Kids Art Week Day 3

Hopefully you will all get a laugh at my vulnerability on this one. We were supposed to use a masking technique on watercolor paper. My tape tore up all of my paper. I also had big plans for the disembodied cat legs but thought it was kind of funny, so I left it here. Tim jumped in on this one too. Mine is the cat (with "bear ears" Tim said). Tim did the seahorse and David did the fish.

 

      I don't know if we'll get to do the next 2 lessons because we'll be away, but the boys were pretty excited about tomorrow so we may do them when we get back. I love seeing what they come up with.

Kids Art Week Day 2

    For today's lesson we had to scrape watercolor paints to create these butterflies. Honestly, the paint scraping was pretty satisfying and relaxing (Is that weird? lol) once we realized the watercolor paper we were using was way too thick. We switched to card stock and it worked much better. Both David and I had fun creating, but neither of us were in love with the final product. David came up with the idea to write a message on the under side of the wings then leave them somewhere in public to brighten someone's day. The color is a little more vivid in person, I was photographing them outside with my cellphone.

Kids Art Week 2018

     Back in 2016, I participated in Carla Sondheim's Kids Art Week. I blogged about it towards the beginning of the week but seemed to get busy at the end of the week. Here were my two posts in 2016. Kids Art Week 2016: Day 2   We had so much fun participating last time that we decided to try it again this year. (I'm not sure what happened last year.)
      Today David and I did a project called "Put a Beak On It" where you created birds out of blobs of watercolor paint, markers and colored pencils. Other than getting our blobs to dry quickly in this incredibly humid weather, the project was pretty easy. (If you struggle with being creative, "finding the birds" was a little hard for me.) David thought it was really fun to make. Here are our projects:

 I like David's bird with the pink stomach and how creative he was with the bodies. I loved watching him create. If you're interested in jumping in, please join us! Sign up here. You don't have to be an artist; it's a lot of fun.

Feeling artsy

    As part of their Christmas gifts, each of my sons got a box of pre-planned "Mom Dates" for 2017. Over the past few years, I have really enjoyed the opportunity to take each boy out individually to just hang out. January's dates were both artistic.

Timmy and I went to a place called Wicked Art Bar. They are a local place that hold paint nights. Once or twice a month, they do family days. I wasn't sure if Timmy would like it but, based on his interest in his painting from Thanksgiving, I thought I'd give it a try. We painted "Snowy Bunnies." Here's how they came out:
Tim, hard at work.


 Tim and I:

 Finished product (check out Tim's snow bunny on the left.):


Ironically, my sister-in-law, Sarah, gave me a gift certificate for this same paint place. I had seen a painting that I thought my mom would like so I invited a friend and we went to paint it last Friday night. Here's the finished painting. Don't show my mom, I made it for her birthday. (I know, I sound like a 5 year old but I hope she likes it.)


    My date with David was on Monday. We went to Clay Dreaming, which is a pottery studio. You can either go to the wet studio and legitimately put together a piece of pottery, or paint pre-made pottery which will then be glazed and put in the kiln. David developed an interest in pottery in his elementary art class. I think he was slightly disappointed when we got there and he realized he wasn't making the pottery, but I thought we'd check it out before we really got invested.

David painted a mug. The inside is green and the outside will be a darker blue once it's fired.  He was having a nice time at this point.

Still good:

Then we had a bit of a meltdown. He was working really hard on the mug and everything was going well. He tried to draw a Minion and things came unraveled...fast. I saw a lot of myself in him right then. He had an idea of what he wanted, couldn't do it- but wanted to try. When he tried and it didn't go well, he got super upset. He didn't want me to do it for him, didn't want help, but he also was really stressed about how to finish without ruining his final piece. It was sad. We changed the Minion body into a face. We worked together to make the face, eyes, goggles and he did the smile. I hope he's happy with it when it is finished.

Here's my plain plate. (Which will be very dark blue with a coral-ish color around the edge) I would've done very well if I had just copied an idea someone gave me, but I'm not very creative with blank space. Also, my snowflake stamp rebelled. I wish I knew some cool techniques- next time. Oops- I didn't post because I had written my last name across the plate. Sorry! I'll let you know if I like it. 

Lately

      This school year has been busy- a mix of feeling a bit overscheduled and personally doing a lot of things.  I anticipate my schedule getting  a lot crazier over the next few weeks, but it should be fine if I'm conscientious about my scheduling (and if everybody allows me to be a control freak regarding time. lol Sorry in advance.). At least there are some holidays in the mix so there is some planned relaxation too.
      Here are some recent endeavors of mine.
School:
    On the negative side, I usually see all of the students for the same amount of days per rotation. This year has made 5th/6th end together, 7th ends a different day and 8th grade ends yet another time. I have found that this change is throwing me off a lot it's taking a lot of adjustment.  Hopefully, after a bunch of correcting tonight, I will be caught up and be able to keep up from there.
     On a positive note, I have started my Thanksgiving tree project. These are some  background pages that I made from watercolor paints that will eventually be cut into leaf shapes that I will write my notes on. I really like the bottom one.  My sister-in-law, Sarah, graciously offered to use her Cricut to help me with a making leaves out of some gelli-printed paper. Thanks again, Sarah!

