Larisa Savchuk
The non-traditional drawing technique "Blotography" (blowing with a tube) is another magic of drawing lessons.
At first glance, it is incomprehensible and you don’t seem to want to take on it, but as soon as you start creating, this first feeling disappears like smoke. The drawing seems to be born on its own!
This activity for children is not only interesting and exciting, but also very useful. Just like blowing through a straw improves health: the strength of the lungs and the respiratory system of the child as a whole.
To work in this technique we will need: paper, ink or gouache or watercolor paints diluted in a bowl (or in small bottles), a plastic spoon or pipette, a cocktail tube, colored pencils, a brush, paints for finishing the image.
Image technology.
1. Scoop up paint with a plastic spoon (dropper), pour (drop) it onto a sheet of paper, making a small spot (drop).
2. Using a cocktail tube, blow the blot from bottom to top in different directions so that its end does not touch either the stain or the paper.
3. When the blot is divided into several shoots (twigs), blow them out separately in the desired direction.
4. To obtain smaller branches, blow out each large branch with quick movements of the tube left and right, up and down.
5. If necessary, the procedure is repeated (i.e., drop another drop of paint in the desired place and fan it).
6. Missing details are completed with pencils or paints.
I bring to your attention children's drawings made using this technique.
"Cherry blossoms"
Flowers are painted with cotton swabs using white and red paint.
"Flowering Shrubs"
Flowers are painted using a semi-dry hard (glue) brush.
"Flowers"
"Fairytale Tree"
The leaves are painted on with paints or colored ink by dipping a brush onto a sheet of paper.
"Saxaul Tree"
Completing the image with colored pencils.
"Sun"
You can try dropping ink or liquid paint onto a sheet of paper and carefully tilting and turning it in different directions to roll the drop across the sheet. The stain will immediately “stretch out” the horns or legs.
"Snail"
You can fantasize endlessly...
I will be glad if you like the proposed material and find it useful in your work. To be continued.
Blotography is a painting technique based on spontaneous spots and splashes.
It can be used for different purposes.
- To create decorative backgrounds (in postcards, for example)
- For exercises to develop imagination
- For art therapy - pulling out images of problems from the subconscious and transforming them
- To create works of art.
More materials on the topic:
I’ll tell you about the last point another time, but for now let’s try what blotography is.
Materials:
In order to do blotography, you need paper. Lots of paper. Because the process is exciting, and you want to “stain” as much space as possible. Therefore, take a pile of simpler paper - gray for writing or white for the printer.
You also need ink or ink. If you don’t have them, then watercolor paints will do. Take a larger brush. Even a paint brush will do.
Preparing the workspace:
Before starting the process, cover the table surface with newspapers or film. Perhaps everything around will also have to be covered so that the splashes flying in all directions do not stain the interior. It would be a good idea to protect your clothes with an apron - mascara practically cannot be washed off.
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Blotography, technique for creating blots:
Now that everything is ready, you can start going crazy. 🙂
- Put mascara on the brush and shake it onto the paper to make blots. Beauty?
You can impulsively move your hand over the paper, you can simply drip ink, you can tilt the sheet so that the ink flows in different directions. You can also blow on drops of paint, and they will spread in beautiful drips. To do this, it is convenient to take a cocktail straw.
Here are a couple of spots that I ended up with.
The first one reminds me of a flower. And the second one causes some unpleasant associations with internal organs... True, it still looks like a bean with a sprout...
I invite you to play mindlessly with your blots. This is exactly what was forbidden in childhood. And now we are adults and can afford to be a little naughty and fall into madness... :)
Let go of your hand and let it paint whatever it wants. Let the subconscious, through body movements, spill out what it needs.
Spontaneous splashes and “blown” blots, of course, have little to do with the work of the subconscious, but they decorate the graphic sheet well. So try both. In different versions, and on one sheet at the same time.
So what next?
- After you've played enough, take a break and look at the works. Choose those that speak to you about something or are interesting compositions of spots.
- Now you can use your imagination and complete the paintings with a few neat strokes.
This is what happened to me.
The second work with the “organ” I first enlivened with a flower sprouting from a seed. The result was still not pleasing, so I shaded the black and white image with color. In graphics this is quite acceptable.
