1 | FEATURE | Color Palette Tips

A detailed look at color schemes.

2 | CLASSROOM | How To Print Our Posters

Sometimes we give out posters for your classroom. There’s an option to print them large on 4 sheets of copy paper. Here’s how to make that work.

3 | ARTICLE | Understanding Copyrights

Students need to know important legal things that will protect them and their artwork before they do any kind of paying work.

4 | MATERIALS | Good Brush, Bad Brush

Most people can’t stand to throw away something that seems useful. However, a bad brush is not only not useful, it is damaging.

5 | GRAPHIC | Principles Of Design Poster

This month’s graphic is a printable poster (see section 2 for how to print). The 6 Principles of Design are presented in a colorful and teachable display.

6 | LESSONS | What’s Coming Up

This month’s lessons – overviews for each week.

Step 4

We used regular magic tape and pressed it down well to disappear as much as possible.

1. How do I protect my own work?

2. How do I make sure I don’t infringe upon others?

The questions are really two sides of the same coin, and both are about protecting you; you don’t want to be sued for infringing on someone else’s work any more than you want someone to steal yours.

Before answering these questions, we need a quick understanding of the basic idea of copyright. There are many misconceptions about it.

Copyright is not about physical work. I can own a painting but not the rights to reproduce it.

It is called Intellectual property. It is property, just like a car is, but it is not the car. It is the way the car looks. You can buy a Ford Mustang, and you’ll own that car. However, you can’t go out and make a car that looks just like a Mustang and sell it. The look and design of the Mustang is the intellectual property of Ford, and it has great value because they worked hard to create it and promote it.

Copyright laws were created so that people can protect their intellectual property from other people taking it. Why would Ford do all that work on the Mustang if Nissan, Chevrolet, and anyone else for that matter, could start making Mustangs too? No, it makes sense that Nissan should create their own car design. Chevrolet makes the Corvette. No one else can make those because it wouldn’t be fair.

There is therefore a feeling that copyrights are a thing, just like other things. People decide that they should be able to sell a copyright, and that once you have it, you own it forever.

This is actually not quite true.

If we didn’t have those laws, then artists would not be able to control and benefit from their creations; so why would they bother? Why would you create a book if a big company is going to take it and make all the money selling it? You would see your book in the stores and online, making money for that company but not for you. Then you’d see it made into a movie maybe. If you didn’t get any of the money it made, and you didn’t have enough to pay your bills, It would make you never want to make a book again.

Our culture would have fewer books; fewer movies; less music. It would be bad for everyone.

So copyrights are given to creators so they will create, and so we all get to have new movies and new music.

After a creator dies, even if they sold their rights, the copyrights die too, but not right away. copyrights expire 75 years after the creator’s death. That way the family of the creator can benefit from the work too.

You can sell all the copyrights, or you can sell limited rights to your work. For example, musicians and book authors get a percentage of the sales from their work because they only sold the rights to publish, not to own the copyright completely. That way the percentages will go to their family for 75 years even after they die.

That’s a great incentive for creators to continue to create. And that is good for everyone.

The musician, being famous can’t prevent you from using their photo, but the photographer owns the picture. That means you need to ask the photographer if you can paint it. They might want money to give you that right. If you have a contract that states that you can paint it, then you own the copyright to the painting.

A well known artist, Jeffrey Koons, once made a sculpture from a photograph of some people holding their 6 puppies. The sculpture looked just like the photo, and because the sculptor artist was famous, he sold it for a huge amount of money. The photographer sued the sculptor for stealing his intellectual property, and won in court. He got the money from the sale and even some more for all his trouble. This is different than just copying the original photograph, but the sculpture obviously could not have been made without the photo. This is called a derivative work, and most countries have laws prohibiting such works. Small sections of art or photos can usually be used without infringing upon the original, but you have to be careful.

Fair Use

If you don’t sell a painting, but make it only for yourself, or for learning how to paint, that is ok. It’s called fair use. It’s only when you are making money or promoting something that makes money, that you are in danger of taking someone’s copyrights.

Some companies let you know that you can paint from their photos by posting a copyright notice. The photos in The Art Instructor lessons have all been paid for, so you and your students are free to paint them.

Morguefile.com is a site that has a collection of photographs that are free for artists to paint as well. Click the “free photos” tab and do a search. There are also a bunch of tabs for paid photo services. Don’t use those. Select a photo you like, and make sure you read the permissions on the download popup box. It will probably state that you can’t use it in a “stand-alone manner” which means you can’t print it out and just sell the photo itself. You can still use it as part of a website, (give a credit if you do), or to paint from as reference.

graphic

Tap the image or the button to go to our poster download page which has 4 different versions in 2 sizes for you to print.

TEACH

You can use the poster to teach about how to use the principles. One thing to also convey, is that artists seldom start out thinking about these things. Instead, we do things intuitively at first, and then whenever things are not looking as good as we want, these principles help us analyze what’s wrong and tell us how to fix it.

1. Position for Emphasis & Balance

With 2 evenly weighted sections, it made sense to create a centered and symmetrical design.

2. Contrast for Emphasis & Harmony

We used color contrast in several ways to clarify what was most important, and what was least. By making the only dark area at the top, we have a strong spot for our headline. The yellow circle is the only yellow, and one of only two warm colors, so your eye heads to that first, and then travels to the headline. All of the rest of the poster uses lower contrast in both value, and color. Everything is medium value and cool colors. Only the words have any real contrast so they can be read easily and are the third thing to look at. The illustrations along the bottom are downplayed so they don’t fight for attention until you’ve started to understand what they mean as you’re reading.

3. Repetition for Harmony & Balance

Circles are in line vertically. Squares are in line horizontally. The squares are also equally spaced and all the same colors, to connect the left and right sections into one element. Making the numbers very bold, also makes them easier to distinguish.

Foundations

Week 35: Creative Collage
Students will use pages and clippings from magazines to create collage images that tell a story about themselves. They are also given the choice to work on a detailed pencil drawing with freedom to choose their subject matter.

Foundations

Week 36: Journal Painting 1

Foundations

Week 37: Journal Painting 2 
Students will continue working on their journal paintings from last week. Early finishers will work on any paintings or color journals that are not yet finished. If all is done, then they’ll have artists’ choice.

Foundations

Week 38: Group 3D Installation
A Bunch O’ Boxes project has everyone collaborating. Everyone must work together as a team and combine a few boxes into a 3D sculpture and/or installation that has a theme and incorporates everyone’s efforts and style into one final work. Classes can be divided into teams of smaller groups so that everyone can work at once. Boxes are covered in white paper and painted for display in the summer or for an art show.

Foundations

Week 39: Toon Attack! 
An entire class devoted to learning the basics of cartooning. Students develop a character and learn how to make different facial expressions using “keysigns” (symbols that convey extra meaning or action). A finished ink and watercolor cartoon is created in the second half of the session.

Foundations has two versions: grades 3 – 5 and grades 6 – 12