Farewell 2009

I'm leaving for my 2 week Xmas Break and not sure if I'll be posting during that time, so I just wanted to wish all of you a Joyous and Happy Holiday Season. Finally got my tree up last night with the kids helping with their favorite ornaments. Sorry the pix is so blurry. Many of the ornaments are handmade by either myself , my children or my Whitney Students. So many memories! Speaking of my students, senior Anne Guu brought in over 70 cupcakes that she and her boyfriend made and decorated last night, so that she could give one out to every student in every one of her classes. She has such a big heart. And Anne, I ate mine and it was delicious. Thank you for the yummy treat. I will be at Java Joe's in Yorba Linda on New Years Eve listening to my friends "The Rockits and the High Lites" play and sing. Come out and join me there for dinner and an evening of music and dancing. The cover charge for the night is $75 and includes everything. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year everyone.

7th Grade Art Wheel Embossments-1st Quarter

I've been missing you guys from 1st quarter and wishing I could see all of you before we leave for winter break to wish you a Happy Holiday. So if you see this, drop on by tomorrow for a hug. This was the last assignment for the 1st quarter 7th graders. They designed a printing plate using cardboard, string, wires and anything else they found around the room that might work under the printing press without ripping the paper. Then they printed an embossment and had a choice with color media. They could bring in watercolor, pastel or colored pencil. It was a fun assignment for them because they really enjoyed working the printing press. Above we have Smruthi Maganti, Jihee Lee, Matthew Chou, and JuEun Lee. And the close up below belongs to Deborah Gordillo. Rock on little ones! I'm hearing great things about you from Ms. Improta.

Moonbabies - Students Art

Just getting around to posting my Ceramic I classes Moonbaby (little clay dolls that are made in Zambia for children to play with by their mothers) assignment, their first project of the year. They were given a lump of clay and told to pull, pinch and manipulate the clay into an abstract human form. What they were not allowed to do was to attach any pieces or parts. So this is actually a pretty challenging 1st assignment. I just didn't tell them that at the time :) They all did an awesome job with the project and here are a few of my favorites. Above we have seniors Erin Unson and Eugene Kim, and below are seniors Jessca Lee, Jennifer Su and Julie Jung.

And last but not least senior Janet Hurtado did the very cool design below. They all finished the pieces off with an oxide staining technique.

7th Grade Pattern-Line-Texture-Color

My 2nd quarter 7th grade wheel class has just finished up their wonderful line/texture pieces and I wanted to show them off. Even though this new group has been a lot tougher to manage there is a lot of artistic talent in their midst. The top pix is a group shot of all 30 pieces, and the one below is a close-up of one of my new favorite students, Karen Malacon. She totally got what I wanted in this assignment. She always gets what I want! :)

The one directly above belongs to a young man who on the first day of class told me in no uncertain terms that he would never be able to do any of the art assignments, that he was a terrible artist. I think not! Just look at the cool piece Turath Liebenau came up with. It was one of my favorites of the bunch. Another favorite was done by Jada Gonzales below. A great job by all the kids. Now if I could just get them to stop talking so much, to actually listen to what I tell them without me having to repeat things 10 times, and to not run and poke each other constantly, we'd really be in business. :)

Janice Tsao - Alum - Class of 2008

Janice, who went all the way through 4 years of drawing and painting classes with me, recently came by for a visit. After a year at UC Davis, she has decided that she wants to transfer to Cal Arts in Valencia where she'd like to major in animation. So I asked to see her portfolio and these are a few of the pieces she brought in that I felt where exceptional. She has been attending an Arts Academy here in Cerritos called Vision 21.`It has an excellent program with many of it's teachers graduates of Art Center in Pasadena. So these are a couple of works that she created there under their watch. Above is an incredibly detailed pen and ink drawing with several close ups to follow. You 7th graders pay attention to her use of line and texture. Just like our last assignment.

These next two works were from a life drawing class she attends there with actual live models. Very impressive

And above is an acrylic piece that she did of a live concert she attended, and below is a mixed media work that is very powerful. Terrific job Janice. I'm so proud of you. And good luck at Cal Arts. They have an amazing program there.

Rebecca Chen - Alum - Class of 2003

Rebecca was by far one of my most unforgettable students and produced so many thought provoking pieces for me in the 6 years that I worked with her here at Whitney. She was instrumental in refurbishing the custodian's work room into our current Art Lounge (see side label Art Lounge) where she not only laid the flooring, but did numerous collages on the cabinets and doors. Plus many of her works are on display in the lounge including this extraordinary piece. She took at least 5 of my various art courses that I offer here and was given a very generous art scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute. The last time I heard from her she was traversing across country between 2 different restaurants working as a sous chef in both. I put this piece up because my current beginning 3-d students will be building a paper mache structure to house a quilt in that they are currently working on. And I really like the one that Rebecca built here for her amazing embroidered piece. Sorry the close up is a bit blurry!

Congrats Danielle on Coach's Award!

Attended my daughter Danielle's golf banquet last week where she picked up the much coveted Coach's Award. Here she is (right side end) with her team mates at the Yorba Linda Country Club where they hold the banquet each year. This is her second year on the Esperanza High School's Junior Varsity team. Congratulations on another great season Dan. I LOVE YOU! And you are look FABULOUS!

Wanted to get a shot of both my children while they were both dressed up for our annual Xmas picture. They clean up real nice LOL My son Zach, who also played golf for Esperanza won the Coach's Award when he was there from the same coach that gave Danie hers. So we are keeping it all in the family. So very proud of both of you!!!

