Translucent still life

I just finished teaching a day of still lifes at the art Gallery. The students are ages 7-13 and the day had several smaller drawing excerises to it The first was drawing part of a still life of translucent bottles and fake grapes in contour without picking up your pencil. Then draw the same object from the still life in blind contour- without looking at the drawing. The students had a paper folded into four parts for this actvitiy. The next drawing was the same onjects again but this time as a gesture drawing- quick fast broken sketchy lines to catch the movement of the onject. The last drawing was to draw the object in semi blind contour when you can look at the paper sometimes but not all the time.

This one I did with a private lesson the other night. Sorry it is so dark, I had to darker it so the light pencil would show.



The The second activity was the draw one part of the still life and pass it to a table neighbor who would draw the next part of the still life.

The above two examples are by two 7-9 year old girls who were sitting together.



For younger students we drew the still life then scribbled on the back in order to transfer it onto a drawing board.
For older students we drew the scene again.
The middle object in these is oil pastal and the outter objects are watercolor.

These images are by students ages 7-9

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.

Private tutor tie -Dyes

So amongst my many art teaching jobs I continue to love to work with private tutor students. I have been meeting with one student for private tutor lessons for over a year now. I work with a very energetic and funny sixth grader. We were working on Boy Scout requirements and he had to put a logo he designed himself onto some personalized items. So, I thought "Lets make some t-shirts.We can put your logo on that". I gave him an option of tie dye, paint with acrylics and to use a stencil and spray dye.

He wanted tie- dye so that is what we did. I always tie dye outside. It damages the grass a lot less then carpets in side. You can put the shirt right on the lawn. I have done this with ninth graders. They loved it. In the past I have used rubbers band and Rit dye then dipped the shirt into the dye. This time we used Tulip dye in bottles and dumped the dye onto our twisted shirts.

6x6' s are in

I got all my 6x6 artwork in a ROCO. Turned the last one in at 4:00 yesterday. I photographed them all and Ed scanned some. He put in one and i had my private tutor student put some in a s well.Of course I can't post the pictures on here yet. The great thing about this show is that all works of art all cost the same price. Just $20.00 each. All the money goes back to ROCO and all the works are photographed and cataloged listing each artists name and a photo of the work. The first few people who pay the extra amount get their pick to buy any piece from the whole show. No one knows upon viewing which artwork is by who.

Here is the link to last years page and show catalog. I had just one piece in last year. It was number 63 and is still for sale http://www.roco6x6.org/6x6x2009.php

private lessons

So among the many jobs that keep me busy each week I am still home tutoring a private student.He really really likes to draw and we have worked through several themes. Drawing based on Ancient Egypt, Micheal Jackson, anime, NYC architecture,comic strips,watercolor, pen and ink and cartooning but they were all 2d mediums. I wanted to give him a change of pace so I brought out my polymer clay and dental tools. I have really missed working with polymer clay and have gotten behind in my jewelry making. Last week, he created a football player, and a coil basket, then combined them. He also tried his and at some jewelry but I think he got frustrated with that.

This week He created a pig and a dog and then we folded a piece of paper to draw a scene for the clay sculptures we had created.