Danielle W tells it like it is!

The inspiration for this painting is just things that make me happy or stress me out on a daily basis. Those things are written inside of a thought bubble and the girl depicted is meant to be myself. The words in the bubble are money, car, family, friends, work, school, love, and hate. The following are the tools I used: tree branch as a paint brush (frayed at the end using a knife), mud (used to paint the hair), green leaves (used for the background color and outline of the thought bubble), rock (used with the mud to write words inside of thought bubble), strawberry (used to give a red color to lips and cheeks), burnt wood chips (used for the hair and outline of face and thought bubble), blueberries (squashed with a rock to bring out the blue which was used around the eyes), red berries (the color was not very vibrant so I used it as a sort of water base for the burnt wood chips).

Dean P. IS the king of the wild frontier!!

For my paint brush, I used a stick that had been burned in my fire pit.  I also used a bunch of balled up weeds to do the grass.  The brown parts of my painting was made by getting mud from the river behind my house and painting with my finger.  The picture I drew was inspired by how I hunted down a skunk this summer and had to put an end to its life :(  I AM wearing a Davy Crochet raccoon hat though.

John B at his best!

I tried to draw people using a blackberry. I had to use about 10 blackberries because they were all half ripe and didn't have a lot of colored juice in them. I tried to use a brush but wound up actually just using the berries  hem selves as writing instruments. I just drew two people, being as I destroyed a whole blackberry vine just for that.

Robert P. makes his mark!

The paintbrush I had created by using a stick and a bit of moss, with a honeysuckle vine wrapped around holding it together. The two paints that are actually shown were charcoal mixed with water, and a bit of clay. There were also two other kinds of paint I had used, but when placed alongside the charcoal black did not readily show up in the picture. While me and my brother, Howard Porter, had used similar paints, we had separated from each other during the actual assignment (I was in the forest, painting on a log). My picture is of my family and I. I spend most of the time in my room, usually on my computer. Everyone else is usually in various parts of the house, shown separated by a wall between us.

Ruihong shares her story!

            I took off some sticks and leaves from the tree in front of my room, and get started to think how to make a paintbrush. I took the stem off the leaves and shape the stick into a bold straight one. I tied them up with a string to make sure they can hold together, and mixed some mud with water to make the pigment of the cave painting. I drew a bird, or I tried to draw a bird, but the brush didn’t hold the pigment, so the work doesn’t seem so good. I hope I could do better next time.

Mike H Tells it like it is!

My paintbrush was made from died grass, a stick, and three fresh pieces of tall grass (onion smell to them) which I braided tog

ether in order to keep the brush in tact.  It was easier said than done, as the brush kept falling apart during use.  I used a mixture of canola oil and brown clay and painted a picture depicting my younger brother practicing his graduation speech in front of my dad and eye.  He used excessive hand gestures during his speech, and it was quite comical.  I don't even remember what he spoke about, only that he looked passionate doing so.

Victor S's Country Boy Opus!

Life of A Country Boy

The painting was inspired by a day in the life of a country boy. I used dead marigold and a garden weed as my paint brush. My paint was a little of good old yard dirt mixed with water and honey.

Naomi W.'s big adventure!

My cave painting is of myself and two students, returning to school after recess.  I am employed as a teaching assistant at a local elementary school.  For about 20 hours a week, I work with first grade students.  I was inspired to paint this image because I love my job and adore my students.  I created this work on a stone, using red clay mixed with water and oil as paint.  I found a stick with a pointed edge to use as my paintbrush, so I could create lines of different sizes.  I painted a school house in the distance, a cloud above my figure’s head and the sun above the heads of my students. 

Heather N shows us how it's done!

To make the paint I found berries in a tree in my backward so I used a rock to crush the berries and I added water to them. Then I made the paintbrush by finding a stick and some weeds and I tied the weed around the stick. The image was inspired by my family’s hiking trip a few weeks ago when we had to dodge a thunderstorm by staying in a cave.

Malcolm shares his painting and a movie!!!

Lauren L. blends the old and new!

The image of my 'cave painting' is my sorry attempt at recreating the circuit board I've been working with for the past few days (mostly because my first, 'creative' attempt failed miserably). It's done on a piece of slate I use when soldering instead of an actual wall.  My 'brushes' were mostly some of the taller grass taken from the field behind my house, using both the seeds and the rigid stalks. Unfortunately, multiple colors/shades didn't work for me; different dirt/honey mixtures all ended up the same color no matter what I tried, and none of the berries/flowers showed up on the dark slate.

Casie F. Shares her story!

This is part 1 of the picture email of my cave painting adventure. I used a stick with a ball of my hair as the brush, tied together with a sliver of a stem off a vine. I made two paints. One with dirt, water and olive oil base. The other paint I made with dirt, water and honey base. The oil based paint seemed to be slightly easier to use. My cave painting was created on my sidewalk. It features myself, my husband, our daughter and three of our dogs. This was definitely a fun assignment, but kudos to the cavemen and women for cave paintings are not as easy as one would think.

Gwen B. Brings it!

My picture was decided by my 4 year old ( it's us as a family, our house, mountains, and LOTS of flowers) He was pretty into this assignment with me :)

My paint was vegetable oil and dirt and my brush was a twig and I tied on grass and other stuff to make the bristles. My 4 year old as I mentioned inspired my painting it was based on what he wanted me to paint.

 

 

Howard P makes a statement!

Abbi P. tells it like it is!

I made the brush by finding a sturdy twig in the woods. Then I used long grasses as the fibers for the brush. I wrapped other stronger grasses to hold the fibers in place. Then I tied a knot in the grass to secure everything. Then I made the paint out of soil and water, which I mixed up well to make an even consistency.

Rachael B puts the cavemen to shame!

The paint brush was made from my sister's Labrador's hair, tied to a stick with a piece of grass. The feathers I used were from our chickens. I used three different colors of mud. The red dirt was from some cleared out land, the black dirt was from underneath the leaves in the woods, and the tan clay was from the lake.

I had way more fun with this assignment then I would have imagined.

Kelsey K - blurry but beautiful!

I used oil mixed with ashes and dirt to create my paint. I used various weeds in the yard to come up with the brushes- A dandelion bloom, clover bloom and some sort of tall growing weed.

Maren S. gets Spiritual!

For my modern cave painting I constructed a brush out of a beech tree branch and a chicken feather. To paint my image, I mixed soil that had a high concentration of red clay with vegetable oil. The oil helped to change the viscosity of the soil and made it easier to spread with the brush.

            In our reading, I noticed that many of the theories about the functions of cave painting revolved around a religious or mystical use. I wanted to parallel this in my own modern cave paintings. The symbol that I painted on the stone surface is a mantra significant in many religions. I have found that the use of the symbol has brought a sense of calm and security to my life.

Beatrix shows us how it's done!

Here is my attempt on a cave painting. It was harder than expected. I thought the berries that I found in the yard would give some extra color to the clay material I had found, after crushing the berries with another rock, they turned out to not be very effective. I mixed my clay with a little bit of oil and found a branch that had broken off a pine tree (which I believe to be a loblolly pine). I'm not sure if the cave men used pine needles as hair embellishment, but since it's an organic material, I thought it would add a nice touch.

The drawing depicts my son and I. I'm holding a "stone tablet" with symbols explaining the daily routine. 

The pine cone represents the natural environment we come out of.