January Gets Away From Me

In the posting department anyway.

It seems that the added number of classes I'm teaching, combined with the planning and executing of a birthday party for my youngest, daily routines and the addition of volunteering duties with my eldest daughter's school are keeping me much too busy for posting on the a regular basis.

So on the one hand I'm gloriously busy and on the other I'm too swamped to share what I'm doing.

I've added the video I created for the art career fair at my daughter's school last week. I presented as an art educator and wanted to share some examples of my art lessons and the art done by my students. (just one of the activities that has filled my time)

On a personal art making note I've also slipped in time to do some personal work (granted the project was conceived as an option to read to my classes in preparation of creating some jelly fish art but I'm doing it in my own time and may not finish it in time to present to this terms classes) I've started a handmade book using a grouping of haiku poems as the inspiration. I'm using the book as an opportunity to explore new mediums and techniques . So far I'm pretty happy with what's come out of it. It's a pretty organic process so far and I'm having fun with it.

With my teaching load so full I decided that making art for personal reasons was a high priority and have been using time I might have used to post about lessons taught during the week to do some of my own art. I've added a few images below of some work in progress.

Detail of Jellyfish book page

Detail of pen drawings of jellyfish on stencilled gessoed paper

As January comes to a close (and Mercury leaves retrograde) I have high hopes that I will be able to focus more of my time on posting here as well as keeping up with all the other activities piled on my plate. 

How is your year beginning shaping up? Are you as jam packed and scrambling as I am or are you weathering the new year transition more smoothly?

Monoprinting with Younger Artists

I posted a time lapse the other day in anticipation of the start of a multi class lesson plan.

Here's another in anticipation of introducing or re-introducing as the case may be mono-printing to my preschool and toddler classes.

Printmaking in Painting And Drawing

I love the concept of relief printmaking with kids. Over the last few years of teaching at Artspace I've included printmaking in one form or another at least once in each term. I have a few different types of printmaking techniques I've used and one of my favourites is using Styrofoam plates to create a relief print. I have been playing with the idea to add a multi-lesson reductive two or three colour printing lesson to this terms plan. It's a daunting plan, there's a lot to keep in mind: alignment of paper, reverse images, inking, carving and studio management.

I've put off the lesson for a few weeks as I've mulled these things over. While I think I've gotten some aspects figured out; there are others that I'm still feeling unsure about.

Pro-D Camp Eve

I have finished art from the last handful of classes to share. And I will but my schedule has been hectic and I haven't had a chance to get the images uploaded yet. they are coming I promise.

In the meantime here's a time lapse of what I've got planned for my Professional Development Camp tomorrow morning. I've got two very big groups to work with tomorrow!

Voting, Thanksgiving and Low Poly Masks

My thanksgiving weekend started with a visit to the early polling stations and voting. Very glad I chose to go in early. The rest of my weekend was a blur of cooking, and friends and family and friends that are family and family that are friends and loads and loads of food.

In between I managed to get a few mask shapes printed up and put together for my painting and drawing lesson tomorrow. I'm hoping to get two more put together before class tomorrow but with a dentist appointment and the possibility of running back and forth to drop my youngest off at child care before I head back in to teach I'm not going to put a lot of stress on  myself.

I put together a time lapse of putting the masks together from the template I purchased from Wintercroft Design. I contacted Steve and Marianne Wintercroft when I purchased the templates for the masks I have made to ask their permission to use them as still life objects in my painting and drawing class and they graciously consented.  I like the low poly masks as a painting and drawing subject because the geometric shapes break down the surface planes of the mask features and will make talking about light and shadow a little more simple than with an organic shape or an object that is colourful. I'm very excited to see how my students approach the subject.

Tomorrow's Arts Enrichment is a moon and owl based project unless I change my mind on the way over....

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians and if you stood in a long line up to vote early this weekend I salute you!

