A blog about my work and the way it happens. Things I see, hear, feel and find interesting, funny, odd or just plain curious. News about Everything and Anything Art wise, Expected or Unexpected. This blog is an open work diary for myself, and you are very welcome to follow me on my journey...

torsdag den 27. november 2008

Art Class Shows work at the Library

Yesterday I went to the Metuchen Public Library and hung my students art work. They had all brought me a stack of work they wanted to show, and there was a lot to choose from.

But, the exhibition space was rather limited, so I had to pick out a few pieces, and hung them in themes. There was a lot of good work that I unfortunately had to leave out, but I think it still gives a good idea of what we have worked with the past 12 weeks.

The art work will be on display in the Library until Dec. 14th. 2008


fredag den 21. november 2008

# 12 Art Class - Acrylic on Canvas

It was our last week this semester. Unfortunately only two students were able to make it for this class. It was time to paint on a stretched canvas - acrylic on canvas. Last week I asked if they would prefer to paint from their imagination or look at a still life. Still life was the clear answer, so I made a little arrangement with a vase w/ dry yellow flowers, a book, a pomegranate and a (lit) candle.

The atmosphere was very calm and focused, it was cold and dark outside and very cosy inside. Both boys worked concentrated - I really tried to force them to LOOK at the arrangement, not just assume. To use their pencil to measure the different objects to each other, and also pay attention to light and shadow. They took their time, changed detail when they realized it wasn’t right. A lot of work and very little giggle! The two hours were spent well, we had perfect time to finish the pieces, talk about each one afterward, and we even had time to play with Playdoh the dog, who was not happy about being placed in the basement while the class was going on. He came up to say hello!

Later this week or early next week, the student’s work will be on display at the Metuchen Library.

I will offer two make up classes in the beginning of December, I will post into on the themes at a later date.

lørdag den 15. november 2008

# 11 Art Class - Still Life

This week was an “open week”. I wanted to keep one week available to add a sudden idea for a project or a surprise. I had asked the students if there was something they would be interested in doing in particular... A few mentioned that they like to finish up older pieces from previous weeks, but none of them actually brought anything along when Tuesday came along. I had a feeling this would happen, so I prepared a Still Life class, using color pencils combined with water color.

I have noticed that they like working with Still Life - they enjoy having an object/arrangement to look at, rather than making something up. I think that is great; they have to look and observe - great for bettering their drawing skills, as well as their focus.

I made a very traditional set up with a bowl of fruit and one of my personal treasures: a Royal Copenhagen Jug. I gave them a sheet of water color paper and they started drawing the arrangement. When the drawing was done, they added a bit of color with the color pencils and as the last step, they put water color on top. This created an interesting effect. We talked about how the two materials affected each other, how the pencils were great for shadow and the watercolor worked wall for the lighter part of the painting.

As always the results were very different, they each approached the subject as well as the materials very differently.

We only have one week left of the entire semester. Next week is a painting on a stretched canvas. After Thanksgiving I am having two make up classes.

fredag den 7. november 2008

# 10 Art Class

This past Tuesday was Election Night, which meant that a couple of my students were away for the week. So, on this dark (and later history changing!) fall Tuesday only two kids came for art class!

According to my lesson plan were were going to draw faces, and we started out talking about proportions of the face, and they did a couple of drawings of each other... But pretty soon it became clear that it was hard to do with only two people that kept on drawing each other. (I was planning that they would take turns, all drawing one person at a time, just like in the figure drawing class.) So, we decided to change the plan a little - I had a big pumpkin outside my door that I broad inside, along with a handful of beautiful orange/brown leaves that covered the ground outside my house. Initially I wanted them to draw faces with pastels - so we stuck with that medium ( -which we had not actually used yet- ) and the drawings were very vibrant - we talked a bit about complementary colors, and they tried to make oranges and browns pop, by surrounding them with ‘opposite’ colors.

tirsdag den 4. november 2008

# 9 Art Class - Egg Tempera

It was time for the (among my students) most anticipated week - egg tempera! They just couldn’t wait to mix the paint! Almost every week, someone would ask me: ”When are we doing the egg thing??” I decided to give them each a primary color (unfortunately one student couldn’t make it, so we were only three). They each got a tile and a piece of marble to turn a color pastel into powder. It was a pretty tough process - breaking the pastel turned out to be more difficult than expected. They mixed the fine powder with egg yolks, and it turned into some very clear and vibrant colors.

They each painted a small painting with the tempera, it was very different than regular paint; sticky and very transparent. They could still mix the colors, lighten the red and blue (-or green as the egg yolk changed it into). After making one painting they were more interested in mixing more paint, than actually using it for painting! We had a bit of time before everyone was being piked up, and one of the students suggested that they spent the time drawing each other - like they did in week # 3. I thought it was a great idea - we are going to draw faces next week, and this was a good exercise to return to, before next week. So I quickly found paper and charcoal and they worked on figure drawing until they got picked up.