I made ART!

It has been a while since I was here, I have a couple of art lessons to post sometime in the future but for now... is some art I did recently.

The flowers are chalk pastel on water colour paper, which worked beautifully. The weight and texture of the paper really worked with the chalk pastels. I worked in pencil first from live flowers and then went in with the coloured chalk pastels. Real flowers are a good substitute for "life" drawing. You use the same skills but don't have to have a human model.



This one was three pieces of watercolour paper taped on a board together and I painted it as one image (with watercolours) and then separated them. I find this gives the work continuity. With the flowers I didn't need it so much, but with landscape I think it helps. A neat water colour lesson using this could be to assign the "three" paintings but have a different colour scheme in each panel. This would help the kids get used to the paints and using a variety of colours. It is easy to just stick to the paint colours that are within your comfort zone rather than experimenting with a wide variety of colours.

I love Photoshop!

In the classes I have been working with over the last week we have been working with Adobe Photoshop Elements. This is a neat program and has lots of cool possibilities for neat art projects!
Here is my first experiment!

Still working on getting the pic from my relief art lesson...

It has been a while since I checked in here, some great new music picks for today.

Mos Def- Black on Both Sides (Copyright 1999, can't believe I never listened to this before!)

Artic Monkeys- Whatever You Say I am, That's What I'm Not

Both are great pick ups, transferring to my portable device at this very moment.

Haven't been doing too much art lately, but I did some storytelling with some of the kids I worked with on Friday.

My children's book is fighting to get out of me, I need to keep making the illustrations and put the stories on paper. Creative process breaks out of me whether I make time for it or not. I think the fact that I am slowly changing my lifestyle to a more healthy one is helping me be creative again. Once I thought creativity was a trade off for happiness and emotional stability, and it was never a sacrifice I was willing to make. I read a biography of Auguste Renoir, written by his son and changed my mind.

The process of creating does not have to be ugly and painful.
Art does not have to be ugly to be art.
And I am still learning how to be.

What a Relief!

I did an art lesson in one of the classes I subbed in last week (it was a repeat call and the teacher asked me to plan the art). They have been working on a unit in sculpture so we did a lesson in relief sculpture based on Barbara Reid's work. We used plasticine and a variety of lids from 4 litre ice cream pails to 250 ml sour cream container lids. Most of the kids finished their work and there were some very successful sculptures in relief. I will try to post some pics eventually. I did this with a grade 5 class but my Mom has also done a similar lesson with grade 2s as well.

Here's a copy of the notes I put together for my own planning and for the students to keep. Feel free to copy and use the info. :)

What a Relief!

Relief sculpture - A type of sculpture in which form projects from a background.

There are three degrees or types of relief: high, low, and sunken. In high relief, the forms stand far out from the background. In low relief (best known as bas-relief), they are shallow. In sunken relief, also called hollow or intaglio; the backgrounds are cut back and the points in highest relief are level with the original surface of the material being carved.


To see easily accessible examples of relief, just look at the coins in your pocket or purse!

Taken from http://www.artlex.com/

Relief sculptures were common in many ancient civilizations such as the Babylonian, Greek and Roman. Many modern sculptors have also worked in relief.

Here are the names of some other famous artists who made sculptures in relief:

Donatello (Italian, 1386-1466)
Michelangelo Buonarroti (Italian, 1475-1564)
Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903)
Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954)
Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 1881-1973)
Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997)

Our featured artist Barbara Reid illustrates her books with pictures that are really photographs of colourful relief sculptures she has made in plasticine.

Some books by Barbara Reid are:
The Golden Goose
Gifts
The Party
Read Me a Book
Sing a Song of Mother Goose
The Subway Mouse
Two by Two
Zoe series

I know it isn't visual art...

But I just bought some great music today!
Guero by Beck
Funeral by The Arcade Fire
The Legend of Cash - Johnny Cash Of course.

Just about re-bought Bedouin Soundclash as I don't have them on hard copy.
Forgot to look for Matisyahu.

I'm not really a music downloader... if I download it is from Puretracks or places where you have to pay for the music.

I believe in supporting the arts and if I'm not willing to pay for music, I can't really expect people to pay for my art now can I?

That said, I do still think the mass produced CDs I bought today were slightly overpriced.