7th Grade Art Wheel - Value Scales

My new crop of 7th graders are starting off with a BANG! Every quarter we rotate them, so this is my 2nd batch. They are a talkative bunch, and I don't quite have them where I want them, but I'm slowly but surely getting them there. I'm finding out that there is a lot of talent in this group, so I'm very excited to see what I can get out of them. This was their 1st assignment, to do a simple 5 step value scale. These were the most creative ones that I'm featuring. The best one of the bunch (top) was done by Kyung Yi, and the ones below were created by Adora Islam, Anna Lee, Sharon Oh, Brandon Pu and once again Kyung Yi.

Felt Pouches - Student Art

Just finished 1st Quarter Finals and these were the pieces that my Beginning 3-d kids created for their class final. They had to use their newly acquired sewing and embroidery skills to make these adorable felt pouches. Plus they also learned some beading skills as well. The photo above displays all their pieces which are now on display in the front office

Above and below are close ups of senior Ashlee Chang's pouch, both the front and back sides. Ashlee always goes above and beyond the minimum requirements and comes up with phenomenal designs as well as using amazing craftsmanship to put them together with. She takes her work home with her every night and she also works on her pieces all thru the day to be able to do what she does. Notice also the Polymer beads she made to go onto the draw string ends.

Above we see a close up of senior Hannah Park's pouch, and below is Senior Anne Guu's. Look at the incredible mount of beading that both girls put into their work. Extremely time consuming.

Want to wish everyone out there a Happy Turkey Day, and to tell you all that I am so very thankful to be teaching art at Whitney High. I'm a very lucky woman! And a BIG thank you to all my art students who work so hard to make me happy. Love you guys so much!

Jordon Joyce - 2008 Alum

Jordon, whom I have worked with since the 7th grade in several of my art classes, recently came by for a visit to let me know he has changed his major to art and that he's thinking about becoming an art teacher. What a nice surprise! He is currently taking art classes at Cerritos College and this terrific clay piece that he sculpted just came out of the glaze firing. It was so fun and expressive that I just had to take a pix.

Mosaic Class at the Muck

Just wanted to show off a couple of skulls getting finished off in my mosaics class. Here is Sue grouting hers, and below is a completely finished work. The Muckenthaler in Fullerton offers up many wonderful day, evening and summer art classes, and I highly recommend Katherine England's classes. She is one of the most fabulous artist/instructors that I've ever worked with. See side bar to view some of her work.

Burnishing Whistles - Ceramics I

There are so many things that I love about teaching here at Whitney, and here is an example of one of my favorite things. How good the students are to each other, how supportive and respectful they are with one another. Here senior Christopher Lu is letting senior Nicholas Fernando know how good his burnished whistle is looking. Chris didn't know I took this shot by the way, I had to be really sneaky :) Extra Credit for 7th graders and Beginning 2-D Art only: on a yellow piece of paper cut into the shape of a banana put your name and period on front side and on back tell me what your favorite food is. You never know, I might bring it in as a treat one day.

Santa Barbara Coastline

This last weekend I traveled up to Santa Barbara, Ojai and Santa Maria in search of fiber and crafts stores, but made the mistake of thinking they would all be open on Sunday (Saturday no problem) Lesson learned, should have called first. Oh well, found several that made the trip worth while. :) Betty's Yarns in Santa Maria on Broadway and Battles as well as a wonderful quilt store in Old Town Orcutt, think it was called the Old Town Quilt Store on Clark St. In Ojai, so many wonderful shops on their main drag in the Arcade area. Primavera being a favorite, as well as Artful Living and Human Arts. Did I buy anything? Of course :) But the best part of the trip was the gorgeous weather on Sunday coming home and the fabulous views of the coast.

Extra Credit for my Beginning 2-d class only: on a blue piece of paper cut into the shape of a teardrop, write down your greatest fear involving the new drawing unit we are starting.

Tissue & Paper Collage Portfolios - Student Art

Every couple of years I change up the design idea for my 2-d beginner portfolios. This sun motif idea originated 2 years ago when alumni Regina T. and Kenji Tan both deviated from their rubric and came up with this idea. And it worked out so well last year that I repeated it again this year (look at sidebar under Portfolios and you will see the ones done last year). The students build 2 separate collages on 18" by 24" paper consisting mostly of tissue paper but I also require them to find one other special paper that contains a visually textual element to throw in the mix. So senior Sonya Liu has cut out many special papers that she found in magazines and is now collaging her tissue over top in the piece above. In the work below senior Meliza Panganiban has finished her second collage and is ready for part 2 of the design process.

The pieces above and below (senior Brian Choi and junior Suzanne Kang) are showing how the kids overlap the 2 collages and begin cutting out their sun motif designs. They cut thru both papers at the same time so that the pieces match exactly when they are alternated and glued back together to form the portfolio's outer covers.

The rest are the finished works. After collages are cut up the students are given 2 pieces of cardboard that they glue the pieces down to, alternating the two different collages as they go. The gorgeous piece above belongs to senior Sonya Liu, you saw her begin her paper collage in the first pix. And below is Brian Choi's finished portfolio.

Junior Michael Jo did the striking piece above and below is a close up of junior Kevin Aquilo's portfolio. I love the richness of his design and the photos he incorporated under the tissue.

Above is junior Paul Kim's piece in which he achieved a very high contrast between the 2 collages (exactly what I was hoping for, but very difficult to do), and below is senior Alma Gudino's very complex design.

And last but not least is senior Betty Tong's beautiful work. Great job all of you!