So from our home to yours, my children and I would like to wish all of you a very Happy Holiday season. (Great job on the lights Zach) :)

Kristin La Flamme - Fiber Artist

#1
Gotta spend a little more money cuz I just recently discovered Kristin's multi-media fiber works that are absolutely fabulous. Love how she is combining quilting with knit/crochet, beading, embroidery, text and so much more, then mounting it all on linen. You can view her work at http://www.kristinlaflamme.com/. She graciously agreed to let me to post some of her work because I wanted to share it with all my 3-d art students, especially Audrey, Ashley, Breeana, Anne, Ashlee, Marisela, Alma, Christie, Olivia, Angeline, Jullian, and Trisha. I know you 12 would appreciate her work the most. Love you guys!
#2
So all my art students, I ask you again, which one will I purchase?

#3
For EXTRA CREDIT on a pink piece of paper cut in the shape of a house, put your name and period on the front, and on the back side tell me which piece is being shipped to me from Hawaii where Kristin lives. #1, #2, #3, or #4 ?

#4

Margie Fish- Fiber Artist

Decisions, decisions, decisions! Which one to buy? Which one can't I live without? On my excellent adventure last weekend with my son Zach, I found the most comprehensive fiber store in Old Town San Diego called the Shepherdess, and inside a plethora of art, books, fibers, and beads to buy. But what really captured my attention were the felted vessels of Margie Fish. I just knew I had to own one of her works. These were the 3 I had to choose from, each one more unique then the next. Which one??

Well, I finally made my decision this morning after looking at her pix numerous times. The price range is from $200 to $250. So for EXTRA CREDIT for all my classes, on a piece of green paper cut into the shape of a vessel, put your name and period on the front, and on the back side guess which one I picked (the blue, the orange-brown or the green with pine needles around the top. Let's see how well you know what I like. If you guess correctly you get 3 extra credit points, if wrong only 1. Good Luck!

An Excellent Adventure

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday, with my daughter gone to the mountains with her boyfriend's family, I asked my son if he'd like to take a trip. I told him to pick where ever he'd like to go (within reason LOL), and with Plant Science being his major at Cal Poly Pomona, he thought it would be fun to visit all the gardens at Balboa Park in San Diego. So off we went on the Friday after Thanksgiving. And what a beautiful day to travel, brisk but sunny. And of course I had to fit in at least one fiber store on the way down. My son is such a patient boy with his mommy. :) So we stopped in Solana Beach to visit Trios Gallery (crafts store) and Knitting by the Beach. We also hit an orchid farm right outside Carlsbad Beach off the 5 freeway. Beautiful plants but way overpriced! Above is the root structure of an incredibly old tree in Balboa Park. I asked Zach to crawl inside so you could appreciate the scale of this old beauty.

For lunch we ate down on the water at Seaport Village in downtown San Diego. After getting a bit lost and having to stop and ask for directions we finally made our way to Balboa Park. The park was bigger than any park I've ever experienced and crowded, making parking a bit of a challenge. But it was so worth the struggle. The 1200 acre park was placed in reserve in 1835 and has 15 major museums, as well as many specialty gardens, plus a dog park. This man was playing the most beautiful instrument with the most unusual noises coming from it. In fact there were magicians and entertainment where ever you looked.

Here is their rose garden but honestly, I think the rose garden at Cal Poly is even better that Balboa's. The cactus garden was extensive but in dire need of some maintenance. I couldn't resist crawling into this cacti trunk below.

So many of the cacti are really old and so large. I was really impressed with the structure of this old beauty below.

Another garden that we visited was the Japanese Garden. But you had to pay to get in and it really wasn't worth the money. The Japanese garden at CSULB is so much better.

The Botanical Garden Lath House below was a favorite. Extremely impressive in size and scope of species.

Loved the way this plant was wrapping it's roots around it's neighbor in the pix below.

My favorite plants in the Botanical Garden area were the orchids. They had so many varieties, with so many of the plants in bloom.

Outside the Modern Museum were these fabulous mosaic sculptures that I knew my mosaics teacher Katherine would love.

Below is an interior shot of Ontario Orchids in Vista. We visited here on our way back home. Prices were so much more reasonable here and I bought Zach a very cool wall mounted orchid. We also were able to stop at a fabulous fiber store in Old Town San Diego called the Shepherdess. What a treat that was for me. I was able to pick up a couple of new books for inspiration. Thank you Zach for waiting in the car for a good 45 minutes while I browsed.

This was the view from our hotel window. We were able to get a room on the 8th floor in one of the two Marriott Towers in the downtown seaport Gaslight District. We overlooked the Coronado Bridge and the shipping lane. Zach drove us over the bridge so we could see the infamous Del Coronado Hotel. Would love to stay there one of these days. Below was a chef building a gingerbread house inside the lobby of our hotel. All in all, Zach and I had a really excellent adventure. Let's do it again next year son. I Love You So Much!!

Creative Framing Solutions - Student Art

Wanted to show off my 3rd year drawing/painting kids 1st Quarter Finals. They were to choose from either their color pointillism or prismacolor metamorphosis to frame up in a creative way that visually flowed without taking attention away from their original art work. So above we have junior Jason Kwon's piece and below is senior Jullian Kho's work. I think both the kids came up with wonderfully creative solutions.

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!