Personally:
     This past week was full of some fun events. I got to remind my kids that we are blessed enough to help others by donating to a local toy drive. While we were there, we were given tickets to go see The Pentatonix! (For those near Boston, this was Karson, Kennedy and Salt from Mix 104.1)

We saw Abi, who was not our taste in music, but she seemed like a nice girl. Then we got to see Us the Duo, who we loved. I had never seen or heard them before. Here is a song they wrote for their wedding. They performed it live and I really enjoyed it. Both of them are extremely talented musicians and I was impressed with the different styles that they performed.

   If you don't know the Pentatonix, shame on you... here is a link to their music too! Here is a cover of an Imogen Heap song they did. Again, incredible musicians.

Oh, and while I'm spreading incredible musicianship around, did I mention Kevin, known as the beatboxer of Pentatonix? Woah..

   Then, we had Veteran's Day off. (Thanks if you are a veteran who is reading this!) I brought the kids up to Maine to visit my parents.  It was a nice time, relaxing.

   When we came home on Saturday, Tim's team won their flag football championship:

     Then we went to Boston to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday! I also got to meet my newest niece, Naomi.


Penpalling:
    I received quite a few letters over the past few weeks, including a few secret letters from the Penpalling & Letters Secret Letter Event. I am sending this one out tomorrow. Then I have a lot of writing to do!!!

Now what?
     Next week I will start working on the musical. I am also auditioning kids for a few opportunities. It is a lot of work. I'm hoping for a week free of negative parent e-mails. 
      If you celebrate Thanksgiving, do you have any special plans or traditions? The week of Thanksgiving we do a really fun volleyball tournament with the students. It's a blast!

Kids Art Week Day 2: Dubuffet figures

     Had another fun time doing an art lesson for kids, offered by Carla Sonheim. Jean Dubuffet was a French painter, printmaker and sculptor.  He lived between 1901-1985. He wasn't able to really work as an artist until about 1942. Like Klee, he was not impressed with "scholarly" art, but was inspired by "outsider art" of alienated groups such as prisoners, mentally ill and children too. He coined the term "Art Brut," meaning raw art. I read that he was influenced by Klee (in style and subject matter) and he was also a musician. Some of the ways he added texture to his paintings were interesting. Here are a few of his famous works:

 

 

 

   Our goal today was to create a figure in the style of Dubuffet. We could create a face or a whole body. Timmy and David did this with me. We started with a treated watercolor base. I did the project separately with each boy. I was surprised that they each chose almost the exact same colors (and that they were the colors I had originally chosen to use. Grrr..), but their backgrounds came out very different. The top one is David's. The middle one is Timmy's. Mine is at the bottom.

   

   After our background dried, we made our "figure."  The way we all interpreted these and worked through our own styles of creating was pretty varied.  Here is David's (Sorry he is sideways):

 

  David had a meltdown over how to draw arms. We originally had them leading off the page and then he decided he wanted them raised up. When he saw that his figure was "weird shaped," he was a little disappointed. Then I showed him what Dubuffet did and he felt much better. Once he added the black, he was very happy with his work. He especially liked the nose he drew.

Timothy's (Which might be my favorite):

 

Tim knew exactly what he wanted right away. He liked that his face was a bit lopsided. He drew the eyes close together, like Dubuffet would have. Those things on top "could be horns. Actually, I like that they are ears, kind of like animal ears." I love the eyelashes.

     It should be no surprise that the person who struggled the most with this was me. (Though I didn't cry like David.. lol)  I picked colors that were different from the boys to make something different. I found that working with colors that might not appeal to me as much was a challenge, but I liked the results. What I found really hard was to let this guy come out "uneven" without "fixing" him. I also wanted to make it look more aesthetically appealing to me, but exercises like this are wonderful since you're imitating someone else's art. Some people made their examples more personalized, but I'm a bit of a rule follower.He looks like a mix between Squidward and Gumby.  I sure have come a long way since the first time I posted art and was nervous that people wouldn't like it!