This picture clearly has an art therapeutic focus.
Such works are important not for their artistic side, but for what they mean to us personally. They require us to make adjustments to them until we are satisfied with the changes that have occurred in them. In this way, we seem to give our subconscious a way to solve the problem.
But the picture with a flower was important precisely as a pictorial motif. I finalized it by drawing a flower stem, stamen, and caddis dragonfly. This one can be hung on the wall. 🙂
I hope that you will also like this method of creating graphic images. After all, they have something that attracts attention so much - the energy of movement, the play of spontaneity and awareness.
The blotography technique can be successfully used to create quite artistic works. Such as we do in the “Watercolor Fantasies” course:
The watercolor technique includes many different techniques that awaken your imagination and help you unleash your inner Artist.
I want you to try your hand at watercolors and fall in love with this wonderful medium.
Therefore I suggest you
Little children love to leave blots on paper. Parents, underestimating the “masterpieces” of their own children, get rid of incomprehensible drawings. But it turns out that you can create a unique drawing from the leftover blots. By the way, there is even such a drawing technique - blotography.
POSITIVE ASPECTS OF BLOCKOGRAPHY
In recent years, blotography has been gaining unprecedented popularity. And this moment is not at all connected with the latest fashion trends. It turns out that thanks to this drawing technique, the child’s creative imagination intensively develops.
It would seem that a baby can learn something useful from an ordinary blot. In fact, a spot made by accident with paint has a unique, non-repeating shape and size. And if you apply a little imagination, you can give an ordinary blot the outline of an object or create the image of an animal. By the way, adults are often fond of this unconventional drawing technique.
Blotography drawing technique
To create a unique drawing, you need to prepare the following material:
— An artistic brush. It is advisable to use hard brushes. Sometimes children resort to using a toothbrush to create a large blot.
- Paints. In this art form, only liquid watercolor is used. If you don’t have suitable paints on hand, you can simply dilute your existing watercolors with water. By the way, multi-colored ink has the consistency necessary for drawing. It can also be used when drawing.
— Cardboard or a sheet of white paper.
— Water container.
- Cotton swabs.
- A damp cloth. Used to remove dirt from hands.
Stages of the creative process
So, blotography is a drawing technique.
Where to start?
If you are new to this area, then you should first decide on the topic of the future drawing.
Here it is extremely important to direct mental activity in the right direction, in other words, to set a direction.
After making a blot on a piece of paper, turn on your imagination and try to see in it the outlines of an object or living creature. Maybe there is an amazing planet or a picturesque underwater world in front of you.
There are several ways to create a drawing using blotography.
The most common one is drip method.
Here you will need a wide, voluminous brush. It should be thoroughly saturated with paint, and then, placing it over a piece of paper, begin to spray watercolor. If you want the drops to irrigate a small area, tap the brush on your finger or hand. When the brush is simply shaken, the spray area increases. For spot application of paint, use a pipette. By the way, with its help you can create a large blot, thus depicting, for example, the sun. Most often, landscapes are created using this method of blotography.
In the second method, blotography is used spreading method.
To do this, apply a large blot to the corner of the sheet using a brush. It is important that the paint must be very liquid. Then, using a drinking straw, they begin to blow the paint over the surface of the paper. It is advisable to direct the watercolor in different directions. Now take a closer look at the resulting drawing, what does it remind you of? Maybe a rowan bush?
If yes, then you should complete the drawing by drawing red fruits on the branch. To do this, use a cotton swab. Just soak the “tool” in paint of the desired color and draw rowan leaves and berries. The resulting drawing can be decorated with an original frame if desired.
The child may need adult help for the first few lessons. Most often, children cannot immediately discern familiar outlines in a blot.
Drawings made using the blotography technique.
- The first technique is drip. It is usually used to create landscapes. Take a large, stiff brush and saturate it with liquid or diluted watercolor in the color you want. If you need a small stain, lightly tap it on its wooden base. If it is large, then the saturated brush needs to be shaken over the place where you want to leave the stain. Of course, you can and should use different colors and spots of different sizes to create an interesting composition.
