Memorial day related crafts and actvtivies

For the after school program this week the theme is Memorial day.

For the after and before school program we use a lot of coloring sheets. I am not a huge fan of coloring sheets but I try to find ways to creatively use them. So on Monday we made Memorial day wreaths using black construction paper, the coloring sheets we had and some tissue paper.

Tuesday morning I was sitting and drawing with one of the kids who was using a drawing book on "How to Draw Famous Cartoon Characters"  I had a coloring sheet that one student had started a mustache on this little boy who is suppose to be sitting and watching a parade. A great kid inspired tangent ensued we laughed hard at this.

Tuesday after noon we read "The Wall" by Eve Bunting  we talked about the wall be a carved and recessed wall and that people make rubbings of the names on it. Then we made texture rubbings of our own and us wooden puzzle pieces for letters and found some textures on our supply boxes and outdoors and made rubbings with crayons.

Tomorrow  we will make patriotic jewelery and hair falls with yarn and pony beads in colors Red, White and Blue.

Out in the garden painting last two mornings

Out is the garden painting this morning ans the whole world goes away.
It's just me, these canvases MY TOOLS, MY DOG AND TUBES OF PAINT.

All  the sudden I CAN DO NO WRONG, All the sudden, I am awesome!
I have no idea how I will amaze my self next.Each step is an experiment.
Its all new to me but, still it was planned.
Like a pawn in game the canvas tells me what to do and I just respond.

Years of experience come flooding back in seconds as my fingers dance, swooshing brushes and making marks
I grab a palette knife and dig right in with no abandon, there is no plan, there is no mistake just color and gloppy paint.

I am a child again. I am not 33 with graying hair that badly needs dyed. I am painting. and I just remembered. That I am awesome!

I am not worrying about the dirty dishes piling up again. I am not thinking about the mistakes I made at work on the computer yesterday. I am not the error of my ways and my career.Right now I am an artist and I am awesome!

I think to myself if only I could do this everyday, if I could only wedge out a little block of time to be my myself,  messy and reckless and painting my heart out. Be myself, this awesome think how smooth the rest of my day would go?

I am a mess I am dirty I am covered in paint and I don't care.

I am up and I am rolling with it .Yesterday I was down and angry but colorful none the less.When I paint I can feel however I want and let it all out without offending a soul.

I have worries but no matter,I am painting  and it feels awesome!Later I may not think these canvases are that great I will see what needs to be changed but right now in the process they are amazing and I pleasantly surprise myself as I let go and let the process take over.

In Rochester we only get warm weather to go outside and paint it up a few months of the year. I need a completely safe and available space to be messy and my awesome self everyday.  I need the Warehouse Arts space to open. I need a respite of sanity I needs to be able to remind myself everyday that I am awesome and have a place to go to shut off the self defeating voices. I need a place with other just as awesome as me!    
                                              
 http://www.warehousearts.org/index.html

My Turn your Turn

My Turn Your Turn.

So I have been working with my private tutor student for two tears now we have done watercolor, drawing, learning to shade, paper punch mosaic, polymer clay, pen and ink etc.

I decided he was ready for paint. I got out my acrylic paints set; my palette knifes my assorted brushes and showed him how they work and what they do. I usually work along side of him on my own artwork. That way I can show him things on my artwork instead of doing things to his. I worked on my own 8x 10 inch canvas panel board as he painted. I have continued to work on this canvas a little since then.

This is my canvas I have been working on called “Primary, Secondary, Kinda Hairy”

After a brief explanation I launched him right onto a 8x10 inch Canvas panel board explaining what the tools do as we went along. The first painting turned out beautifully. I also gave him some   8x 10 inch paper to paint on. Then I got out a small stretched canvas and we tried “My turn you turn”. Simply put I make a mark on the canvas then he does. We take turns, we interact with each other’s ideas and work with them.

Every so often I will turn the canvas around to another angle. My painting teachers always used to do this to me and it does help give some perspective to how weighted a given area of the canvas is visually by looking at it from another angle and from a distance.It also gave him another way to look it it before his turn.

Drawing the kids portraits

May 18, 2011

So I was responding to a challenge from one of the kids last week.  One of the kindergartener’s in the morning program draws really detailed figures. Some of the other kids were laughing at her drawings. I said “I think she draws really well.” “Yah! she draws better then you!” was the reply I got. “That’s it, sit down I am drawing you.” I said. I started drawing the kid’s portraits. Other kids wanted their portrait drawn. They are not perfect drawings. It is very hard to draw kids. They really can’t hold still for long. The kid’s eyes are always off because they start looking at me, then laugh because I am staring at them then, they try to watch me draw.

The first batch was also drawn with an ink pen with no chance to erase. One of my staff members likened those to police crime sketches.

It has been great practice for me. The second day I used pencil and started by drawing some of the kids stuffed animals in colored pencil. I then drew the kids The images below are from day two.