Archive for the ‘art’ Category

As of tomorrow I am officially in the art room! We got our stools – they’re not set up, and I don’t have the computer connections, but the kids can help with most of that tomorrow. I discovered a potter’s wheel and loads of clay. I need to have the district check out the kiln to see if that works. The room is wonderfully big, lots of great light, lots of storage…we should be able to do great things!

The doodles worked out really well. The kids started their evaluations today, and they were really looking at the work. Maybe not as critically as I would like, but I need to improve what I am asking them in order for them to be more critical and definite about the work. I need to develop a basic rubric for evaluation, where I can list the criteria for each assignment. This means I need to look at the assignment differently, but now that I am repeating assignments, I have more time to think about the integral components of each one.

One thing the kids seem to be enjoying is the different website each day. Today was Animusic – all computer-generated instruments and music – really cool stuff. The kids all wanted to know how to get the CD. Two of my boys know they can drive me nuts by always saying “This is boring.” Well, they just wanted more and more of the examples.

36 days! That’s not counting today – 36 days until Eric Maisel, creativity coach and author, will be stopping by the blog to take interview questions. He’ll be talking about his new book The Van Gogh Blues, about creative types and depression. I’ll get a link to Amazon posted for ordering. My book is due to arrive any day now!

So stay put for more info!

In the midst of everything yesterday, I forgot that I had started new art classes. Yesterday’s group, especially, really resisted the first sketching. “I can’t draw” was the constant refrain. I didn’t push the first sketch, but when we came to the doodle, there was a little more freedom that I could sense. As I walked around, I made positive comments about everything I saw, and more and more kids started filling up their papers with doodles. Funny – they can doodle in class, but not when it’s an assignment. The eighth graders in particular were very difficult. Tomorrow when I see them they will use some math skills and create a small frame to isolate one part of their doodle, add color, and frame it for their first piece of art.

I introduced them to Photoshop as we started looking at line as an element. We were short of time yesterday, but today with the seventh graders I was able to show them a few web pictures – sent to me and I don’t know where – of some interesting advertising. I want the kids early on to think that art is much more than drawing. What follows is just two of them….

We still aren’t in the art room – the large tables are set up, but regular chairs – so trying to draw or paint would put a horrible strain on the back. Figures – and it’s a good thing I checked before class started. I will still need to bring computer cords back and forth if I want to use internet – which I do. Too many good things to see on line!

It has been a very nice, relaxing few days, even with being sick. Saw Charlie Wilson’s War, which was excellent, even though I dozed through some of it. A great historical “if only.” Today we saw National Treasure, Book of Secrets – lots of fun, though highly improbable. Been to Mt. Vernon, Mt. Rushmore – always fun to see a few of the places we have been.

Worked last night on a new piece, and again today. Both easily came with titles. The first – Lord of the Rings – the original is a great piece of Japanese silk, marbled in dark greens.

The second – Fossils – from a great stone pattern, marbled on linen. I am finding I like adding shapes to the pieces – need to see about developing my own library of shapes.

I had said to the kids in art class that they could put their work up for sale, which they thought was kinda cool. But today three of the girls sold pieces, and now it has become a craze among the students to – not so much sell a piece – as for students to buy art. Yay! We are creating a culture where students are interested in buying another piece of art – so they value it, and the art program is growing by leaps and bounds. We have already extended the show a week – and now I have to figure out a way to manage sales. I think I have a plan – but there are grades to do, and a room to clean, and plans to do for the new semester…plus a reward party for the kids tomorrow. Nothing like a busy last day!

One of the girls asked yesterday about going to an art gallery. None of these kids have ever been, and sometimes I am amazed that they haven’t had this experience. Then I remind myself of two things – they’re 12, and I never went gallery hopping or to museums until I was an adult. And I started by going to craft shows.

So I need to conspire with a few people at school to see if I can pull off a trip downtown to a few galleries and perhaps the Philabaum glass studio. We can probably get there by public bus, but the details will be massive. We have an art museum, a children’s museum, and a good number of kids have been to the Arizona Desert Sonora Museum – which is very different from an art museum and gallery. If we plan this very carefully, we can do some really good things for the kids.