Farewell to my 1st Quarter 7th Graders

Just wanted to say good-bye to my sweet babies. Gonna miss you guys so much!!!! You were a wonderful group to start off this 7th grade wheel experiment with. I've never had a group of students work so hard for me with such joy and enthusiasm. You've set the bar really high for the other 3 groups that will be following you this year. Thank you for all your hard work and the amount of energy and effort you put into my class. I hope to see all of you at least one more year in another art class before you graduate. Love you all! And be good for your other teachers, make me proud!!! And don't forget to bring your parents in Open House Nite so I can meet them. The date is April 22. See ya then!

These are some of the kids working on their felt soap project. Way too much fun! To my new 7th graders in 2nd quarter for extra credit tonight: put your name and period on a piece of brown paper and then write down on the other side of the paper what your favorite thing about going to Whitney is. Where do you get brown paper? Be creative! Think kitchen.

2 Point Box Constructions - Student Art

Just wanted to show off a few of my 2nd year 2-d students 2 point box constructions. Besides the construction they also had to build in a border treatment and bring in a bit of color into the graphite work. The top piece belongs to senior Anne Guu, and the one underneath belongs to senior Esther Lee.

Senior Brandon Liao did the piece above and senior Mary Lou Bunn did the fun piece below.

Sewing and Embrodiery Basics - Student Art

My Beginning 3-d students have been working their butts off learning how to sew and embroider so that we can move on to more challenging assignments like quiltmaking. These are their very sweet preliminary studies that actually turned out quite extraordinary. From top to bottom, left to right are seniors Ashlee Chang, Sherri Singh, Anne Guu, and Jenn Dai.

And after they finished the flat pieces they learned how to make a simple pillow. I offered extra credit if they embellished the front with more embroidery. So these belong to Ashlee Chang, senior Marisela Herrarte, junior Hillary Chan, and Anne Guu.

Moonstone Mounted Sculptures - Student Art

When I first started this project with my 2nd year clay students they were all sculpting some type of moon as subject matter, thus the title 'Moonstones". But over the years it has evolved into any form so long as it has an expressive face attached and lots of surface design. In the second half of the assignment, after their pieces are bisqued fired, we sawdust fire them and then rub them with pigments. And lastly, they mount them for display. So sawing, sanding, staining, drilling and wood burning come into play in the finished mounted works.


The expressive piece above belongs to senior Steven Ebalobor and is a bit of a self-portrait. He's showing how's he's feeling about missing his girlfriend who went away to college. I think he has done a wonderful job expressing his sadness and pain. The bead/tear drops raining down from the cloud are a clever design element. The piece below belongs to senior Ekta Doshi, and I love all the colored pigments she has combined in the staining of the clays surface.



The piece above and below belongs to senior Wayne Chen and his subject is an hour glass which he very cleverly mounted using two posts instead of the one.

And this last shot is a close up of the wood burning that Steven did on his wood. All 3 kids did an exceptional job in a very short amount of time!

One More Happy 21st Birthday to my Son

Took our boy out Friday Nite for his 21st birthday to the Yard House in Brea for our first alcoholic beverage together. Who would have thought his drink of choice was to be a Pomegranate Margarita. I'm thinking this wasn't his first drink after all LOL. Did he get carded you want to know? Yes he did. :) Then came back home to do the birthday cake, candles, and presents. And then off he went with his friends to a comedy club in Downtown Fullerton where I'm sure some more drinking was going on. Happy Birthday Baby!!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU and I'm so PROUD of the man you are turning out to be.

Free Form Crochet Workshop

Always wanted to learn free form crochet (learned free form knitting several years ago with Valentine Devine) and last night at the Yarn Lady in Lake Forest I was able to do just that with artist/teacher Wendy Seigel.

They had at least 3 different classes going on in one evening with lots of fiber enthusiasts, plus one adorable 3 month old. They are open almost every evening with different groups meeting for spinning, knitting, feltmaking, dyeing, and other fiber related classes. I was also impressed with the quantity and quality of their yarn selection.

Wendy brought some beautiful samples with her to show and I ended up buying the middle wristlet from her. The top piece is the one she taught me with and was gracious enough to let me keep to teach my students with, and the bottom piece is the one I worked out. Both of these are unfinished and I can't wait to get back to mine and finish it up. I loved having no pattern to follow and Wendy taught me so many new tricks and turns. A really enjoyable evening. Can't wait to go back for another class and some more yarn shopping. :)

A close up of Wendy's finished piece.

View from the Laguna Hotel

On Halloween night after dropping my daughter and her boyfriend off at the Irvine Spectrum, I headed down to Laguna Beach to have dinner with my cousin at the coziest little Italian bistro in the Village. Afterwards, to kill time till I had to pick the kids up we headed to the Laguna Hotel for a cup of hot chocolate with lots of whipped cream on top. Yummy! And this was our view of the coastline. What a beautiful night it was. Got to wear my amazing new cashmere needle felted scarf to keep me warm. One of my many new purchases at the Artistic License Craft Faire at Estanzia Park in Costa Mesa that I attended 2 weekends ago. I'll post a picture of it tomorrow.

Happy 21st Birthday Zachary

Hi sweetheart, just want to wish you a very Happy day. Wish you could be home with us, but we will see you on the weekend to celebrate and have a drink together! LOL :)

One Last Farewell to Halloween

Just wanted to show off my own children and their pumpkins they carved for Halloween. Danielle did the cat and Zach was able to capture a likeness to our dog Bogie. Unfortunately, we didn't even have one trick-o-treater to see them this year. So Sad! But the good part was there was a lot of leftover chocolate candy bars :).


Here are my babies on their way to the Duck's game last Friday night. I think the Duck's might have won that night.