 All right. Good afternoon. Hi again. Welcome. My name is Ileana and I'm a librarian at the San Francisco Public Library. Welcome to our pen and food coloring painting workshop with our amazing partners at the Museum of the African Diaspora or MOAD. Thank you MOAD for today's workshop. You will need a few supplies that you can find in your home. We'll drop that in the chat in a few moments and we'll have the supply list available. So thank you for being here with us for more than a month. Our celebration of Black History Month at the San Francisco Public Library. We want to emphasize that reflection, open dialogue, interdisciplinary education, and shared advocacy needs to take place in our communities during Black History Month, as well as all year round. Check out the more than a month webpage of the San Francisco Public Library to see our upcoming events, amazing artists, awesome book lists and more that align with the 2022 national theme Black Health and Wellness. We are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramatish Ohlone who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula and continue to live, work, and play here today. As the indigenous stewards of this land and in accordance with their traditions, the Ramatish Ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. We wish to pay respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and relatives of the Ramatish community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. Before we start, a huge thanks to the friends of the San Francisco Public Library for their generous support of the special series. We cannot do this without them. And without further ado, let me welcome Sadeh, an education program manager with the Museum of African Diaspora. Sadeh was born in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, is a multidisciplinary artist, educator, and e-keeping enthusiast. Her creative work and teaching style are greatly influenced by the wonderful visual artists, theater performers, and storytellers of her childhood community. As she takes it away with our workshop, please feel free to add any questions that you have in the chat and she would be more than happy to answer them. Thank you so much. Take it away, Sadeh. Thank you. Thank you so much. That was such a warm introduction. I appreciate it so much. And I am always happy to be here and I'm so glad that we have folks that decided to join us on this Monday afternoon. Thank you, everyone. My name is Sadeh Gabriels and I'm an educator at the Museum of the African Diaspora. And today we're going to be looking at painting with food coloring. And I'm so excited because these are sometimes the things that we find in our cupboards and our drawers, and to be able to create art beyond just the culinary use of these items is one of my favorite things. And today I am going to ask you a couple of questions at the end. But in the beginning, these are the things that we'll be doing. I'm going to do an introduction. I think I'm halfway there, finishing that since we have 45 minutes. I'm going to speed it up just a little bit, but I welcome all of your questions and throughout the activity. And we're going to show examples of watercolor painting. In fact, I'm just going to show you one example today and then I'm going to move you over to my workstation. Hopefully we'll work together and create together and have fun. And we'll start with watercolor painting. We'll do Q&A and we'll do closing and I have a couple questions for you throughout. All right, for this workshop, these are the materials that you will need. If you don't have black pen, don't worry, you can use even pencil if you don't have a pen around you. The purpose of this workshop is to use things that are readily available to you. White watercolor paper, or if you don't have any kind of special paper, which I don't actually, you can use any paper and you can layer two pieces of paper together for the sake of practicing this activity. And some other day you can transfer this skill over to watercolor paper. Soft paintbrush. If your paintbrush is hard, no worries, again. Water. A plate that is not paper because we're just going to put water on it. So it and also you don't want the color to be on the paper. It'll make sense. Paper towel or a sponge to absorb any excess water. And one or more liquid food coloring. Any color. I have primary colors from the grocery store, but if you have any colors in your cupboard should work and especially they're expired and you need to throw them out. This is the perfect time to put them to use an optional masking tape. I don't all have masking tape sitting around at home. So if you don't have it, it's not a make or break for this activity, but it's useful. All right. First thing we're going to look at is wet paint on wet paper. So what does that mean? Well, if you put water on paper first to kind of prime it or prepare it and then add your color, it has an effect of its own. It's amazing. It's sort of magical when you look at it. It turns into this colorful cloud on your on your paper, but also provides gradients and we'll talk about what gradient isn't how to achieve that. So when we have, when we have watercolor, we also one of the things that that I really, really like about watercolor is the ability to let go. I like to control my drawings. I like to control my paint watercolor has a mind of its own. So this practice is a spiritual practice and mental practice, just as much as it is an artistic practice. So I invite you to to have that flexibility while working with watercolor or in this case food coloring. It tends to go wherever water leaves it and depending on many, many factors, water can go any direction on your paper. And you can see how wet paint on what I'm sorry with wet paper deals with the color. It kind of takes it to different directions highlights some part of it and will play with that idea in just a