PS – I have finally figured out how to put links in the blog!!

This has been a very long week – and it’s still only Thursday. On Tuesday I was thinking it was Friday because I was doing so much cleaning during 7th period. The days have been packed, and I am trying to stay ahead on planning, as well as get caught up on all the papers. I don’t want to end the marking period behind like last time. And speaking of the end of the marking period, as of December 21, I will only need to do 26 more sets of grades before I can retire…not that I’m counting…..

The holiday wreaths are a big hit. The eighth graders realized if they stayed with it, they made good progress and could see just how great they looked. I am just hoping that nothing happens to all the ones stored in the extra room. Just one more reason why I am looking forward to the art room – more storage!

I have arranged for help during the set-up next Thursday and Friday – hopefully nothing will get in the way of the Atlas teacher being there for extra coverage. My art students really don’t know what to expect – most have NEVER had any kind of gallery experience, and above all I am determined to give them a good experience so they can see just how special art can be. I just need to stay sane……

After a lot of angst in trying to figure out how to get the art show hung, I called the Educational Materials Center for the district – problems solved! They will be shipping ten 4 x 6 feet panels to the school next week, so we will be able to hang all the work in the front and have it look great. I need to get the invitations set for the kids to color and deliver to those they would like to attend the show.

Also, I had good luck in starting to print out the digital doodles, as well as the t-shirt transfers. It’s going to be very cool to see the kids walking around wearing their art. This will probably become extremely popular, so if they didn’t sign up by the deadline, if they want to pay a dollar, I can buy new transfers – I already bought the first set, and Sam has donated some.

Overall, I am extremely pleased with how things are going. Most of the kids got additional grammar lessons from me as they were writing their artist statements. One of my students, very quiet and unassuming, got into using a variety of blues in his digital doodle, along with the liquify brush and other filters to create some interesting footprints hidden among other shapes. It will be very cool. And – I will be taking photos next week to post.

I showed the kids the deal I got from Michael’s crafts – five bucks for a 130-piece set of art supplies, pastels, crayons, markers. A great deal, and we looked up all the addresses for the local Michael’s. One of the kids gave me a smaller set of supplies at the start of the year, and the kids love using the oil pastels. Also, several of the kids really got into the markers and were drawing chocolate covered cherries. Looked pretty yummy!

I am trying to finish my third Photoshop class, as I have gotten sidetracked into all the other work. This lesson called for us to create an animated banner. So once I got past the “oh what will I make”, I settled on a falling leaf for autumn. The creation of the animation was pretty cool. Hopefully this will work…..(I am on the second…third…fourth…fifth upload…)

It’s a rainy day in Tucson, which happens rarely, so a good day to go out and about for shopping. Our destination was Michael’s, so I could get tissue paper for wreaths, iron-on transfers for the kids’ t-shirts, and a gift card for my niece – and ended up with a $5 paint/pastels set, charcoal paint for marbling, transfers……no gift card. At least I remembered it before we drove out of the parking lot. The mind – going rapidly……

I want to let the kids know about the paint sets on sale – some of them could afford the tools. And – I probably should pick up one or two for “Best of Show” in the art show – as I don’t think we are going to get framing…..

Had a sugar drop – unusual for me – at least I think it was a sugar drop – felt better after lunch – now I understand what Dean goes through.

I’m hoping to look at more of the tutorials on NAPP – also, I am showing Dean some of the cool stuff on Photoshop. Here’s a piece he played with:

I love it because it looks like it have been stitched with thread.

I had all sorts of ideas during the school day of things I wanted to post on the blog. Most of them have since gone away, but I do have some thoughts on art for next semester. When I start with line as the first visual art element, I will have Photoshop on so the kids can do examples and begin experimenting with the program. I should get some amazing digital work from the kids next semester – assuming that the school gets the Promethean board hooked up in the art room. Given the emphasis on technology in schools, it surprises me that we can’t get Photoshop put on other computers. I know there has to be a district site license for the program.

