Have you seen those colourful hearts created by Jim Dine?  Or the hearts popping out as drawn by Op artists? Have you tried drawing hearts in Jean Dubuffet Art style?

If you haven’t, here is the art lesson to help you create unique hearts on Valentine’s day.

Jim Dine

Jim Dine drew hearts to show human emotions. So there are hearts that look happy and vibrant, and others look dull and dark. 

Jim Dine is known as a pop artist for his use of vibrant colours and his selection of subjects. But he did not like to be called a pop artist. Instead, he called himself to be an abstract expressionist. He expresses his personal feelings and emotions through art that is more non-realistic.

His series of paintings on tools, robes, hands, hearts, Pinocchio became signature icons in his art. He often used pencil, charcoal, watercolour, acrylic, ink, and pastel in a single work. See some of Jim Dine’s paintings. Jim Dine was also a poet and published books of poetry in addition to being a sculptor, printmaker.

Do you know how colours are associated with emotions?

Well, most of the colours can be associated with some human nature and feeling. Red shows depth, power and sometimes aggressiveness. Orange shows vigour and energy while yellow shows happy and friendliness. Green is the colour of nature, blue is for serenity and peace, purple is mysterious. Pink is meant to display young and innocent, brown is earthly and sturdy, black is powerful while white is clean and holy.

Jim Dine’s Art Lesson

So now think what emotions do you want to show from the painting of the hearts. Mix not only different colours but also different media like pencil shading, watercolour, oil pastel, and markers.

He had a unique way to create his art. He created an image and then erase all or part of it, leaving some impressions behind. Then again he created on top of it and erase again. Layers of shades would create his art. This would give a beautiful dimension to his art. If you are using pastels or acrylic paints try using the scraping technique.

You should also paint in his still life. Children should look at inanimate objects around them and paint.

If you are interested in painting hearts in pop art style for Valentine’s day, you must try Romero Britto hearts.

Jean Dubuffet

Jean Dubuffet (born 1901) was a French artist and sculptor.  He started the Art Brut movement. He took a special interest in the artwork of non-professionals and differently abled children. This form of art was called ‘Art Brut’ or ‘raw art’ or the art which is self-taught and naive.

He himself engaged in childlike art forms which he called the representation of his mind. This was quite against the conventional art prevalent in Europe at that time. Critics did not appreciate his art. He painted his pictures with drab colours and textures but this highlighted the condition of Paris after the war.

Today we will try out Dubuffet’s Hourloupe style.  This style of his painting was developed by chance when he was doodling while talking on his telephone. It is basically lines drawn at random, tangled to form cells which were coloured to create objects that appeared in his mind. Dubuffet coloured them with red, blue and white and sometimes with hatched lines. These beautifully formed objects were later created as sculptures.

Jean Dubuffet Art Lesson

Children above the age of 4 should try his style of painting.

Take a paper and fold it to form a card. Scribble some lines. Children can easily draw swirls and fill a page. For me, too, it was relaxing to just fill the paper with scribbles. 

Since I want to paint Valentine’s day card, I started looking for hearts in the scribbles and the shapes near it. In no time, I found two of them and started creating my imaginary birds. I took some sharpies in shades of red and pink and filled with solid colour and others with stripes. I loved the end result.

Try any image with any colours. You will create unique interesting characters.  Make these handmade Valentine’s day cards and give it to your friends.

Hearts in Op Art style

There is another unique style to paint hearts. This is known as Op art. Op Art or Optical art is an abstract form of art created mostly using geometrical shapes. The lines, shapes, and patterns are so drawn that it gives a feeling of depth and space within the painting.  Try painting one in this style. Visit paintings of Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley to be inspired to pain hearts in this style.

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