Dragons and Sunflowers for Swords

Last year the Art Sparks and Arts Enrichment classes did a project based on Perfect Square; the book I read with my Art Exploration Students on Saturday.

I make an effort to keep lesson topics fresh and to revisit techniques instead of subjects so instead of continuing with the same book for today and tomorrow's lesson I introduced The Sunflower Sword by Mark Sperring and illustrated by  Miriam Latimer. I built a Dragon Themed birthday party around this book last year which was a big hit. Today I focused on the spread in the book that had the dragon flying over top of a giant field of blooming sunflowers.

In my garden I have a lovely patch of sunflowers this year. The bright yellow petals surrounding the smaller blossoms set out in a Fibonacci spiral are beautiful in and of themselves. Adding a dragon to the composition is a full on winner with my own little artists as well as the artists in my classes.

We started with an application of yellow and orange paint with sponges and also foam shaped stamps. I then instructed my artists to add the brown centres of the flowers with a round brush. The opportunity to bled the brown paint provided with the still wet oranges and yellows was taken by a handful of artists in the lesson and the brush work they used added energy  and interest to their compositions. A few other artists were more interested in precise application of the brown and others were more interested in applying the yellow and orange and only a small amount or no brown was added at all. Our next step was to use scissors and painted paper scraps to cut out the shapes to build our own dragon. The dragon was glued onto our under painting and a final addition of a googly eye ( or three, or five or two) was added.

Regardless of what steps were taken or left out in the process each of my young artist friends learned a little bit about texture, pattern and shapes today. It is always really fascinating to see the ideas of children this age emerge onto paper.

Once the finished works are dry I will post some examples.

Perfect Square

This time last week I was steeling myself for the possibility of only one class on Saturdays and I am pleased to now have two sessions of Art Exploration classes for two age groups Saturday mornings. Art Exploration as the name suggests an exploration of art materials and elements for toddlers and a caregiver and for children aged three to five. Last week we explored oil pastels and paint on paper with leaves. This week we're looking at things from the shape of a square

A few years ago I was in the library looking for a picture book that had a focus on circles for my very first art class at Artspace. While looking for a circle book I saw sitting on the shelf a book about a square. I of course picked up this book and brought it home all the while wishing that my lesson was about squares (because back then I was a little more rigid with my lesson plans; I was a new teacher and very far out of my comfort zone so keeping within my plan was all about coping). This Saturday class will be based on the illustrations in that book and that book is called Perfect Square by Michael Hall.

In the past I've taught this lesson in two parts. Students would paint a rainbow onto mixed media paper and then in a second class the paper is transformed with scissors, folding and cutting into a picture that has it's inspiration from one of the pages in the book. This time around, because we have an abundance of pre painted paper at Artspace we'll be creating our art from the stock of painted paper. Focus was on choosing papers that appeal to the artists, composing an image onto paper and practicing scissor and glue skills.

The purple pieces were done by my toddler artists. Each one of the artists was fully engaged in the process of the art today. During the lesson I was talking abut how focus in the  lesson is getting engagement from our artists and not looking for anything specific within a composition, I went on to say that often allowing the freedom to engage with the materials brings out some very amazing finished artworks. Today's lesson illustrated that point to a T. Each of the artists in the toddler class was allowed to compose their image with very little involvement from their caregiver. My favourite parts of the lesson was watching the thinking process in where things were placed on the page. In all cases the artists made very specific and engaged choices for their work and it shows.

The Blue backed art was done in the Preschool class. In this class we had the same focus and engagement. Each artist approached the project in very different ways. From the deconstruction of the backing paper into a new shape (which referenced our inspiration book) to the minimalist compositions and the compositions that used multiple layers and or broke out of the image frame. I was very pleased by the outcome of each class and love that I get to share the work here with you.

Week Two: Zinnia's and Balloons

It's week two and I'm anticipating the joys of balloon painting with my young artists. The cold I caught from one of my preschoolers has left me with a drippy nose and a scratchy voice. I didn't help this when I stayed out a little later than usual yesterday to see the lunar eclipse but it was worth it.