- The spreading technique is also common. As in the previous method, you need to take a large “barrel” brush, but not necessarily a hard one. Shake the brush and make a large spot, it is important that it is very wet and with a lot of paint. Using a straw (plastic tube), blow the liquid in different directions to form a blot with various drips. Thus, you have created the basis for further creativity. You can design and add to this base depending on what it reminds you of. By the way, you can use the above-mentioned drip technique if it is appropriate and matches your idea.
Having prepared the necessary materials, you can move on to the creative process itself.
The first step in blotting, as in any form of fine art, is an idea. Think about the image you would like to create. Of course, your goal is not to repeat this image with a stain exactly, but only something similar. The idea is the basis of painting with spots.
Drawing technique: blotography.
There are two main techniques for drawing blots, they can also be combined:
Blotography is an opportunity to show your imagination and get positive emotions from the creative process. Two main directions of drawing blotting have something in common with the above-mentioned techniques.
- The first “way”: you conceive of a certain image or even a plot for yourself and embody it on paper (using the first technique).
- Second: you create a blot of an indeterminate shape, see what it reminds you of, and add details to its overall shape. That is, based on this form, you create your own.
This type of fine art is often used in kindergartens and primary schools, as it is not labor-intensive, but at the same time gives a wonderful result!
The imagination of children is limitless, but their mastery of drawing techniques is most often lame. It is blotography that can help children draw even what they cannot draw at all. Kids will be able to give free rein to their imagination and draw whatever their imagination tells them. Children will be able to get acquainted with what regular blotography is, and there is also blotography with a tube and blotography with a string.
Developmental activities for children 3-5 years old (Blotography)
Blotography refers to silhouette art, but the history of figurative painting dates back to Ancient Greece. The images on the amphorae reveal scenes of mythology, the Olympic Games and the life of the gods of Olympus. But this type of art became most popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Many artists began working in this technique and created a huge number of works using the blotting technique. This was the history of the emergence of such a drawing technique as blotography.
But even more interesting than the history of blotography are the classes where this unconventional drawing technique is used. Blotography will help children experiment with colors and have fun. The blotography technique consists of using an ordinary drop of paint, colloquially known as a blot. In the process of drawing, children will get very unexpected images to which they can draw details.
During classes in kindergarten and drawing pictures using the blotography technique, children:
- eye and hand coordination develops
- fantasy, creative vision and imagination develops,
- skills of working with paints, brushes,
- children learn to render silhouettes of people, plants and animals,
- diligence, attentiveness, and accuracy develop.
Watercolor
Let's give an example of a master class where blotography will be used to
drawing. Such a master class can easily be arranged for children in kindergarten, and the children’s drawings will decorate a group or exhibition.
The “Butterfly” drawing using watercolors and blots will be very easy to draw. Simply fold the paper in half and apply two large spots of watercolor paint to one side of the paper near the fold line. Now fold the leaf in half. When you open the leaf, you will get very beautiful butterfly wings with fancy patterns. You can now complete the details, such as the body, antennae, and the drawing is ready. This master class is easy to use when conducting classes for young children, since this method of drawing will be very simple.
Pencil
Of course, you can draw using blotography and using both paints and pencils at the same time. We will tell you the technique of drawing with a straw. And this time the master class will be devoted to how to draw a tree.
Take a large brush and place a large blot of brown watercolor paint in the corner. Now, take a hollow water straw and start blowing the paint in different directions. You will get tree branches. Let the twigs dry, and then you can take a pencil and use it to finish drawing leaves on the twigs. This will make the tree very realistic.
If you have an idea to draw a specific tree, for example, a rowan, then there is a good way to continue our master class. Bring regular ear sticks to class; they will be useful for drawing rowan berries. Dip the stick into the paint and make a neat dot on the paper. This will be your rowan, we hope you remember that the tree has fruits that grow in clusters.
Master class. Issue 21 (Blotography)
Spray
We will tell you about another equally interesting master class that can be used to diversify activities for children in kindergarten. Teach children blotting and splattering techniques. It will be very beautiful and fun.
Classes and master classes using this painting technique should be carried out using watercolor paint. You need a clean sheet of paper and paint with a brush. Load the brush with the desired paint and start splashing the paint by hitting the brush against your finger. Drops will begin to appear on the paper. If desired, you can add a few large drops using a brush. The drawing will be ready when you deem it necessary.
Blotography
