Hi Everyone!

We’re excited to launch Creative Clues, a new monthly feature of Art Starts at Louisville Visual Art. With each new Clue, we’ll provide some pointers to help you succeed and improve.

Creative Clues Showcase

CLUE: DREAM
Deadline for artwork submission is February 28, 2022 at midnight.

Celebrating Black History Month, we are looking at art work inspired by Muhammad Ali and the artwork of Faith Ringgold and Romare Bearden (both mixed media artists).

How To: Mix It Up!

Mixed media is a term used to describe artworks composed from a combination of different media or materials. You should view everything as a possible canvas, a paint, a texture, a design element for your artwork. Get ready to make a mess (and clean it up), play a bit with how your supplies work together to make one piece of art.

LVA Summer Campers, Muhammad Ali Poster, 2016

This memorial to Muhammad Ali was created in 2016 at LVA Summer Camp. It is a mixed media artwork and every single camper, art teacher and volunteer at camp put a piece of their “heart art” into this collage. From marker drawings, hand lettering, photo transfers, paint strokes, hand prints and even thumb and finger prints, our campers worked together to honor this man who inspired people worldwide.

There are hundreds of pieces that make up this mixed media piece of art, it is kind of like a puzzle. Take a close look at the red zinnia in the middle of the page, each petal is a finger print from all of our campers, each petal (finger print) cut out and glued on, one at a time. Do you notice some bees and butterflies? Why are bees and butterflies in the artwork? Muhammad Ali is flying over our garden, inspiring and dreaming much like Cassie in Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold (we discussed Tar Beach in the December Creative Clues) . What are your dreams?

For more information about Muhammad Ali, who was born in Louisville, was not only a champion boxer but a champion human being, teaching tolerance and understanding, and helping children all over the world, visit this site: alicenter.org/about-us/muhammad-ali/

Faith Ringgold is an African-American artist best known for her colorful quilt paintings (mixed media art made of fabrics and paints). Most of her quilts are inspired by Black female life in America. Faith learned quilt making from her great, great grandmother and she was inspired by her mother Willi Posey Jones, a fashion designer. The artwork above is from, Tar Beach, her first children’s book.

Tar Beach is the name of the roof on Cassie’s Harlem apartment building, and her dearest wish is to be free to go wherever she wants to go. She dreams of flying, and all the things she might see if she could. Can you make a mixed media artwork about your dreams?

You can learn more about Faith Ringgold at: faithringgold.com

Romare Bearden was born in Charlotte, North Carolina in 1911 and died in 1988. He was an African-American artist, author, and songwriter, best known for collage art. He grew up in New York City and Pittsburgh and graduated from New York University in 1935.

Beginning in the 1960s Bearden worked in collage art (a form of mixed media). Clippings from magazines images, painted papers, foil, posters, and art reproductions were his “paints”, his art supplies. His subject matter, life in the African-American community. He was a founding member of the Harlem-based collective called The Spiral, a group that talked about the responsibility of the African-American artist and involvement in the civil rights movement.

For more information about Romare Bearden visit: https://beardenfoundation.org/arts-education-program/

Mixed Media Supply Box

You can fill a box with found objects from the recycle bin, the bottom of your toy box, the fabric pile, even your back yard. Look for empty cereal box, paper towel rolls, direct mail post cards, cardboard, old broken toy parts, trims/ribbons, scrap fabrics, buttons, beads, twigs or leaves, some old string/yarn, old magazine pictures and words, scrap wrapping papers, all of these items and more can be part of your mixed media box. And don’t forget your regular art supply materials, markers, colored pencils, crayons, paints, glues, colored papers, tissue papers.

Tip 1. One thing to remember when making a mixed media piece of art is, that you will be apply glues and paints and sometimes 3D objects to your artwork, so you will need a heavier paper or cardboard as your base.

Tip 2. Patience is required! Let paints and glues dry before moving onto your next steps.

Tip 3. See how your pieces work together. Look at color combinations. Look at how glues will help attach your art elements together, unlike in Tip 2, occasionally you will want to work with wet paint or glue.

Tip 4. Play and experiment.

Heart Art Project

We will start small, and you can make your “heart art” project into a pin to wear on your shirt or a hat, or refrigerator magnet, and save your scraps, because we will use them also.

Supplies:

Cardboard, reuse a cereal box, a recycled direct mail post card from your mail, something heavier than writing paper
mod podge or white glue, glue stick
magazine or book pages to tear apart
colored tissue paper
markers, crayons, pencils
scissors
found objects such as buttons, twigs, yarns, fabric scraps, ribbon scraps, old toy parts
optional – magnets, safety pins
optional – hot glue gun

“A man with no imagination has no wings.”

Muhammad Ali

Send in your DREAM artwork

Deadline for artwork submission is February 28, 2022 at midnight.

Content: family friendly (LVA will determine if artwork is appropriate to share online.)
Ages 5 to 105!
Photo Guidelines: here is a nifty link, if you want to learn to take great pictures of your artwork

Consent and Permission: By filling out the form below, you give LVA permission to display your artwork and information in the Creative Clue Showcase. *NOTE: if you are under 18 years old, please have a parent or guardian complete the form.
Address: email artwork to: artstartshere@louisvillevisualart.org
Social Media: you may share your artwork on Instagram: #artwithinreach, #ArtStartsAtLVA

LVA will notify you if your artwork is in the Creative Clues Showcase at the end of the month. artstartshere@louisvillevisualart.org

Send Us Your Artwork

Remember to use your past How To pages to come up with creative solutions for your new clue:

January 2021 - Winter -Thumbnails

February 2021 - Heart - Research

March 2021 - Chair

April 2021 - Spring

May 2021 - Breeze

June 2021 - Light

July 2021 - Together

August 2021 - Trees

September 2021 - Apples & Pears