Julia Meng - Student Art

This is one of Julia's latest works. It is a phenomenal piece that has many layers of interest to please the eye. Plus a lot of prep work went into the building of it. She was inspired by an article in the May/June 2007 issue of Cloth Paper Scissors on Paper Quilts by mixed media artist Kelli Perkins from Holland, Michigan (see Kelli Nina Perkins in Artists I Follow). Julia began by making separate collages of mixed media in each of the colorways in her piece. So she built a red/orange/yellow one, a blue/red/yellow one, etc. After they were dry she cut them up into various pieces that she reassembled onto a foundation collage. Then she sewed all the pieces down with a sewing machine (she ran into a lot of difficulty getting around some of her curves, but she hung in there). Afterwards she laid down some additional watercolor to help define images. Below is a close up of this incredibly complex piece.

2009 District Art Show - Student Art

Just wanted to show off some of my favorite pieces at the District Art Show . These first two were award winners from Cerritos High School. Yes I can be objective when I have too :). Top one came in 1st Place in Painting and second one won 1st place in Ceramics. I loved both works.


1st Place in Drawing went to our senior Amanda Garcia with her charcoal of Salvador Dali (second row, end right) with an Honorable Mention going to eighth grader from Whitney, Jeremiah Kim for his charcoal of "The Joker" (top row, second from left).


Whitney senior Caroline Ma received an Honorable Mention for her gorgeous quilt in the Crafts Division (far left on easel) and our senior Ivy Hu won 3rd Place for her jellyfish quilt in handmade collage frame (second from left on table)

Congrats to all our other Whitney winners as well. Junior Lihan Woo received 2nd Place in Ceramics for his abstracted "Face with No Name", 3rdPlace in Ceramics went to senior Caroline Ma for her interactive piece entitled "Scales", and Honorable Mention weny to junior Wayne Chen for his amazing clay guitar with wire strings, and to senior Rikaya Obilo for her coil inlayed slab box. In the Crafts Division congrats to senior Julia Meng for her multi media piece titled "3 Headed Phoenix", 2nd Place to senior Hannah Chung for "Siren" and Honorable Mention to Shabina Toorawa for quilt in frame called "Dramamine". In the Painting Division congrats to senior Caroline Ma for 2nd Place with her watercolor of "Nick", and Honorable Mention to senior Mindy Cho for her multimedia work titled "The Spotless Mind". And in Drawing Caroline MA picked up an additional 3rd Place with her charcoal called "Wind Swept". We had a total of 14 winners this year. Way to go Whitney Visual Arts!

Wire Jewelry - Student Art

Before my beginning 3-d students get to do wire sculpture, I first take them through a preliminary wire jewelry assignment to help them get used to bending and twisting the wire. An important part of the assignment is to incorporate other trinkets within the wire, thus the beads, shells, wood , etc. These were two of the more outstanding ones. On the left is senior Connie Pae and the right one was created by senior Shahnaz Khandoker.

Finished Slab Boxes - Student Art

Here are the finished, glazed slab boxes that I mentioned would be posted from a couple weeks ago. Congratulations to senior Rikaya Obilo (middle box) for winning an Honorable Mention with it at our annual District Art Show where we compete against the other high schools in our district. Below is a pix of Rikaya helping me with the show set up last week. Thank you Rikaya, your help was invaluable, your eye for detail amazing, and your patience in working with me unbelievable. Have I told you lately how much I love and adore you? :) The box on the left belongs to senior Caroline Ma, and the box on the right belongs to senior Cynthia Tsai. Great looking pieces ladies!

Shout Out to my 3-D Art Student Connie Pae

Just wanted to tell you Connie that you made my day today by telling me you are addicted to my blog. Sometimes I wonder if anyone is looking. And it feels so good to know that with all the time I invest in this thing that it is being noticed and appreciated. So thank you for sharing that with me. I put up one of my art quilts that I made several years ago that reminded me of you. You are such a good person, and a wonderfully gifted designer and craftswoman. I have enjoyed working with you in my classroom for the past two years so very much, and after you graduate this year I hope that you will continue to pursue the arts and keep them in your life. You are in my heart, I love you!

