Alien Names

Materials Needed:

*Acrylic paint

*Water

*Cup

*Various type/size brushes

*Large sheet card stock paper

*8.5”X11” card stock paper

*Markers

*Scissors

*Transparent paper

*Rubber cement
*Paper towels
*Masking tape

This project takes a deeper look into beauty and what we find as beautiful. We will find what is beautiful through creative processes beginning with our names, creating an alien creature, and giving it an environment to reflect its beautiful aspects.

*For a tutorial on this project, visit: Color Outside the Limits and/or Oodles of Codles*
Begin by taking a regular letter size card stock paper and folding it in half vertically, or the “hotdog” direction. Unfold the paper. There should be a vertical line down the center of the paper. Turn it sideways so the line is now horizontal. From there, I took a marker and wrote my name in cursive on the line. I made sure that none of my letters extended below the line. By writing my name in cursive, I have the letter ‘g’ that extends below the line, so I decided to write that letter in cursive upside down as a creative solution to the problem.

Once my name was written how I wanted on the line, I took my marker again and drew an outline around the body and outline of letters to create one overall shape. Fold the paper in half down the same fold created earlier. From there, I took my scissors and cut along the outline I created with my marker. This process is similar to creating snowflakes, except I am not creating any holes within my paper, only one large shape.

Unfold the paper again, and a shape is created, or in this case, a creature made out of a name. This is where it is time to get creative. Everyone sees shapes in different ways, so this is quite fun and unique for everyone. I decided that my name looked like a female with a flowing skirt kind of body with little pulled-together feet, arms, small rounded hands, and a bottom-heavy head with two fish meeting in the middle covering the eyes. By seeing this, I colored accordingly to achieve my vision. I drew fish with a yellow marker over her eyes, and drew in eyes over the fish. I colored and drew in a blue dress on the girl.

It is now time to decide where this little alien lives. Since she was an alien, I originally wanted her to be on her own little world, being inspired by the children’s book, “Little Prince,” where her neighbors would be on their own little worlds as well. I was unable to plan how to successfully execute this, so I decided to put her under the water, because I wanted her to live on a water planet anyway to mirror the beauty of the fish on her face.

I took the large piece of card stock and taped off the edges to a table, which will later create a border. I got a dark purple, metallic purple, light purple, blue, and black acrylics, foam brushes, bristle brushes, and a cup of water. I wanted the overall look of the piece to have a gradient of dark to light going diagonally from one corner to the opposing corner. Those were the only plans I had. I just started dripping paint, keeping in mind light to dark over the whole piece. I squeezed generous amounts of paint across the whole thing in a messy fashion. I then dipped a foam brush into the cup of water and began spreading it over the paint to thin it out and spread it across the paper. As I worked, I added colors where I thought they were needed and carefully blended the colors until I could not see the card stock through the paint. After that, I loaded up my bristle brush with little bits of color and streaked them through the composition to add little beams of light coming through the water. When I was pleased with that, I loaded up my foam brush with water and splattered it onto the paper. By doing that, the water removed some of the acrylic paint in those areas and left it slightly lighter, making it look like bubbles.

I let the paper dry until it had buckled and wrinkled, and then lay completely flat with no moisture. I took off the tape and drew bubble shapes onto transparent paper and cut the shapes out. I drew one bubble big enough to house my alien girl, and then smaller ones throughout the composition to give the piece more depth and variety. Once I was happy with how I had all the bubbles laid out, I then took my rubber cement and began to glue everything down. It got a little bit messy, but when the glue dries, I just rubbed my finger over the spots and it rubs right off.

I learned a lot from this project. I was incredibly frustrated with my first try in attempting to draw her in space on a planet, but in my frustration came success when I decided to rework the composition and experiment with paint. This project, more so than the others, really taught me the value of planning out art instead of just going with the first messy idea I had. In the end, I was happy with the result.