Tomorrow I will be introduced to Robert Motherwell, also new to me! Before I forget, there's still time to play along. If you'd like to catch up on the classes, join here

Kids Art Week- Carla Sonheim

   I forget how I originally heard about Carla Sonheim, but I think it had to do with the Index Card a Day Challenge a few years ago (ICAD). I started looking into art journaling, other artists, drawing, etc. Anyway, I signed up for an e-mail list from Carla a long time ago and this week she is offering free online art classes for kids. David loves arts and crafts so I thought he might enjoy doing these projects with me. I signed up for the classes and we completed day 1.
     Today's project was based on the grid paintings of Paul Klee. He was a Swiss-German artist who lived between 1879-1940.  It seems that Klee cannot really be categorized into a certain "school" or art. He seemed to be influenced by many different artists and places that he visited. His dad was a music teacher and music was also really important to him. (Sorry this is not as informative as it could be. I didn't know anything about Klee before today... and I just wanted to show you what David and I worked on.)  Klee had many grids in his paintings. One such painting is called Static-Dynamic Gradation:

   As I looked through his art, I realized that I have done some art in a style similar to another painting of his, Rocks at Night:

 

   Today's paintings used a grid. We first made a grid and printed our name in it. Then we painted it with watercolor and did a few more steps. (If you are interested in Carla Sondheim's Kids Art Week, you can sign up here.  I think it was so generous of her to put this together!)

    Here is David's. I love his colors that he chose.

     This was mine. We did a color wash to see how the watercolors reacted with the second color. It really made some of my colors pop and changed a few others. I'm thinking I might make a few of these as small gifts for friends. (Let me know if you want one :) ) 

     Tomorrow's lessonis a Dubuffet figure. I have never heard of Dubuffet, so it will all be new to me. More crayon and watercolor.  If you join us, post a picture here to show your work. the name painting was a fun, easy lesson. Carla, if you end up reading this, thanks for your lesson!

Songlines

  Yesterday I showed you the painted doors of Portugal. Today I discovered Songlines, directed by Rhoda Roberts. I have always found the Sydney Opera House beautiful, but I didn't know that they projected things onto the sails. Check out this video. Can you imagine how cool this would be to see in person?

ICAD 3and 4

I'm having a lot of fun creating my ICAD cards. Day 3s prompt was Snoopy. I had never drawn Snoopy but after looking at a "How to Draw Snoopy" tutorial, I thought I'd take a risk. Here is my drawing and then Tim's and David's.Timmy took just a few minutes to draw his and I think it's very cute. I love that David included Charlie Brown. :) I am not giving them any ideas so it's super fun to see what they come up with.

 Prompt 4 was "typewriter." Now, I know I can't draw a typewriter. Next best thing to me was typed script. So.. I got a few ideas. I was feeling a little creative and detail oriented, so I made 3.

I struggle with uniformity of the size of my hand lettering so I was really happy with the last one. I like this style. I might use it on a few of my outgoing letters soon! (If I ever get to write them)

     I attended a Postcrossing meetup today. I will tell you about it in another post. We had a great time.

ICAD2016

It's that time again! June is the month where I participate in the Index Card a Day challenge, run by Tammy at Daisy Yellow. I have learned so much from participating in these challenges. If you've known me for a while, you have probably heard me say comments like "I'm really bad at visual things," "I can't draw," "Musically, I'm great with art- visually, not so much, " and the comments go on and on. Because I thought I was "bad," I just stopped creating altogether. Fortunately, I'm also a nerd who loves to learn at every opportunity. So, I have participated in this challenge for 3 years and have started to create art because I like it- and no other reason.
    Tammy gives a set of prompts at the beginning of each week. I will probably follow them because, let's face it, I'm a rule follower. :)  The prompt for 6/1 was mix tape. I wanted to just practice sketching. I struggle with symmetry so I will practice that a little this year.

Prompt #2 was pyramid. I made a little 3D pyramid with watercolors, and distress ink. T and D also jumped in and created with me. Tim's is on top "with amazing shadowing techniques, taught by my awesome art teacher, Mrs. Smith" and David's is a drawing colored with crayon.

   I will continue to share throughout June. Anyone who is popping over from my ICAD intro, feel free to share a link to your blog so people can look at your cards too. (Feel free to introduce yourself too!)

ICAD 2015

    It's that time again! I'm taking part in Daisy Yellow's Index-Card-a-Day challenge. The basic just is to create something on a 3x5 card following a prompt (if you'd like.) It was a great way to foster my creativity and develop some art skills. I totally missed that the first week should be done with ink, pens and markers so mine is done using my gelli plate and acrylics. I had fun. I might go doodle again in a minute and make another card. So, here's ICAD 1/61 You can't see the colors well here but it was basically red, yellow and blue. Where the paint overlapped, the colors blended.

    In terms of mail, I've gotten quite a few fun things this past week.
Postcrossing card from Germany. This was the first card she has sent.

 From England. Another mailbox card. I love them!

 GoodReads win. Looks like a fun read

 Postcrossing from China

 2 letters- One from Chandini in South Africa and the other from Monique in The Netherlands.

A cool little art piece from Gretchen! 

    Are any other friends participating in ICAD2015?