Kids Atelier

31/05/2024

We drew inspiration from the gorgeous photographs by Bruno van den Elshout, an artist from The Hague. He captured the sea at Kijkduin every hour for an entire year, resulting in many surprising and colourful seascapes and an impressive book called 'New Horizons’. http://www.newhorizonsahead.nl/beeld

I chose to introduce the children to a new technique using soft pastels, which is sometimes employed in art therapy. Soft pastels can be easily blended and layered by smudging and blending with fingers. This tactile technique can be both soothing and grounding for the children.
We began with a warm-up exercise where each child selected an emotion and then created artwork in response to that feeling.
Then, we drew imaginary seascapes, focusing on blending similar colours while also creating contrasts between the sea and the sky.

22/03/2024

We were focused on recreating existing traffic signs to make them more enjoyable and acceptable, almost like adopting the approach of street artists.
We also drew inspiration from a compilation of all existing road signs (used as a projection on the wall).
Following this, children began imagining their own signs, aiming to bring humor to their streets or homes. They sketched their ideas using pencils and black markers, and then added lively watercolours to complete their designs.

07/03/2024

In the last session we were preparing to go on a spring holiday, packing our dreams and flying high in a hot-air balloon.
But before we commenced our travel journey, we did a small warm-up exercise involving colourful ink-spots and lots of water. After that, we were ready to work!
The children first sketched their story on aquarelle paper, thinking about what it would be like to travel on their holidays with their friends or family in a fantastic self-designed hot-air balloon. Then they used bright watercolours, with the option of using black ink and pen to highlight the important contours if they wanted.
Their favourite part seemed to be playing with the watercolours and ink spots to give life to their visions.

26/02/2024

In an earlier class we learned to mix all the colours of the rainbow and also discovered how to make our own grey shades (for clouds).
This time, we were ready to use these skills to create an imaginary cat that swallowed a rainbow :-)
The children could either choose to draw cats from memory or pick a photograph of a cat as inspiration.
Using acrylic on canvas, they produced lovely artworks combining both very bright colours and grey-scale tones to express an array of funny rainbow animals.

13/02/2024

During our last session we tried to combine learning with fun, and made our own colour wheel, starting with only the three primary colours – yellow, red and blue – and mixing them to make more colours using acrylic paint.
With this palette, we then tackled our new topic, using photographs as inspiration: to paint a brightly coloured Italian village – or maybe one in Mexico?

12/10/2023

We took the opportunity to explore acrylic paint and how it can be blended into various tints. Our exercise was first to mix three primary colours – yellow, red, and blue – to obtain black.
This self-made black paint became a base for creating a pallet of grey tints, simply by adding a little white acrylic paint.
The children then chose images of clouds they liked, in black and white. Using these fluffy clouds as inspiration, the children went on to depict them in their own style (using a normal brush, silicon brush, stamping tools, etc.)

09/10/2023

An exploration of the timeless theme of the self-portrait using charcoal pencils was our task on Thursday 24 September. For a few children, this was a new technique as well as a new subject, and we all benefited from deepening our observational practice. We spoke about the proportional characteristics of a child’s face, paying attention to neck and shoulders, etc.
When the kids were done with their black-and-white self-portraits, it was time for something fun and expressive. We kept with the theme of a face, but this time the children could draw a very colourful and imaginative ‘funny head’ using acrylic markers.

07/10/2023

Franky's work got displayed in Museum Young in Art. Follow the online museum for daily doses of happiness:-)

💥Johanna Bilak heeft het Kids Atelier in Den Haag. Wij volgen haar al vele jaren. Op haar FB Pagina kwamen we dit bijzondere werk tegen: 'Dit kunstwerk heet 'Verrassing' en lijkt op het werk van Jackson Po***ck. Het is gemaakt door de 10 jarige, zeer expressieve Frank Smatlan. Frank vertelde het volgende over zichzelf: 'Ik woon in Den Haag. Ik ben Canadees, maar heb daar nooit gewoond. Ik ben er geboren en woonde in Zwitserland voordat ik naar Nederland verhuisde. Ik hou van schilderen en dat doe ik al sinds ik heel klein ben. Het liefst maak ik abstract werk. Als ik dit soort schilderijen maak dan voel ik me vrij. Ik wil dat de kijkers mijn emoties voelen die ik uitdruk'.
💥Dank Frank dat je jouw werk bij ons wilt tentoonstellen. We weten zeker dat je heel veel reacties krijgt. Johanna we danken jou ook weer hartelijk.
Frank heeft nog een ander werk met dezelfde techniek gemaakt ('Frustratie') dat we graag ook binnenkort in Museum YiA een plek geven.
💥ANDEREN mogen ons natuurlijk ook mailen. Ons e-mailadres is [email protected]. #

17/09/2023

As an introduction, we looked at some abstract works by Rothko, Miro, Klee, Kandinsky, Po***ck, Delauney, etc.
We wanted our paintings to reflect different emotions. The children had the opportunity to choose one emotion from a jar and try to imagine what that felt like.
There were a lot of choices to make: if you were happy or frustrated, which colour would you choose? How would you paint it, using lines, dots, spots...? Would you scratch it, stamp it, dribble it, splash it, spray it or smear it onto the paper? The task seemed quite difficult for a while because it was a freestyle assignment, but the results were surprising, we even had action painters among us!

01/09/2023

When Benji had a grooming session in July, I took several photographs of him in a variety of positions and wearing different expressions.
The children chose their preferred picture of Benji and then started to sketch him with a pencil. Later, they used metallic markers to emphasise Benji’s details and fur.
To finish off, we used bright watercolours for our imagined backgrounds, but for better contrast we decided to leave Benji out. Benji felt very honoured to see these successful portraits:-)

05/07/2023

On 15 June, we enjoyed a lovely sunny day, perfect for moving our class outdoors. In fact, the sunshine was a very important element for our theme: to draw shadows of plants!
We first chose our favourite plants, and positioned them so they would cast shadows across our sketch boards, and then we carefully drew the outlines of the shadows on paper.
When we had a few sketches ready, we went back to the studio to continue our artwork, using water-soluble wax pastels to colour our drawings. We dissolved the colourful pastels with water to achieve a rich watercolour effect. Nature is always so inspiring!

14/06/2023

How do I begin to design a book cover? What are the main elements of a cover? What makes the book cover visible and attractive? These are all questions that we asked ourselves while working on this small project.
We started out by sketching our ideas, transforming ourselves into graphic designers and illustrators. We used pencils, black markers (or black ink) and then bright watercolours.
Some children designed book covers for existing books, and some designed ones for their own books, to be written by them!
I hope you enjoy our imaginary children’s book library:-)