Dragons, dragons everywhere!

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dragons

accordion folding

On January 23rd, the Lunar New Year began (with fireworks if you were in the right part of town!), and with it started 2012, the Year of the Dragon. From the moment I found out the current creature on the Asian Zodiac, I knew dragons would be the next theme for all of my art classes.  What kid wouldn’t get excited about drawing or painting or collaging a dragon!?  My mind whirled with possibilities, and with dragons.  Over the course of the past two months, the dragon-y features of scales, teeth, claws, beards, and fire, have been making their way from the inventive minds of my art students onto paper. The gallery here is just a sampling of the artwork produced by kids between first and 6th grades.  Some of the work was done in my sons’ classrooms, while some of it was made by the kids who participate in a lunchtime art club at the elementary school, or at a class for home-schooled kids that I teach at the local art museum.  I love each drawing, painting, and puppet, each one so full of personality.

Here is a rare shot of me working with the kids on dragon puppets:

accordion folding

A few nights ago, the art club dragons were displayed together at the elementary school’s Open House, where they made a beautiful backdrop for the opening meeting.  Just hours earlier we abandoned plans to make a hanging art exhibit outside the cafeteria, in what is aptly called the “breezeway.”  I was up on a ladder clipping the long sheets of craft paper to a metal beam when the sheets I just clipped started flying away.  What seemed like a great idea in the planning phases didn’t factor in an afternoon windstorm!  No harm done in the end, just a quick location change midstream, with little time to do it in.

masks, leaves, and a few more dragons

The highlight of the evening was that my husband got to stand in for me, accepting a bouquet of roses on my behalf, from the Principal.  The school honored my work with the kids by naming me Volunteer of the Year, and though I wasn’t there to hear it (I was elsewhere teaching at the time), they thanked me for my contribution to the artistic lives of the students at the school.  It feels good to be appreciated, and I am grateful!

This week, our Spring Break, I’m going to take some time to stop and smell those roses!

Filling the book

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sketchbook

As sketchbooks go, this one has filled fairly quickly, with life— still and moving around me—as the subject.

Another back yard painting made with waning daylight:

and a quick horizontal yard painting another day.

Pen sketches during swim lessons…

swim lessons

And above the pool, a hillside with gangly palm trees…

Later, sketches in other back yards made while traveling:

and from out the car window…

almost to the Grand Canyon

AZ mountains with raindrops

Then, back at home, the wild life around me:

M with wet hair

fleeting T

And last but hardly least, some guest sketchers made these:

"It's a birthday party--do you see all the balloons?!"

and a collaboration drawing

"That's Dad with a sack of potatoes, and me and the guys coming home. Dad looks like a pumpkin."

And now, just seven pages more to go, and if it gets done before school starts on Monday, I can really call it “The Summer  (of 2011) Sketchbook.”

imagined aerial view

summer proof

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sketchbook

In the same way that photographs document where we’ve been, who we’ve seen, and what we’ve paid attention to, sketchbooks are recording places for noting details important enough to capture.  This summer, my goal is to keep up with some of the goings on by taking pen and paint to paper.

Already, in the past weeks, the wading pool has been put to good use.  My sketchbook has not seen as much action, but this is the page where I got my feet wet:

Before bedtime the boys listen to the latest book, chapter by chapter, and “Please just one more!?’

And finally this week, the apricots are orange and ripe for the picking.  Picking the apricots is almost as fun as eating them.

top of the tree sketch

Those fuzzy orange apricots are so appealing, I couldn’t resist taking these photos from the top of the ladder.

Many more still to come…  just have to get to them before the birds do!

That’s the proof of summer, right there.

back to the back yard

Two weeks ago, an artist friend of mine posted a photo on his facebook profile of a delicate charcoal sketch, drawn earlier that day in his back yard.  The drawing was of a tent his daughter set up, and he wrote of enjoying a spring day in Massachusetts, and the practice of drawing for the fun of it.  Usually, he paints.

That brief note and photo got me going.  First, I just wanted to get outside and enjoy our own spring-like weather, and second, do some drawing in the yard.  I liked the tent idea too, but that could wait.