I’m also hoping to have the old scanner in the art room, so we can scan work right away. And I will look at using Photoshop to teach color as an element – we can use a lot for value, tints, and hues, so the kids can understand that better.

I will break out the paints next semester, as I want to expose the kids to that medium, assuming I am in the art room and not my classroom. We should start mounting and collecting pieces for the second semester art show. Now I have to get materials ready and visit the frame place for mat board.

I just finished some school work with preparing questions to prepare the kids for the benchmark tests (which I absolutely hate). But now I am free to try a few more things. I took a piece of fabric and worked directly with the colors and pattern. Here’s the original:

This next is with a normal blur, not the edge for the line drawing.

This next is an invert adjustment.

This is the same invert with the difference layer.

Then I tried a different light filter.

And I don’t know exactly what I did for this last one, but it’s pretty cool. It is very interesting to see how the various gradients and layers work together.

I cannot get over how exciting the last few days have been when it comes to art. I am so enjoying all of it – the highs, the creativity, the drive to create more. I am trying to analyze it, and maybe I shouldn’t, but I feel like I have stumbled on the perfect art form for me. It’s quicker than the quilting, with much more immediate gratification, and it’s a lot easier to get rid of “mistakes.”

So it will be interesting to see what happens with the quilt art as a result of this new direction. I’m sure I will feel like getting back to the sewing machine, but right now I am enjoying the glow of digital art.

I started a piece last night that I thought really had potential, but I wasn’t having a lot of luck adding color with the brushes. I wanted a much lighter touch, so I thought about stuff over the night and most of today. I figured if I got to the pixel level I should be able to be extremely selective with the color. Unfortunately I didn’t make sure that I had the setting and size for print, so I will need to redo this if I want to print it out – and I’m thinking this could be an interesting entry for Fish Follies in Alaska.

Here’s the original piece of fabric:

This piece was done as part of an order for Australia, but we weren’t totally pleased with it – kind of muddy. I did some work brightening and using the adjustments, so then I ended up with this, which will probably be a card:

Then I did the sharpening and the blur and the invert and got a piece that looked very much like water. So I played with some “sand” to see what would happen, and then almost pixel by pixel I added three different shades of water. I wanted to keep most of the white and just add shades, so I tried different brush sizes, shades, and opacity, with a lot of erasing! I am pleased with the result:

Now I am thinking if I redo this, I can make the “sand” more cliffs, and then really darken the water and have a good strong piece for Alaska.

I did another piece last night that reminded me so much of a New England autumn during peak weekend. Here’s the result (it looks even better large):

I took the camera to school yesterday to get pictures of the art work, especially the doodles, the kids have been doing. Forgot that Rich was coming to tape, and so got involved with that. Had a great taping session, but will have to bring the camera next week.

I am slowly starting to feel better – for the last three nghts I have actually been doing some Photoshop stuff. Since I have been emphasizing line in art class, I have been thinking more about it myself. I am fascinated by what Photoshop can do with turning work into line art. So I chose a couple more pieces of marbled fabric to see what I could do with them. This could be a whole new way of moving with the fabric.

Here’s the original piece from last night:

This is really a pretty piece of fabric, but it just seems too muted. Even with curves and adjustments, I can’t seem to make this a “wow” piece.

This is after sharpening and then doing the invert to get the line drawing:

It wasn’t looking like much to me. Usually with the line drawings, once I do the inversion, then I can see a picture in it. I was puzzling on an image when Dean said it looked like a ski slope from the air. So then I started adding woods:

I need to do some more work here – still not satisfied. I was playing around with a number of the brushes and different colors – maybe to be more accurate I can increase the size and change the pixels to get more depth and accuracy. At this point I was wondering about getting to the snow – how could I add that against an already white background? I played with light shades of grays with blue tints, and then with the snowflake brush. Here’s what I got:

Not bad, but still needs work. I would like to darken the greens and add some more browns, so I can do a specific brush effect on the top and make it look like we are seeing through swirling snow.