12: Black.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Black lines. So for instance, you will have a black line that is around. And see how I'm painting? And I'm not taking giant scoops of paint, either.

Dip, dip. And if it gets a bit thick, you can wipe. And I want to see the brush stroke. So I'm dabbing. That's pretty white in there. And you can even-- so we don't need more water.

And we don't even need to clean our brush, really. If anybody desperately wants to clean their brush, you can come and put your brush down and then pick up another one.

So see how I'm gradually building? And it's not flat. I don't want to see anybody doing this. That's bench wiping. That's not painting.

You want to see the brush strokes, different colours. And even where he's going-- see, here, it's almost a bit orangey. I could actually even put a bit of orange on that.

All right. So when we're painting, we do the big areas first. And I know often, children always love to paint the eyes first. That's the last thing we do.

So we're going to do the big area. So I'm going to give you your main-- everyone's going to have their own palette. And you're going to come up with your picture so that I know what colours to give you. And then you're going to start by blending.

So take a brush while you're waiting for me to give you your paint. Now, I'll just start with these colours first. If anybody needs extra colours later, you can always come back.

Who's next? Oh, you've got a cool one.

So you've got really good colours.

SUBJECT 13: Yeah.

MEREDITH RASDALL: So make sure you--

SUBJECT 13: That looks like purple.

MEREDITH RASDALL: I can give you a bit of purple.

SUBJECT 14: I've never heard of that. Look how well--

SUBJECT 15: Paint's great, because when you look at that--

MEREDITH RASDALL: All the way.

Down and down.

SUBJECT 16: That way.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Now, remember, don't go over your white lines. Remember that? Brush strokes. Look at there, and you can see how it's dark, dark.

You're just colouring in, like you're colouring in with a pencil. We want to see the brush strokes.

Right. Everybody, have a look at Holly's work. See how she's mixing her colours on the work.

She's not just colouring in. See how you can see the dabs. It's amazing. Well done, Holly.

And dab, because he's fluffy. Can you see that? You dip, and you could even do this. Scratch back in to make it. You know what that's called? That's called 'sgraffito.'

Beautiful fur. Now, I would concentrate on the animal first.

SUBJECT 17: There's your paint.

MEREDITH RASDALL: See how really, if you use that with that, you'll get this sort of nice apricot colour.

SUBJECT 18: Thank you.

MEREDITH RASDALL: I've used some of these.

Brush strokes.

When you think you've finished your animal, you can bring your plate back to the front table. And I will give you some background colours.

OK. Fantastic. You finished. That's right.

The only thing I could say is you could get a little end with your white. Do a little twinkle in the eye. So you get the end of the paintbrush, dip it in the white, and just do a dot so it looks like a reflection. And then you can come back with your colour, and I'll give you some background colour.

SUBJECT 19: OK.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Well done.

So we're doing little dabs. We're not painting--

Here, if you look at him, he's orange, much more orange. And this colour is quite an orange colour. And if you use that, see the colour's much more like the picture. So see if you can blend your colours.

Anybody else? Oh, wow, look at that. That's amazing. He's finished his animal. And now, he's doing his background with the dab. It's making him stand out.

You're up to your background. Do you want to use the same colours?

SUBJECT 20: Yeah.

MEREDITH RASDALL: Look at this. I love yours. Look, it's really got that gorgeous face. You've really captured his face.

And do use that dark colour, because it's quite black.

Beautiful. Look at how you blended those colours together, light and dark colours. So it's all not just filling in like you're painting a wall. But it looks like dappled light.

Oh my heavens. Look at this one. Now, you're a bit of a star. Beginning, darling, you were flat, weren't you? And look how furry your wolf looks now. Beautiful.

Brushes down. Let's take our work outside to dry.

They're actually drying quickly, which is nice.

SUBJECT 21: We just lay them out?

MEREDITH RASDALL: When the paintings are dry, you wipe that with a damp cloth. And wherever the chalk is, you get a lovely black line. So I'll wipe back that one. And then we'll wipe back this one so you get all the detail showing.

And then right at the end-- don't breathe this in, everybody-- you spray with gloss. And it brings the colours up.

And we're finished.

ALL: Operation Art!