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Fast Art – Helianthus
As an exercise in ‘loosening up’, this technique is brilliant, as small details are
undesirable! A previously prepared canvas or board speeds up the painting time,
and you’ll have a new painting for your wall in an hour or two. Try and work from
a real plant or bowl of flowers as this is always better than a photo or copying
another painting. After resisting painting sunflowers in all our previous books we
have relented!
- Fast Art – Helianthus
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Hope springs
Our landscape is dotted with so many of these familiar windmills, usually spotted
in the distance. When we were held up by road works on a long trip north, we
stopped next to this scene, and I relieved the boredom by clicking away with my
camera. Using the photo as the basis for this painting, I simply added texture and
paint and very soon had a new artwork.
- Fast Art – Hope springs
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Indelible impressions
The colour purple of traditional indelible ink is poignant to Africans both on the continent and abroad. While the theme of this ‘impressive’ piece is Ghanaian Adinkra symbols, any bought, home-made or found printing object will leave its stamp on a plaster surface to tell another story. Try impressing lace, string, crochet doilies, tatting, knitted items, shoe soles, bicycle tyres. If this were not a fast art book I could suggest taking the time to carve your own unique stamps from lino, erasers or potatoes before trying the following project. My dad always used to say, “C’mon, make tracks!” when he wanted me to get going...
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Fast Art – Io
Io is the closest of Jupiter’s large moons. It is also the fourth largest moon in our solar system – named after Io (pronounced ‘eye-oh’), the priestess of Hera who became a lover of Zeus. This simply named heavenly body makes it particularly suited as a subject for the simplest ‘stencil’ and the fastest of mediums – spray paints. To explore this fascinating form of fast art further. we suggest you experiment with as many shapes as you can imagine. We cover a few to whet your appetite and show how versatile this type of paint can be.
- Fast Art – Io
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – La vie en rose
This heavy rose patterned lace was perfect for my project and very effective for
the aged result I wanted to create. If you can’t find lace you like, a similar effect
can be created with just about any raised texture, for example wall paper or stencilled
crack filler.
- Fast Art – La vie en rose
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Labyrinth
Labyrinths represent the journey of our life path to becoming and knowing ourselves at the centre of our being. The only choice we have to make on entering a labyrinth is to follow the path from beginning to end. Mazes are designed to muddle and energise us into making choices which can be right or wrong and divert us from our goal. This labyrinth has been created over four squares so it can change from the simple, single choice pathway to a medley of mazes depending how you arrange the blocks. Have fun losing yourself in the middle of this one!
- Fast Art – Labyrinth
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Light hearted!
Potter’s clay and all the necessary equipment associated with ceramics are not
accessible to everybody, but there’s nothing like the tactile feel of kneading clay!
While I’ve chosen to keep this piece two-dimensional for simplicity and effect,
there is no reason why you shouldn’t make three-dimensional shapes with this
medium. My ‘light’ was simply made from a square Perspex sheet onto which the
shapes were glued.
- Fast Art – Light hearted!
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Mélange
Having been given a whole lot of coaster-size wooden boards, I must admit I
became a little carried away with this project – you don’t need to do as many as 54 but I do think the more the merrier! What a wonderful way to teach yourself about the layering of colour and the effect one colour has on another. As this is a really easy project it’s also one to get the children involved in – perhaps a family effort? The transparent ‘crystal acrylic’ I’ve used for this project creates a wonderful shiny glazed effect and there’s no need to use any varnish to finish.
- Fast Art – Mélange
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Nest eggs
Spray painting can be the fastest fun and yet yield the most delicate results that may even convert your local teenage graffiti fingers to finer arts.
- Fast Art – Nest eggs
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Odyssey
The mysterious feel to this painting may be attributed to the contrast between
the use of colour in the first layer of paint and the dark upper stratum. A bright
and cheerful ‘sun’ would have been produced had I used only yellows, oranges
and reds. The dramatic effect of this simple technique belies the fact that it almost
paints itself using a combination of poured acrylics and scraped oils.
- Fast Art – Odyssey
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Piquant pomegranates
If you’ve done the ‘Right brain/Left brain?’ project, you’ve inevitably got lots of leftover decorated paper! Well, here’s something else to do with it. And if you don’t have decorated paper, make some, or simply slosh colour and texture all over a canvas board.
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Fast Art – Receding range
While flying to Cape Town for yet another collaborative art session with my coauthor, I keep my digital camera handy and snap at any interesting landforms spied from my window seat. I love the receding ranges of misty mountains of the Cape landscape as the aircraft comes in to land.
- Fast Art – Receding range
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Ride the wave
This is definitely a project where the doing takes a lot less time than the drying! There are also a number of variables that will create different effects, for example the type of canvas or board, and the quality and consistency of the paint will all have a bearing on the final outcome. If you want to create different paintings that work together, it’s best to do them all at the same time, using the same materials. Even so, it’s impossible to get exactly the same thing twice. I mixed my own colours to suit what I wanted. Adding iridescent paint separated the teal colour into turquoise and blue, creating further depth.