The technique I taught today and tomorrow is one I found on Pinterest and immediately tweaked. It has a big "wow" factor with the young ones and lends itself really well to certain subjects; flowers for instance. The Pin I first saw this technique used in was a take on Eric Carle's Hungry Caterpillar.  I love Eric Carle, some of my favourite projects are created with painted paper and collage. I think his paper collages are very distinctive and wanted to try something different in my own classes so I came up with a theme that I thought suited the technique even better and allowed for a little discussion about colour theory and of course the use of a varied and interesting colour palette.

Last week we collaged and painted leaves; very suitable for autumn. This week I'm bringing in some of the zinnia blossoms from my garden and blowing up balloons for the students to paint with. This lesson works best with a contrasty selection of paint in each tray and I do find that I have to impress the importance of not squeezing the balloons while painting to the students (otherwise: POP). I also find that it's a good idea to have a few extra balloons ready just in case. I have a hand pump to blow them up before the lesson begins. While we are on the subject I also try to blow the balloons up at most about 1/2 the capacity. This makes them easier for small hands to grasp, easier for transport inside the studio and also makes them less likely to pop. I have in the past used water balloons for this lesson with good success but the smaller balloons are also thinner and more likely to pop unexpectedly.

My co-teacher for the Artsparks class read the book Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehert to our young artists and their caregivers and then once a short break had been taken and snacks consumed my class joined me in the art studio. Gree paint was used for grass and stems and then I had my young artists stamp their balloons into the marbled paint and then onto the paper. the wow factor happens when they see the colours transferred from the balloon onto the paper. The excitement from the ballon painting was felt throughout Artspace. As a final step white glue was applied to pre-drawn styrofoam stamps and a dusting of fine glitter was added to the tacky butterflies, caterpillars and bees wchich got this lesson a super double wow ovation.

When I left after clean up the art was still drying. Once it's hung I will follow up with images of the student's art.

The Really wonderful thing about this class is that all the caregivers are very open to letting their children, grandchildren and friends explore the materials in their own way. Of course there are small nudges here and there to remind our small artists what was said in the demonstration but the final work is always very much the work of our little artists.

 I use balloons for paper mache projects at Artspace as well a painting tool. Usually I save paper mache for week long camp lessons so that there is enough time to add a good number of layers. If you use balloons in your lessons let me know how they work out; if you have tried something different please share.

A Leaf Can Be Second Time 'Round

While yesterday's A leaf Can Be lesson was a great success I decided to go in a different direction. Tuesday I teach Art's Enrichment; a preschool Music, Movement and Art class for preschool aged children.

Today I collected some leaves on my way into class. As you can see in the time lapse video we painted our leaves in fall colours and stamped the painted leaves onto black and blue construction paper. We also made use of oil pastels to make some leaf rubbings.

The finished art was beautiful and varied, just like the artist's who made them. I don't run my art lessons very strictly; I like to allow my little artists the freedom to express themselves and explore the media. If I stuck to a strict lesson plan opportunities for young artists to explore different techniques would be lost. One of my students today created leaf shapes in negative space by applying the paint to the leaves on top of his art paper. The result was phenomenal and one that would not have happened if the artist was stopped and directed to follow my directions to the letter. As long as my students are respecting the space, their fellow artists and the materials I am more than happy to let them walk to the beat of their own drum.

I'll update this post later with finished art from the students.

Line and Pattern with Tape

Tomorrow I'lll be teaching the first Painting and Drawing lesson of the year. I've been building my lesson plans on a foundation of the elements of art.

During my research for this term I came across a textile artist from Canada named Joy Walker. Part of her practice includes creating line drawings with tape on paper and other surfaces. I loved how these drawings were great examples of creating space, and pattern with lines alone. This is a time lapse example of what I've got planned for tomorrows lesson. I will post a more detailed entry for the lesson once it's done.