So many interesting viewpoints to tackle, the hardest part was deciding where to begin.  I set up the table and folding chair, and moved it until I found a good, though not exactly level, spot.  The first couple paintings were nothing special, but each a beginning.  Before the ink was dry, I had a little painter at each elbow, wanting to do their own.

taking over the table

painting houses in the night

black ink drying

brush prints

Unlike their mom, the kids crank their paintings out, running through the paper supply in a blink.

looking over the paintings

M's painting

The best part of assisting the boys’ painting session was hearing their ideas about what they were painting.  The black ink inspired them to think of night scenes, and because I painted the yard, garage, and house, so did they.  My favorite was the nearly all black painting that was “our neighbor’s dog behind his fence barking at us.”

Just today I brought out white ink so my youngest artist could finish the dog, a black and white border collie.  Here’s what he came up with:

WOOF!

The dog is a barker, art does imitate life.  I had to laugh.

Three drawing sessions and lovely spring days later, I’ve done two ink drawings that please me.  Not surprisingly, these drawings came about after I warmed up, and the kids had moved on to the swing set.

two on swings

And the next, from another vantage…

from the patio

detail

pots against the wall detail

And now I have a whole new appreciation for these swings!

This morning, unbeknown to me, someone was taking pictures of us as we painted together again (thanks, Paul!).  I only wish I had a recording of the conversation too, as the barky dog was carefully rendered, a little white at a time.

painters viewed from the window

Open House Art Exhibit: winter trees and cityscapes

Last week our elementary school hosted its annual “Open House,” a night when classrooms are open for visits and the work of students is prominently displayed everywhere.  The Open House is a chance to really get a look at the kinds of work the teachers and kids have been doing together, and to see into upper grade classes our children might have in the future, and to explore the school grounds and talk to other parents.

new raised bed vegetable garden

For my part, I put together a display of the artwork that the participants of my “Art Academy” have made in their time with me.  So far this year I’ve had two groups for six weeks each, with a total of approximately 120 kids between first and sixth grade coming to make art during their Friday lunch-recess times.  The actual art time is very short, but the kids who come are happy to be there, and in their enthusiasm they manage to get  a little bit done every week.

The Principal wanted to showcase the work we’d been doing, and the Open House seemed like the best place to do it.  With the help of some almost helpful sixth graders, the artwork got taped to long sheets of blue Kraft paper and hung on the backs of Book Fair carts in the cafeteria.  This improved the look of the room by leaps and bounds, and set a nice backdrop for the PTA meeting and parent welcome session later the same night.

cafeteria set up

The first Art Academy session in the Fall focused on drawing trees in pencil using small branches as models to represent miniature trees.  The emphasis was on seeing and drawing, and getting the kids to observe the branching structures, textures, and rounded volumes of each branch.  When the drawings were complete we looked at Mondrian’s different styles of tree painting to think about the negative space shapes made by tree branches.  The kids then painted those spaces on their own tree pictures, using wet-into-wet watercolor techniques and salt.

6th grader's paintings

3rd-4th grade

1st-2nd grade

For the second session I wanted to do something a little different–more sculptural.  Partly inspired by the pop-up Valentines we made in February, I went further that direction and designed a project that would incorporate a number of pop-ups into a cityscape.

Here are some of my pop-out-and-in prototypes in various stages of finish:

Kelly's paper cities

And here are some of my students hard at work on theirs:

painting cityscapes

I'm finished!

And when hung all together for display, they looked great, I thought.

extended cities

various stages of finish

and my two young artists at home, working on theirs:

brothers at work

look at that cool tree!

The artwork was well-received, and the Principal especially made me feel that teaching art to these kids is making some kind of difference in the school.  For that I am happy and proud, but still it seems like the drop in the bucket that makes a ripple.  With one more art session still to go for the Spring and the promise of an arts-related grant on the horizon for the school, progress is being made.  One small artist at a time.

tree, 3rd grader

garden growing

spit & polish, sand paper, & spray paint

It is amazing what a coat of paint can do.  I’ve written before about giving old things new life with a little fix-it attention and a coat of paint, and once again I’ve been working on just that.

The first project to require a spit and polish job was our old hand-me-down pedal-less bike, a favorite of all my kids, now the worse for wear.  The poor wooden bike was left out to weather in the heavy December rains, by accident, and the plywood was flaking apart.

This is the bike before, looking fairly beaten up:

the bike

With a bit of sanding and clean up, the bike was more or less ready for paint.  I taped over the tires and rims, and found a burgundy color of spray paint in our garage.