little bit when I move over to my workstation. I'm like, all right, well, let's get to it. Let's get going. But before that, just a couple more minutes. I'm going to hold your attention. And one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things to do is to look at the color wheel. The color wheel as as complex as it looks on this page. It actually is it. It's, we look at a color primary that our primary colors, blue, red, and yellow. We start with those because we can't really make any we cannot make those colors they cannot be made, but they can make other colors. So we see what will happen if we mix up to primary colors, then maybe add a neutral color like white or black and see what happens. And so the color will sort of guides us into seeing how they react to each other, how they're going to work with each other, how they complement each other. And even when we're not mixing them. The color wheel can can sort of help us understand how artists deal with color and how they make us see certain colors differently, or how they make certain colors pop up. Again, we'll also practice that. Now, the other thing is wet on dry paper. Now, for those of us would like to control the direction of the paint. This is the best, the best one yet, because you can kind of control and darken the color. The color tends to be dark and dense when you use dry paper and you apply wet paint. And we'll look at that as well. It's up to you. And why did I ask for pen? Well, the pen will give us, it will give us sort of the effect that you see here. You can, you can highlight some parts you can guide you, even if you press even hard, a little bit harder on your pen, you can guide the water. Also, it just has a nice, a nice contrast to the light, the lightness of watercolor, watercolor by nature is kind of light, but not really. Because we see here, we see here with Jacob Lawrence, Lawrence is speaking. He's using what I cannot believe this is watercolor, right? And what do you think he used here? Now, the options are wet on dry paint on dry paper or dry, I mean, I'm sorry, wet paint on wet paper. Which one do you think he used here on this painting? There are no wrong answers. I see in the chat. Wet on dry, okay? And what made you say that? I'm curious. Dry. Wet on dry. Carol, you're right. And Kara, yeah, Sarah, is it Kara? Kara, Carol, it's precise, yeah, it's precise. Hudson, thanks for joining us. Yes. Well, you are right, Hudson. You are correct. And Joe, absolutely the sharp edges, the sharp edges. Absolutely. And this painting is called, just look at it just a little bit, and it's just a nice painting to look at as soldiers and students. And, you know, a little bit of information about Jacob Lawrence, he painted what was going on at the time, kind of like a journalist, kind of like a newspaper editor or historian. He used his paint to record it, the things that were happening at the time. And you can kind of see here, sorry about the music, there is no music if you see the music icon. But there is, if you see here how he uses the color wheel, like we saw earlier, you can see the primary colors. You can see a neutral color, which is the black here. And you see the blue and the yellow connecting here. Yeah. And then do you see how they're creating contrast? And I don't think he's mixing any of them, except to make green. I don't think he's, yeah, he's mixing any of them, except to make this green right over here. And maybe that shade of the brown or tan color that you see. Great. Now, creating gradients. This is the cool part, because this part, you don't actually have to do much with watercolor. It does it itself. By running and using water, it creates these layers of colors as the water thins out. It creates this dark, dense pink right here. And then as the water gets lighter and lighter as you add water, more water gets lighter and lighter. And then you wash your brush, of course, and add a little bit of yellow and a lot more water, and then a little bit more yellow, less water, and more and more yellow, and it gets darker and darker. So that's how you create gradient. And gradient helps you show depth, distance. It's just beautiful. It's just a nice way to paint. All right. I'm going to go set up my workspace. And I, if you have any questions, let me know that we're going to get started. Hands on in just a second. And give me about three minutes to set up my work. Well, so they get set up just wanted to welcome any new folks that are joining us. Thanks for being here. We have a supply list in the chat and we'll be adding that periodically as folks come in. And just a reminder that you are at the pen and food coloring painting workshop with Moad and today. If you have any questions, feel free to put them in the chat and we will have today answer them. And we'll also be adding links in the chat as well. There is a question, should the plate be a paper plate or just a regular ceramic plate. A regular ceramic plate would be helpful because it's going to be wet, but I also think the paper plate might be useful in doing this activity later on. Yeah, thanks for asking that question. Great. You know, a friend of mine gave me, gave me flower, so brought us some flowers, and it was a really nice thing to see the gradient of how it gets really dark over here and without even, without even noticing, it gets lighter and brighter toward toward the end and I thought this was a really good example of gradient. And also you see it in nature, always, you always find things in that nature that inspire your creativity, and even kind of see how the green also is is done in such a way so that this is a beautiful flower as spring is approaching. Take me a while. Alright, and I have the color wheel right over here. This is my handy handy dandy color wheel. I don't have a plate actually I cut out the bottom of a bottle, the plastic bottle. And so this is my, my water plate. I also