BCA Virtual Family Art Saturday: Express Yourself!

Express Yourself!

Get creative and make art together!

Inspired by BCA Center exhibition Unprecedented? and the work of featured artist Lillie Harris, families will explore the power of art to express emotions and understand the feelings of others. Using observation, lines, shapes, colors, and simple cartoon techniques, participants will create their own expressive portraits.

Activity Age Range: The whole family!

Materials Needed: Paper, pencil or pen, markers or crayons, and a mirror.

STEP 1. CONNECT This activity connects with our BCA Center fall 2020 exhibition Unprecedented?. The exhibition helps us to explore and express our feelings surrounding the extraordinary events of 2020 and to consider how people from different backgrounds, cultures, times, and places experience these issues. Featured works by Vermont and New England artists tell stories about feelings that we all share such as sadness, curiosity, worry, and hope.

Learn more about our BCA Center 2020 fall exhibition at burlingtoncityarts.org.

How can artists express emotions in works of art?

How can art communicate what is happening in our lives and how we feel?

Artist and cartoonist Lillie Harris uses lines, bold shapes, colors, and expressive facial features to illustrate many different feelings in their artwork, March to Now. They use a variety of thin and thick lines in their illustration to outline the figures and make connections between different characters and the surrounding environment. The artist uses lines and shapes to draw facial features- eyes, nose, mouth, facial lines, and hair- to express different emotions. Harris uses different colors on the faces of the children and throughout the composition such a red, yellow, blue, and orange, to represent feelings of nervousness, happiness, sadness, and curiosity.

Lillie Harris, March to Now, 2020 Prismacolor pastel digitally inked and colored with PhotoShop printed on Fuji glossy paper 48” x 64”

Look Closely: • Choose a figure in March to Now to focus on. How do you think they are feeling in that moment? Why do you think this? What types of lines and shapes did Harris use to illustrate the character’s facial features and show that emotion?

• Can you find a figure that is experiencing another feeling? What emotion is it? What colors has Lillie Harris used to draw that figure? Why do you think they chose those colors?

The children depicted in March to Now represent my interpretations of the different ways children across the globe are processing all of the changes coming to a head from this year.

There’s playfulness and curiosity – as is inherent of children – as well as nervousness and confusion; yet there’s also the ability to adapt to the sudden shift, all the same. – Lillie Harris

STEP 2. CREATE Draw a self-portrait and EXPRESS YOURSELF! Step 1 Step 2 Gather Supplies Use the mirror to observe how your face • paper looks as you explore • pencil, pen, markers and and express different crayons emotions.

• Mirror Try making these faces: Happy, sad, silly, confused, mad, sleepy and surprised. *Think about the emotions that you have been experiencing recently. Try making those faces in the mirror.

Step 4 Draw expressive features to show your emotion. Use a variety of lines and shapes.

Add expressive eyes.

Draw a mouth that matches your feelings.

Add a simple U-shape for a nose.

Add hair with a few simple lines.

Step 5 Add details and color to Express Yourself!

This is a portrait of youdraw from your feelings and experiences. *Inspired by Lillie Harris’ March to Now, use different lines and colors that you associate with emotions. You might draw a yellow face and curved pink and purple lines to represent feelings of happiness.

Step 3 Choose an emotion that you want to express in a portrait drawing.

Next, draw a simple Ushape for the head.

Step 6 If you make several portraits, put them together and make a cartoon strip of your different emotions.

*If you are creating with friends or family, try displaying your work together to build a portrait wall of feelings.

-What emotions have your friends and family been experiencing? Are they similar to or different from your own?

-What do you think your family and friends may learn about you by looking at your portrait?