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

Easter eggs!

Easter eggs So every year for the last few years I have been working on some thing for Easter.I do not not remember when I become so holiday oriented but it happened.

This year i went back to a holiday favorite the plastic Eeaster egg! I got some of the smaller 2 inch eggs for the kids at work to have an Easter egg hunt with. I struggled with what to stuff them with. I did not want to go with candy. I used jewelery I had made a long time ago. I also used other things I hand made and some silly bands. I had some foam shapes, google eyes and some cotton balls. I created the little guys above with the supplies and some hot glue magic.

I created these decoupage eggs with: Modge Podge, some printed tissue paper, some confetti and more hot glue magic! These eggs are available for purchase through my sculptresslink etsy shop. Set of three with a matching basket.

I also created some little foam bunny puppets for Easter which are also available for purchase on the sculptresslink shop.

Imaginary still lifes

At a resent sub substitute teaching job the assignment was still life. the students were not drawing from a actual still life but instead were looking at reference images of vases of flowers for still life and creating their own. I gave points on were to put the line so that the vase is not "falling off the table" The students looked at Vang Gogh's painting of Irises and we talked about color blending and I gave examples of how to blend colors with art stix and with markers.

Above are student examples and my examples are below. as we as my class board for the assignment.

Some of the students really had fun with the still life and started to create carnivorous flowers. I had to start to remind some of these kids that Still life's are to be still and not moving and are to be of everyday living objects but are not to move.

Collage day

We recently had a Open house at the art gallery I work at. It was a day off from our art classes and was a day of open activities that families could drop into and try.

I was in the collage room we set out cafeteria style lunch trays and loads of supplies for people for people to use. These supplies included glue sticks,Elmer's white glue, yarn, ribbon, magazines, construction paper,Easter grass, tissue paper, craft foam,pencils,markers and colored pencils.


I brought my own little bag of collage goodies that I have had for years and refuse to part with until used up for collage. In my baggie were iridescent shiny reflective Kleenex box pieces, misprinted scrap booking background sheets i had photo copied, felt,shiny metallic foil pieces, old home economics book pictures, interesting scraps from other projects and other bits of fun stuff.

Come make Easter decor and look at art and so much more!

On Sat April 7 the Sat of Easter weekend. I will be at Stella Art gallery and studio in East Rochester running a DIY workshop. We will be creating a Easter egg wall hanging.

A mixed media painting on 8x 10 inch canvas panel board which will hang from a ribbon.

We will be creating some Easter egg ornaments which are plastic eggs painted with acrylics and hanging from a cord.

The diy workshop is offered in the Stella Art Gallery and Studio spaces and you will be working in the space during the exhibition of Diversarty- a show of watercolor and drawings.

To find out more or to book the workshop in advance go to:
http://www.stellaartgalleryandstudio.com/classes/

St patricks day items up on my etsy shops

 Mini hats just in time for St. Patricks Day. Little craft foam hats with alligator clips to clip to your hair. Sincere thank you to Denise, Raven and Brenda my models.... You are  all so fun to photograpgh

Dr. Suess week Cat in the hat earrings a tutorial

This is the steps on how to make a set of red and white "cat hat" earrings. The tell tale red and white striped large top hat.  This uses polymer clay I use the Sculpey brand I like that it is soft and does not need as much softening.However the red clay does stain your hands.

Step one

Roll a medium size ball of red clay about inch size... roll the ball on its sides and tap the edges so you get a cylinder. Also roll out two coils of red and white clay about the same size. Be sure to roll the white one first..If you roll the red first it might leave residue and turn the white roll pink.

Step 2 Slice the larger red cylinder into slices -- I got four slices from mine. It squishes when you cut so you may want to reshape with your fingers  into a circle.

Slice the red and white coils at the same time, that way they will be the same size.

Step 3 Stagger and stack the slices of clay you made that are red and white find the best fit for your new slices create a red the white striped pattern with those.



Step 4 Roll the stacked slices gently and press them together gently.

Step 5 Press the stacked red and white slices onto the larger red cylinder slice.
finger sculpt as desired.

 Step 6 Press a head pin through from the bottom of "brim" of the hat.

Step 7 Put in the oven and bake for five minutes at 275 degrees. Let cool completely
 


Step 8 Sand the polymer clay with a low grit sand paper. I like the wet dry sanding sponges the best. Smooth out all finger marks folds, miss colorings etc.

Step 9 Brush on a Sculpey glaze.

Step 10 Use needle nose pliers to bend the wire and create a loop. Thread this loop through the loop on a fish hook ear wire. I prefer to bend the wire through the ear wire rather then try to bend the ear wire of a prefabbed fish hook. I find certain brands tend to break when bent.



 
 Step 11.  Use wire cutters to cut off extra wire after loop is made. Or choose to but beads on a longer pin and make loop and let hang lower.

 to purchase a pair go to tribaltrends.etsy.com