- Fast Art – Ride the wave
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Right brain Left brain
Paper will probably always be the most accessible support for any painting
endeavours. My classes had a great deal of fun one week where they all just
messed, experimented and learned a lot by making arbitrary marks on paper. We used acrylic paints and all sorts of painting tools, from conventional paintbrushes to credit cards and scrapers. There is also much to be learned from the mixing and overlapping of colours. These are just some of the papers produced which have been glued to previously cut board. So, leave your more organized left brain at the door and let loose with your right!
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Fast Art – See the sea
The fluidity of the sea is imitated with the wonderful effects which can be created by simply watering down paint and pouring it across the canvas. Allowing the colours to blend almost creates your painting for you. This is also an ideal way to do ‘under painting’ for a more complex painting.
- Fast Art – See the sea
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Shield the gilt E
Aged copper acquires a green patina known as verdigris (‘green of Greece’) but real gold never tarnishes. If you want a truly gilded piece you will have to buy expensive 22 ct gold leaf. We regularly use imitation gold leaf sold as Dutch metal leaf: an alloy of copper and zinc beaten to whisper thin sheets. To preserve the gilt colouring and protect the fine leaf finish you may have to varnish the gilding with a clear lacquer spray. Traditionally, the best protection is shellac varnish, which also enhances the gold colour.
It’s amazing how paints can change a surface – from squeaky white Styrofoam to ancient metal in a twinkling! Styrofoam is the props and set designer’s best friend; affordable, lightweight and easily worked. Have fun faking it!
- Fast Art – Shield the gilt E
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Sky jumping
As a variation on spray paints and silhouettes, this project couldn’t be easier.
The original photograph was captured at sunset by my son John. My daughter Gemma and my godson Andy were jumping on the dunes of our favourite beach. The very different use of spray paints enabled me to capture something of the vibrant sky. Grab a camera and some kids and get going...
- Fast Art – Sky jumping
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Something fishy
The most ‘painterly’ of the printmaking techniques, monoprinting or monotyping is a form where the image or lines cannot be reproduced. An image is painted onto a printing plate and a print taken off that – in effect a printed painting. Monoprinting is best suited to bold designs, completed quite quickly before the paint dries. For this reason I have used oil paints to do my fish and to give you time to work with the paint without panicking!
- Fast Art – Something fishy
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Stone carvings
These Celtic, Coptic and Cornish inspired crosses showcase creative old carved
stone effects on various supports. The technique works well on wood, Styrofoam,
cardboard and cement – in fact, anything that wood glue will adhere to. While the
raised or embossed features (which fake engraving) are done solely with wood
glue, they can also be created by gluing cut shapes to the cross surfaces before
applying glue and plaster. This was a fun group project undertaken by a circle of
friends one sunny Sunday.
You will
- Fast Art – Stone carvings
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Stoned fruit
As further steps in learning to work with textured plaster, we created a trio of rough fruits in relief on Masonite squares. These are so easy to make and can be combined in many ways. Create a wall collage of fruit or vegetables for your kitchen or as gifts for teachers and friends. These mini artworks are affordable and quick to make. They use ordinary PVA paint and some household tools. The tiles can be blocked or fixed to a wall or backing board. They are purely for decorative effect, however, although we’d recommend sealing them with polyurethane varnish for a tougher long-lasting finish.
- Fast Art – Stoned fruit
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Trunk calls
A fast way to start an oil painting is to do the background in acrylics first. That way, the background dries quickly and the oil paint on top cannot change or interfere with it. Note that while you can paint on acrylics with oil paint, it is inadvisable to paint the other way round as the oil dries much slower and any subsequent layers of acrylic would crack and flake off – though this may take some time. This forest shows off the wonderful texture when you drip turpentine onto oil paint.
- Fast Art – Trunk calls
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Wax and wane
Most households that have had small children will also have experienced the
little bits of wax crayons left from artistic endeavours! I’ve saved all the bits over the years and ended up with a box full of rainbows. The red, yellow, orange and purple were quickly used up in this fiery piece, which could quite easily have been done in a different colour range. Though using children’s crayons, this isn’t a project for small children as the board and wax get really hot.
- Fast Art – Wax and wane
- R 15.00
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Fast Art – Whimsical weed
Who can resist a whimsical weed? We can’t – and you can’t! Follow these steps and you’ll see how easy it is. Wood glue, drawn onto poster board (and allowed to dry), works wonderfully as a resist and embossing medium. A dead fennel wayside weed takes on a quiet elegance in this simple project. You’ll be looking at weeds with new eyes now. They’re free, so you just pick ‘em!
- Fast Art – Whimsical weed
- R 15.00