After adding some zig-zag taping and gold paint…

gold

greased lightning

voila!

zoom

Somehow that coat of paint and lightning stripe made the bike much faster, at least that’s what the riders tell me.

Another paint project still in the works is a kid-sized card table that I bought at a garage sale for $5.  The initial clean up was done and first coats have been painted, but with some more fancy taping, we’ll eventually have a checkerboard/chalkboard table top.

pulling off the tape

and a little more red

For me it is important to show the kids that by fixing our belongings we can use them longer, and in the process put our stamp on them, making them more unique and more our own.  In the end, I’m not sure what I like more, envisioning the old thing transformed, or actually making it happen.

Stay tuned for the finished table!

the art walks

As promised, I am finally getting around to sharing my art endeavors of late.  The making of what I consider more serious art pieces has been few and far between, but I have been teaching regularly, working with an art outreach program in a Family Shelter since the summer, as well as reprising my volunteer art classes at the elementary school.  All of these art activities relate to each other, and though different in character, my experience in one setting informs my work in another, and I enjoy them all.

my painting students at work

In the midst of the disorder of moving last July, I gave myself the gift of time and space away from it all, by taking a printmaking workshop on two back-to-back Saturdays the very same week of our move.  My husband thought I was crazy at the time, but I had a hunch the class would be good for me, and in this case I was right.

Local printmaker and teacher, Denise Kraemer, was teaching a “Pronto Plate Printmaking” workshop at the Division 9 Gallery near where I live.  I know and admire Denise and her artwork, and as a printmaker I am always interested in learning new processes, so I signed right up.

We spent the first Saturday learning the process of using a Pronto Plate as an alternative to a Lithographic stone, with a similar plate treatment method–though much simplified.  A Pronto Plate is a very thin transparent sheet of polyester (plastic) that accepts permanent markers and ball point pens, the way a lithographic stone accepts tusche and oil-based materials.  And though the polyester material is not as sturdy and indestructible as a litho stone, it is inexpensive, and light, and can be printed on an etching press.  The other advantage to the Pronto Plate is that it can be run through a photocopier, so lends itself nicely to reproducing any photo-based image.

I relished every second of the workshop and the company of diverse artists, making art.  In those two days I was able to make two sets of prints from two different plates, about 15 prints in all, one based on an ink painting, and the other from a collage.

collage from May

Pronto Plate print from photocopy of the collage

And the print from the ink painting:

pond gazers

The workshop got me excited to try the Pronto Plate process at home, on my own press, but even with the months that have passed between that printmaking session and today, my garage is still not studio-ready.  Once we get the extra stuff out (like redundant large appliances and those same stacks of cardboard boxes), there will be room to operate the press, and the garage studio will happen.

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In late November, an annual art exhibit and fundraiser for the Riverside Art Museum called “Off The Wall” came around.  Any artist can submit art to Off the Wall, with the only limitation being a certain number of pieces, and set pricing at $100, $200, with the most expensive works selling for $300.  The last two years I submitted art to the show, and the first year actually sold a piece.  This year I didn’t feel like I had done much to contribute to the Off the Wall, but couldn’t pass up the easy exhibit opportunity, and the possibility of selling something.  I submitted three prints, including the Pronto Plate prints from the summer.

Off the Wall gallery

This is the scene.  The floor-to-ceiling, chock-a-block, gallery-style art hanging is not my favorite way to look at art, but there is something impressive about seeing the sheer volume of work in this gallery.

My two prints ended up on the black and white wall, where I found them when I went to the show’s opening.  Look for the goldish wide frame above Frank Sinatra’s head…

black and white wall

and there’s my collage-based piece, same gold frame, right between…is that Jim Morrison, or Steven Tyler?

same frame, different direction

behind that guy's shoulder

… and the scary clown Joker face.

After attending an art show like this one, I find myself conflicted.  On the one hand, I love seeing that so many people are out there making art.  I also love that they want to get it on a wall somewhere.  On the other hand, what passes for art is sometimes, well, downright schlocky.  There are gems to be seen on these walls, tucked between the celebrity portraits and the safe landscapes.  There are artists taking risks, and creating some edgy strange stuff, and others making beautiful, well-crafted, but still contemporary pieces.  My question to myself, then, goes something like, “If they–the talented and untalented alike–are doing this, why aren’t you doing more?”