Laura Ramirez - Guest Artist and Teacher

My students and I have had the pleasure of 2002 Alum Laura Ramirez coming every Friday at lunch to teach some oil painting basics to four of my art students who wanted to explore this medium a little more. Laura took at least 5 of my art classes when she was here at Whitney, then after graduation went off to Cerritos College to study drawing and painting there. She teaches my students on a volunteer basis and funds much of it with her own money. We are truly very lucky to have her come. Here are from left to right: juniors Jullian Kho and Hannah Park with Laura in the middle, and then seniors Steffi Wong and Kevin Lam. This pix was taken as they were doing some acrylic under paintings of a still life Laura had set up.

The finished acrylic under paintings waiting for color glazes in oil to be painted over top.

Laura is working with Steffi as she demonstrates the over glazing technique.

Jullian painting glazes of color over top her black acrylic under painting. Looking gorgeous Jullian :) Open House wall art in the background.

Scratchboard with Watercolor - Student Art

These next 3 gorgeous pieces were done by my second level drawing class. Scratchboard is heavy white paper that has been coated with black ink. I give the students very sharp nibs to scratch parts of the black away to reveal various ranges of lighter values to build their pieces with. So for them it's like working backwards and a wonderful new challenge. They are encouraged to use pointillism and crosshatching drawing techniques. The piece above was done by senior Caroline Ma and she is working excursively in crosshatching. After all the scratching is done they are to watercolor over 50% of the exposed white board to bring in color and even more value range. All 3 of these pieces made the cut for the District Art Show that is going on this week at our District Office. We are in competition with the 4 other high schools in our district for prize monies. It's very exciting and our students usually make off with many of the top awards.

This condor head was done by 8th grader Jeremiah Kim. His attention to detail is phenomenal and look at how beautifully he has watercolored over the board. I am so sad to be losing Jeremiah. He and his family are moving back to Korea this summer. Jeremiah is so talented, I was hoping to take him through all four levels of drawing/painting and design. I know he wants to go into architecture, so hopefully he will continue with his art after he moves. Wishing you the very best Jeremiah.

This crazy amazing piece belongs to very talented junior Hannah Park. This is her interpretation of a Tuscan farmhouse. Hannah has incorporated many different drawing techniques in this work.

Mother's Day 2009 - Corona Del Mar

Had a wonderful Mother's Day with my babies, Dan and Zach. They whisked me away for a gourmet lunch at Tom's Burgers and then off to the tide pools at Corona Del Mar which is a delightful beach community nestled between Newport and Laguna Beaches off Poppy Street. Here we are up at the top overlooking the coastline.

Love the rock formations in the sand, they remind me of dinosaur bones.

The next three pix are of the tide pools and the amazing marine life thriving in these protected waters. You are not supposed to remove anything but it's so hard not to take home a rock in the shape of a heart or some beach glass.

Zach and Dani posing for me on the rocks. It was pretty overcast that day, you can tell by looking at the sailboat in the distance, and then when we were leaving the sun came out. Of course. :) The water was warm though and felt so good.

Glueline Oil Pastel Portraits - Student Art

Yesterday I showed you the prelims for this assignment. I'm moving the students away from realism and into abstraction as a little break is necessary at this time of the year. They need something fun and light for a change (A.P.'s & STAR Testing just finishing up- yuck!) The students are drawing with a glue spout on black paper, allowing the glue to dry and then oil pasteling over the gluelines. They are supposed to give me a wide range of value within this medium, a strong layout design, and an expressive quality to the faces

In the top piece 8th grader Hannah Park's portrait of junior Robert Dohring is truly remarkable. Even though this was a unit in abstraction, distortion and exaggeration everyone could totally tell it was supposed to be Robert. Way to go Hannah!

Here Kristina Le is working with junior Mary Lou Bunn. Kristina is amazing with the oil pastels, moving them in value from light to dark. She also pays close attention to small details and also gives me impeccable craftsmanship in all her work.

SenorKrystal Rodriguez drew 8th grader KevinTang for her portrait. I like how she did a full body format rather than just the standard head, neck and shoulders.

One of my top beginning artists this year has been senior Darren Chan. Here he is drawing junior Kyoung Lee. Not only is Darren an amazing drawing student but he is an extremely gifted designer as well. I know I will always be pleased and delighted whenever he turns in a new piece.

Junior Brandon Liao did 8th grader Erik Wong. This one was a favorite because it was so creative and expressive.

Preliminary Glueline Oil Pastels - Student Art

This is a great preliminary assignment for the kids to begin loosening up after working so realistically for the last couple of months. I give them each a glue bottle and tell then to draw with the glue spout a recognizable subject in a very abstracted way. Then the next day when glue is dry they oil pastel over the glue lines trying to incorporate their range of value skills to make subject look dimensional. Top to bottom, right to left: seniors Kristina Le and Darren Chan, and juniors Anne Guu and Aman Batra.