eat lots of eggs. And this I use as my palate. So, you do not have to have this at all. But this is also to show you how household items can be used for projects like like this. I have my paper towel. I have my sharpies. I don't have sharpies. I use just regular pencil or pen. My brushes. You only need one for this activity really. And of course, my food color as it expired. No, not really. So I can use it to bake as well. Thanks so much today for showing and showcasing each of these items. And also bringing in the flower. That's a fantastic touch. There is a question about gradient. Gradient adds depth and there was something else that we didn't quite catch. Adds depth and also, I said it's also beautiful. I can't really try. We can go back and watch it again. Okay, thank you for that. My memory is failing me right now. But yeah, thank you. I'm so glad this is being reported. And then I have my cup of water that I'm just going to pour into my little bowl over here. Masking tape if you have it. It's great if you don't. That is okay. This is not particularly the one that you that I normally use, but this happens to be the one I have at home. You can have your paper set horizontally or vertically. I have it this way so that because the camera also works better this way. So I'm going to take the corners and tape can be used in so many ways in art. I have my favorite tools. I have my corners taped. And the first thing we will do is free drawing. That's, that's, I'm just going to scribble. Let me show you a sample. This is what I'm going to do. I'm just going to scribble just like this, creating tangled and intertwined lines, just like so. Wherever my, my hand leaves me. There I'll go out and make sure that lines intersect, which means lines cross each other. I don't have to meet. They meet, they meet, they don't. That's okay. The next thing I'm going to do is I have primary colors with me. This is yellow, blue. And can somebody tell me what the third one is? Red from Lily. Red! That's right. Red. And why two colors would I need to mix to get this green actually came in the box as well? And yellow. Blue and yellow. That's right. So technically I do not need this. I can use the just these two to do this painting. And there's the red and I can make purple just by using the blue and the red. All right. On your plate, on your ceramics or plastic plate, you can put just a drop of paint or a drop of food coloring. I'm going to start with this color because I know not, not everyone has these compartments. So I'm going to start with this color. Okay. Now without diluting it with water or mixing it with water or watering it, watering it down. I'm going to take my brush and I'm going to choose one segment, one section of my drawing. Any questions? Wendy, no problem at all. Take your time. This time I did not add any water. But I will continue to add water to create a lighter shade of yellow. A question came in. If you ever paint with actual foods like beets or tea, any other ideas if we don't have food coloring or water color at the moment. I have done it with with tea and coffee and beets. And I have, I've colored with those with those but other than that I don't think I have and I'm curious what do you suggest. Yeah. Let me know in the chat what you suggest that I play around with and I'll be, I'll be happy to report back. And I'm going to choose another segment. And this time I've added water so the yellow as you can see is much, much lighter than that deep mustard yellow. My suggestions are coming in. Yeah, inspired by the yellow turmeric. Maybe that'd be nice. Yeah, mustard sounds fun. Right. Yes, Lily, I agree. Another vote for turmeric. So I appreciate the call out for suggestions. I love it. I love it. I have turmeric in my cupboard. So I'm going to try that and definitely catch up. I'm really curious about ketchup and mustard too. Yeah. And so I'm going to make it even lighter by adding more water, almost as if I can't even see the yellow that much. Now it looks like apple juice. I'm going to take another segment and I'm going to paint it. It might not be it. It might not show us clearly through my camera. It's very, very light. It's very faint. Now I'm really curious what my color would look like if I paint it on wet paper. And how do I do that? First, you see that paper towel that I showed you earlier? I use it to clean my brush after I put it in the water. I dip it in the water a little bit. Okay, you can see the water. Dip it in a little bit. Clean the brush gently. Then I take a little bit of that water, which is not. And with just the water, I paint the paper. Leave her part. I'm going to take the paint that is not diluted or mixed with the water. I'm just going to do a draw. Let's see what happens. It's kind of cool, right? It kind of has a mind of its own. It's getting bigger and bigger. I kind of see how the paint behaves differently. I'm just going to leave it there to dry because I'll add, I'll come back and add a different shade of yellow to it, which kind of creates a gradient. I think I said depth and distance. I remember now, yeah, I think I remember. Yeah. And someone here says that their artist friend paints with their brewery's beer and local wine. So that, yeah, that's really interesting. Right as you were kind of going into the, you know, this one that has a mind of its own almost. Yeah, following the liquid. I really like that. I am so curious about the beer too. So, you know, we, we start that and then now I'm really curious about the other colors and especially one that I can mix with yellow. So I would like the green just because more than a month has that color and I love it. I'm going to take blue and you have a separate area on your plate where you can do a couple of drops of the blue just like so. Just like. Okay. Are going to do a gradient now. I'm going to start with a little bit of water. You can either mix on tape on