fundraising art projects for schools

GRAPHICS   good shape.   bold or proportional to picture type.   structurally composed in a clear meaningful setting.

FINISH   well colour coordinated.   vibrant.   rich in contrasting effects of tones, depth, textures.

Any picture without a style will most likely lack meaning and good composition; moreover, novice will typically create poorly expressed busy pictures or choose subjects that are completely out of their depth to manage. If you are not an art expert, the information below can help you assess the most suitable route to take.

This style will most likely make an inviting picture as it is the easiest type for novice to express due to the obvious composition and colour coordination. Not only will it give a picture instant structure and meaning, it is also an ideal unrestrictive platform for beginners to experiment with tonal painting, colour-mixing or other technical applications such as wax-resist.

Especially when painted with tonal watercolours, landscape can make a stunning picture alone or as a meaningful background for simple subjects such as architecture, snowman, reindeer, robin, penguin, rabbit, pig, flower, or a bare branch tree.

Your picture should tell a story, it could be ‘Silhouette buildings with shapely roof tops at sunset’, ‘3 Patterned Beach huts on a cliff against a glistening sea and a calm sky’, ‘Snowman on a hill or fluffy snow against a moody snowing sky’, ‘ Penguin on jagged ice against a snowing sky’, ‘Reindeer with dramatic antlers on fluffy snow against a rainbow sky’, ‘Robin or any bird on a branch against a snowing or star light sky’, ‘ Rabbit on a grass field against a summer sky’, ‘Piglets on a rough dirt ground’, ‘A field of flowers poking out of long grass blades in summer’, or ‘A bold white bare branch tree on snow ground against a dramatic colour-mixed sky’.

This type of picture places high focus on the subject and therefore it must really shine, requiring very careful execution and especially creative skills to make an appealing picture.

The level of challenge will also depend on your chosen subject and medium applications, hence a single still-life Christmas tree made with a painted hand print and some vibrant finger painted baubles combined with a stark pattern pot made with card collage will most likely be much easier to manage compare to a fully painted version using conventional brushes.

Subject should be shapely, bold, and well composed to start, follow by a creative finish
A bold flat and heavy brown circle with only a tiny red circle against a flat bare white or colour background will make an extremely bland and ineffective pudding picture, whereas, a tonally painted bold brown circle with stark dripping white icing layered on top using wax crayon / oil pastel will deliver far more excitement due to the added tones, contrasting textures, shapes and colours; furthermore, including striking ornaments such as bright red cherries in a proportional large scale and 2 shapely holy leaves using collage or paint are equally necessary for enhancing this type of picture. Similarly, a single close-up orange against a painted background will likely make a bland picture, whereas, 3 oranges dangling on curved branches, with some pointy oval leaves, will deliver instant transformation. Both background and subject could be finished entirely with tonal watercolours, with some colour-mixing application could further boost excitement, alternatively, introduce another texture to the picture with mix-medium application by finishing the branches and pointy leaves with heavy wax, strong poster paint, permanent marker or collage.

This type of more abstract picture is deceivingly difficult to do well, requires extra careful execution and should be reserved for artists with strong technical experience and creative skills. Examples of some effective pattern pictures could be based on Kandinsky Circles or Andy Warhol Pop Art, not the sort without any visual focus and concept, or a final picture that resembles a wrapping paper.

However, with proper guidance and support, capable novice with some experience could try an easier adaptation by painting patterns onto good quality art papers with finger, rag, shaped sponge or a lid for halos; applications can also be combined with other techniques like colour-mixing, wax-resist, scraffito, backrun, or spattering; cut out varying size desired shapes such as a collection of triangles for trees or circles for baubles, and then arrange them attractively onto a painted background to make a picture; small details like the tree trunks or hangers can be added with a marker pen.

This type of busier picture is the most difficult to do well, and therefore should only be reserved for proficient artists with lots of experience