More fun pieces. Seniors Krystal Rodriguez, Rachel Rilloraza and Kristina Le.

Rebecca Chung - Student Art

This piece is over two years old and was drawn in graphite for me by Whitney alum Rebecca Chung when she was a senior in my 3rd level drawing/painting class. The assignment was a drawing and shading review since many of my returning students hadn't drawn much over the summer. The students were each given a popcorn kernel that they were told to enlarge to at least 3 inches by 3 inches. They were told to draw as realistically as possible and to put in a wide range of value (shading). Then to draw the kernel in an environment where it made sense. Most kids just put in a horizon line along with a cast shadow and call it done, but not superstar Rebecca. Oh no, she pulled out of her hat this scary story of abduction by a circus performer with the popcorn morphing into a serpent. It was a frightening piece but so beautifully executed as you can see. Rebecca is a phenomenal talent and is in her second year back east at Williams College. I was lucky to be able to work with her and buy many of her pieces at Open House to teach with.

Understructure of Mosaic Sphere

I often get asked if my mosaic ball is a solid mass of cement. So last week when Katherine was starting a new sphere class at the Muck, I shot the next few pix.

You start with a bouncy ball from the super market, the kind that you find in the big cages at the beginning of springtime. Then you spray the heck out of it with primer before applying the cement.


A close-up of the application of the cement slurry over top the patches of adhesive netting, over top the sprayed ball. Two coats of this process are necessary to built up a strong structure to be able to mosaic on top of . And after the cement is dry if it's too lumpy bumpy, you must smooth things out with a metal file (a real pain the the a__!) Makes a big mess too. But so much fun. Loved working with the cement, it was my very first time.

Preliminary Oil Pastels - Student Art

I rarely show all the students pieces for each assignment, but I got lucky this time cuz they were so small and I was able to fit them into my lens :) For the last 2 months I have worked my beginning drawing/painting students realistically, so that by 4th quarter they need a change of pace. I introduce a variety of color media and in this particular unit we are working with oil pastel. For their preliminary pieces they had to simply move their foreground, background and sphere from light to dark to achieve a wide value range so that everything looks dimensional. Composition is also stressed along with creating a horizon and cast shadows. I encourage the students to be more creative as they build their composition so that I don't get all spheres.

Always doing some of the most beautiful pieces in the class is senior Kristina Le. So gifted!

A close up of a few of the better ones. From left to right, top to bottom are juniors Mary Lou Bunn and Brandon Liao, juniors Shabnaz Khandoker and Esther Lee, senior Rachel Rilloraza and 8th grader Michaela Platt. And this is their first experience in this medium. Aren't these wonderful? !!

Unfinished Slab Boxes - Student Art

One of the most difficult clay assignments for my beginners is the slab box. All kinds of bad stuff can happen during and after construction. Warping, cracking, lids misaligned and so forth. So I like to take a few pix before I send them thru the firings, just in case! In a couple days I will post the glazed finished works. These two belong to seniors Cynthia Tsai and Frankie Wong.

These next two pieces were made by seniors Mark Japzon and Frank Chang, and fit almost perfectly together. It was so cool to watch how the boys had to work so closely together to make sure the two pieces lined up precisely.

All these beauties belong to seniors Rikaya Obilo, Caroline Ma, and Estelle Hong.

Mindy Cho - Student Art

Senior Mindy Cho created this piece for my Intermediate 2-d drawing class during our unit on perspective. The assignment was to build a simple 2-point perspective box construction with an added twist. I always hope for something out of the ordinary and very creative. Well Mindy did not disappoint, she came up with a truly remarkable piece that is headed for the District Art Show in May to compete against the other high schools in our district. I also really like how she framed out her piece. Very unusual and fun!

Bill Sevedge - Candy Maker Extrodinarire

Check out the Divine Caramel logo on the right side bar. This site belongs to ex-student and dear friend Bill Sevedge from the Class of 1985, the man who built this gorgeous blog for me, and who is teaching me all computer related stuff :) He's even trying to get me onto facebook. I don't know about that, looks like too much work to me. Anyways, he is a gourmet cook and one of his specialities is candy making. If you love caramels, chocolate and almonds you will adore his work. Order up a box of assorted and let me know what you think. You can't go wrong!