Sam and Dan all snuggled in at Epa and Nana's house

Eric's completed designs

A queston of balance, or, killing the last five minutes in class by building a tower of art supplies.

Ann's lantern and Ann's tester sheet for colors

Ann's Lantern



Ann's tester paper




Ann painted the lantern (above) and used a second sheet of paper to test her colors and to clear her brush. But I like the tester paper at least as much as I like her painting, and maybe even more so, with all that freedom and spontaneity in her brush strokes. Very calligraphic, and so "Arshile Gorky".



More stuff today: a book, and a book

Michelle's book, above.

I'm making an "altered book" from all the scraps from the printmaking. Two pages done, and only 100 more to go...someone left an old, thin book in the recycled books area, so I thought it would be a good one to work on.  It has 136 pages, but I'm going to glue some of them together to make thick pages on which to build my altered book.

Busy...lots of printmaking ink all over the place!

We're in the middle of this lesson - after the prints are made, the students will  make something out of the papers. Perhaps it will be a "pop-up" or a "book". Or perhaps, when the prints are just lovely as they are, the print will be matted and framed by a parent (one hopes). This is a good lesson for color theory - what goes and what doesn't. (In one photo, one of my students is working independently on "costumes" drawings.) The last photo in this set has one of the "books" to which I referred. It's done with two sheets of prints. One set is cut and folded into the "book" and the other set is cut and inserted into each "page" of the "book". The book is tied together with eight strings that are knotted on top and bottom of the book. You need four hands to do this - so the students give each other two helping hands. The strings that are left hanging are then decorated with beads and knots. (the first print is my "prototype" for the students' edification)

student work in progress

This is going to be good when finished.

More of Cecilia's work

The first watercolor was sold to a teacher; the second one
received a "Gold Key" award from the Scholastic
Art and Writing competition.She's a remarkable painter.

Rodeo Art Gold medal winner

Cecilia Liang's gold medal winner for
Rodeo Art contest 2011.

Coming attractions:

I'll be posting more photos very soon of the printmaking, and what they create with the prints. Right now, two of the students have made "books" out of their prints. You'll see when I post...

student work: watercolor, printmaking

I took some photos of the students working on their
watercolor pictures, and two examples of their
printmaking from leaves. I think the watercolor
painting was the most difficult assignment they've
had to do. But they're really getting into developing
color combinations with the printmaking, as well
as learning something about color theory and mixing.

my new haircut...for what it's worth...

Don't ask me what that little blob on my chin is
- but I can assure you that it's not drool...it feels
weird to take a photo of yourself, though. This
is my "so-so" haircut.

modified valentine - with words

I've always liked the words here -
they were originally on a bumper
sticker I used to have. It says:
"It will be a great day when our schools
get all the money they need and the
air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a
bomber.

Lessons in still life with prismacolor pencil

Love this last one!!! Basically, we set up different still lifes within a box,
and the kids decided how they would interpret the set-up. They could go
traditional, or fantasy, surrealistic, etc. The last two got into the fantasy/
surrealistic theme. The fact that the items were in a box meant that no one
could move the objects, and the same light source was always present.
Some of these are rather light; others are more bold in the color work. But
no one used the prismacolor pencils with a heavy hand. That's not bad!

I made a valentine for my love:

I thought that it was appropriate to look snowy - especially since we've had such cold, cold weather. I'm looking forward to giving it to him. It has one of the "Sonnets From the Portugese" inside as the verse, done in ink that matches the blue-gray background. The print was made by inking an artificial leaf, then printing it several times as an overlay, on blue-gray paper. If anyone wants more details, I'll be glad to supply them.

Sgraffito Landscape 3

This is part of a series of landscapes that I've done. Nonrepresentation art is my forte, although I've been known to knock off a few representational art works here and there. This one measures 9" x 11 1/2" inches.