the paper or you can mix, mix on your palate. I rather mix on my palate. I start with the, with the light color first and take the dark color. Ah, you see that beautiful green. That is nice when you mix colors and it comes out as you imagine it's so nice. Okay. I'm going to start with making a line flat line just like the next flat line. I add a little bit more water to my mix and a little bit more water. And you can have excess water and just like, oh man, I didn't want that to be there. Take your paper towel. Take your brush. Dry it. Like that. You can take the excess water. Much like what we saw here on the flower. We are creating gradient that is darker to lighter, just like that. Any questions, any thoughts? Folks are busy painting. Ten more minutes for you to work and the point of this activity is not to finish, but it's nearly to get started. It takes you two weeks to finish, to finish your work. That is absolutely okay because only you can decide whether you're finished or not. And when, you know, there are times when starting and finishing something is very important. In art, there is that flexibility and it's really, really nice to have. This is made by food color. You can kind of see how dark you can get it without mixing it with water. When you mix with water, how you can get gradients over here. And then you can see how kind of cloudy, cloudy and fun you can make it by painting on wet paper. That's one way to do it. This one was made with very wet paint, which means I mixed it. I doubted it was water. A lot of you and I had this movement with my brush to drop the paint and have this kind of effect on my paper. I was just throwing paint kind of like that to create the popsicle, kind of what would be the popsicles drop in or something like that. Any questions? Anybody wondering, anybody having ideas that we can try? As we wait in case folks have questions, again, I really appreciate you bringing in the rose and the flower to show gradient and was wondering if there are other inspirations out there like a sunset or a sunrise. That is a great question. Yeah, what else do you have? And another just kind of not a question, but affirmation, loving the thought of using food coloring and tea and coffee. So yeah, what do you think about some other inspirations and folks who are here to feel free to add them? I'm so curious. That's a great thing to think about. Thank you. Someone just added pomegranate. Oh, yeah, that would be really nice. To paint pomegranate or to paint with the pomegranate. I thought with one, but I think maybe both would be really cool. Would be really nice. And if you think you made a mistake. It's really supposed to be fun. There are really no mistakes you can either either redo or keep on painting and then you're going to be happy that you kept painting over what you thought was a mistake. We were right with pomegranate juice. Oh, pomegranate juice, yes. Last year, Hudson's kindergarten art teacher taught them to paint with instant coffee. I see that is super. Yeah, I like coffee. I drink coffee a lot and I like, I like driving. Oh, chocolate. I have also done it with chocolate. You know when after you eat chocolate cake. On your plate, you take the back of the fork and on your plate, you, you start drawing the negative space, which is the white part or whatever the bottom of the cake is the white part starts to look like so if you start scraping off the chocolate. In the contrast just looks so cool. It looks so cool and I've done that chocolate cake. I'm going to ask your adults if you're at their restaurant. That sounds delicious and fun. And then someone else and this one, this one actually is is a great one to share too. They know people who use boiled red cabbage. Oh, no, I have never seen that I have seen onion onions but I have not seen that. It's like the purple cabbage and over the summer we did a stem challenge where if you mix that, depending on acids and bases and then you get the page scale, which actually had some fantastic shades of pink and purple. So thanks for sharing that. That is nice. Yeah. That is really nice. We have a question about supplies. Oh, go ahead. Okay, I love the idea of the egg carton for mixing paint, and I appreciate not having to purchase anything to make art. Anyone have other ideas for how to upcycle and create more art supplies or tools. Oh, well, I, you know, off the top of my head, I, I don't have, I don't have what I'm thinking of. I'm right at this moment. And the classic toilet paper roll. There's always that one. What have I use magazines I use magazines. Oh, the time. There's a workshop that's happening. And I think in three weeks, right. Yes. Yeah, where we use magazines and newspapers. At the top of my that's a great question I wonder what folks are saying the chat would suggest. Someone's offering back cake decorating tools. So multi purpose using your, your items for multi purpose uses. First, first ceramics. First ceramics tools for my ceramics. Yeah. Nice. I use the toothpick to add depth when water coloring. Oh, yes, that's great. And I, you know what, what if you're working with pencil also. I think that's a great way to shade to create shadows and to create, you know, to create nice gradient means this is where we're speaking about. Cotton balls are really great for that too. Yeah. Now we're really getting into it. I love it. Yeah, we have some more we have tin cans make great upcycled flower bases. Yeah, and, and this is how I use them for my brushes as well. And someone else affirms the toilet paper rolls saving popsicle sticks. Yes. We have using chopsticks as knitting needles if you're into knitting. Oh, what a good idea. That is a great idea. I've never thought about that. That is a wonderful idea. Thank you for sharing that. And then using cardboard boxes to make anything stand up. And then wrapping paper. This is a cool one. raw potato into desired shape and