The answer–always evolving– lies somewhere in my very own complicated mixture of available time, space, and inner artistic drive.  For now, I’m at peace with a changing answer.

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For the last night of Off the Wall, I went back with family and friends in tow, all of us out to enjoy the Christmas lights and the festive monthly Artswalk.

That's one huge Nutcracker!

looking at lights

When we got to the art museum, after sampling downtown pleasures like testing the Kettlecorn, admiring real live penned reindeer, and the ooh and ah of lighted palm trees, I took everyone to the gallery where my pieces hung.  The only thing was, they were not there.  Jim Morrison was still there, and so was that crazy clown.  Mine were gone.  Sold!  I couldn’t believe it.

Someone took them home, and I hope they are as pleased as I was.

To encapsulate the moment, my friend took this photo of me next to one of the gallery walls.  This picture shows everything–the good, the bad, and the schlocky, and the artist who sold her work, happy in the middle.

the wall of art makes me smile

July. July! July?

Already?!  The name July alone conjures up assorted visions from my childhood– of walking home from a neighbor’s pool with wet heads and bare feet and wrapped in towels, the sound of grinding ice and rock salt gurgling in the dusted-off ice cream maker (not to mention the unforgettable taste of the ice cream!), of firecrackers lighting up the street and our faces– days of sun, water, and time to spare.

In the last few years, though, July has meant change and transition for our family, or full upheaval of some kind.  As we cycle back around to the month that begs the before-mentioned summery pursuits, we hover on the brink of another move, up to our elbows in all of the packing, organizing, and detail-minding that entails.  As I find myself taping up cardboard boxes, yet again, I’ve realized that this move is not so bad.  Rather than across the country, we’re moving across the neighborhood, to a place of our choosing, a house of our own.  There is still much to do, but it feels easier.

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We spent last week luxuriating in the company of Colorado cousins, and happily burned the candle at both ends before they drove off on the 3rd.  Then came The 4th, presenting itself, as a special day to be observed and celebrated, and I’d hardly given it a thought beforehand.  In the early afternoon the boys were looking for diversion, and the downtown fireworks display was still hours off.   I did not feel particularly energetic or creative, but wanted to do something fun to commemorate the day.  My wheels started turning, and I remembered some really cool t-shirts my sister made with her kids and their friends years before, and I realized that all of the tools I needed were in my garage.

• white t-shirts
• masking tape
• star stickers
• foam stamps
• acrylic paint

This project was easy to throw together, and fun to do, and the kids liked the results.  One of the artists wore his shirt two days in a row!

custom t-shirts

Stickers for stars, tape for stripes, plus a few brushes or sponges…

pulling off the tape

letting the paint dry

striping

free form flag

I forgot to get a good photo of all three in their completed shirts, but they did show off their patriotic pride and their t-shirts later.

here comes the pipe band!

the Highlanders marching

drawing while we listen to music

love this shirt

war and peace

And finally, fireworks!

Fireworks:  repetition and surprise.

July?  I still love it.

teaching because I can

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art with kids, ink painting, watercolor

This spring I got tired of grumbling about the sad lack of art being made at my son’s elementary school.  The older students had a mere three art sessions as part of a special outreach program put on by the local art museum, and sponsored by a parents’ group, but that is it.  Arrghh.  It is enough to make a mother–who happens to be an artist and former elementary school Art Teacher– resort to crazy bouts of performance art, the kind that involves walking in circles carrying hand-painted signs bearing pointed slogans.

Some teachers, to their credit, integrate art activities into the curriculum, and do that very well.  But other teachers don’t feel equipped to teach art, or don’t have time, or can’t be bothered.  Yes, I understand about budget shortfalls, and academic subjects taking precedence, but I believe that a well-rounded education includes the Arts–as many of them as possible.  Period.

Forget the performance art, instead I went to our enthusiastic Principal and offered my skills and services as a volunteer.  She listened, got excited about possibilities, and rounded up her Arts Committee.  The committee took the idea further and helped flesh out details.  We came up with a once-a-week “Art Academy” to happen during lunch recess, the only time that art could be worked in outside of the required curriculum.  The only problem was how to pay for materials, as we could not use materials that the school already had, allocated as a specific budget item from the district.  Ah, bureaucracy.

Sooo, the next step was to go to a meeting of the same parents’ organization that raises money for enrichment activities at the school, and ask for start-up funds for art supplies.  I took this meeting as an opportunity to not only ask for the money for our Art Academy project, but to really advocate in the strongest way I know how, for Arts in Public Schools.  I joked about bringing my “power suit” and brought out my most paint-spattered art apron for my presentation.  As you might guess, at that meeting I was really preaching to the choir, as they nodded and agreed with me, point for point.  The organization’s chair asked at the end of my speech if I would take it to the Governor’s office next.  Not a bad idea, though as they say, “you can’t get blood from a turnip,” or the Turnipnator, as we might have to start calling him.

The group at that meeting said a unanimous, “Yes,” to my project, gave me supply money, and we were off!

For two months now I’ve been meeting with the kids who were chosen through a lottery system to participate in our Art Academy, which is roughly 60 kids per day, 20 per three back-to-back recess sessions.  Not a lot when you consider that there are more than 800 kids in the elementary school, but it is something.

I started them with one of my favorite things, an introduction to Asian Ink Painting.

brushwork

black & white and shades of gray

Then we moved on to horizontal landscapes, from a bug’s point of view.

first grade art

second grade artist

3rd grade artist with her work

painter at work in the garden

3-4th grade artists

6th grade artist

For me, many of these pieces are breath-taking, and to see the artists at work was a joy.  After the ink paintings, we moved on to vertical watercolors painted on-site, in the school’s blooming Native Plant Garden.

5th grader at work

What could these kids do with more time, training, and encouragement in art?  Anything.

superman's drawing

Now if we could just offer our kids a little more in the way of music, theater, and dance, we’d be getting to a creative place with education.  The life of the mind and the individual is so much more than filling in little circles on test papers– our kids need to be able to draw and invent their own shapes, lines and colors, and most of all their own ideas.

Overall and in the details

Visitors to New Mexico, and oftentimes artists, talk about a certain quality of light found there.  It’s a light that is strikingly different from one that exists in other climates or landscapes, and has to be seen in person to be experienced.  Even my photos don’t quite show it.  For me the quality of the place is more than the light– it’s in the vistas, mountains and mesas, the scrubby piñons, taller pines and Cottonwoods, the red dirt and striped rock formations, the smell after a rainstorm and the sage… I could go on.

There is something about this desert landscape that makes a person feel small, not insignificant, but in right proportion to the wildness of nature and the passage of time.  As a friend of mine once pointed out, standing next to a giant boulder that has existed for untold centuries puts life and one’s concerns in perspective.  If only the boulder could tell what it knows.

Being in this high desert landscape always does me good, settling me as I take it all in, a breath at a time.  It makes perfect sense, then, to move from this settled spot to exploring inner landscapes around art and spirituality, as our group of retreaters did  last week at Ghost Ranch.

On our second day, the exercise was to consider seven elements or aspects of spirituality and how we ourselves are in communication or conversation with those elements:  self, others, nature, society, God, words or texts, and things or objects. Again we chose from a selection of art pieces to meditate on, sequence, and arrange according to our own sensibility, kind of like a visual map of our inner lives.

Without over-thinking it, I selected pictures that spoke to me, and tried to stick with immediate impressions.  Then I sat down to get to know these pieces, and with my sketchbook, paints, and pencils in hand, created my own version of each one.

Here are my sketches:

self (after Rodin)

others (after Isaac Israels)

nature (after Charley Toorop)

society (after Ted Von Lieshont)

God (after Bettie Van haaster)

words, texts (after Mondrian)

church, worship (after Pieter Saenredam)

These images speak to me, and for themselves.  I’ll skip the personal detail, because it’s personal, but the exercise was a telling one.  For instance, I do a lot of thinking about objects and things, but for that particular element I came around to a different idea, one of a space inside a structure, a church.  The painting intrigued my eye, inviting me in and through, raising questions, leading me to imagine an attached narrative.  Later, in the centering and sequencing of my seven chosen pictures, I found that I could more easily draw out a description of my individual sense of spirituality, in part because of my response to the art.  What a rich kind of dialogue between art and spirit–that is, if we take the time to tease it out!

The day before, our instructor and facilitator, Wil Arts, asked us to consider a quote from Flaubert,  saying, “God is presenting himself overall… in the details, She is.”

Yes, overall and in the details, like the effect of this landscape on my spirit.

blossom