Eunju Kang - Professional Working Artist

Senior Hannah Park turned me on this morning to her aunt, Eunju Kang, a working artist out of Long Island, New York. I was so impressed by what I saw on her site (http://www.eunjukangart.com/) that I wanted to share her art with all of you, especially my drawing/painting students. I believe artists run in Hannah's family. I think she told me once that her mother is a fashion designer. Thank you Hannah for sharing your auntie with me!

Abstact Family Group - Student Art

These beauties belong to my 2nd year clay students. The requirements were to abstract at least 3 figures using a slab building technique. Then to bring lots of surface decoration into each figure such as stamping, incising, piercing, etc. After bisque firing, to then stain clay with oxides for the glaze fire. Afterwards they had to embellish and mount the figures onto posterboard. This top piece belongs to senior Steven Elalobar. I really like how he mounted it on the diagonal.

What always impresses me are the creative solutions these kids come up with in the embellishing and mounting processes. I love how senior, Etka Doshi, wire wrapped glass shards to her mounting board in the piece above, and look how cool the nails look in senior Wayne Chen's work below. And be sure to check out those brown beads Wayne incorporated, those came off of my very ancient Camp Fire Girl costume from the 60's when we used to earn them by doing good deeds. I always tried to earn the most beads so I could have the most to work when I designed and sewed them onto my costumes for our ceremonies. Now I know you are wondering if I ever fibbed on those good deeds to get to those beads. What do you think? LOL

EXTRA CREDIT: On a piece of brown paper cut into the shape of a bead put your name and period on one side and on the other tell me what's the worst thing you've ever done to get something you wanted really bad. Will I tell on you? What do you think? LOL

Good-Bye California, Hello Texas!

Just wanted to show off my gorgeous new orchid plants that my cousin Michelle gave me to take care of as she left for her brand new home in Austin,Texas. She has been there a week now and loves it. They even got 3 inches of snow yesterday, pretty much unheard of for Austin. And in that weeks time the orchid above opened it's first bloom. The orchid below was already blooming and loves it's new home. Thank you Michelle for these lovely plants. I will try to keep them alive LOL, but like me, they are gonna miss you like crazy. Love you girl! Best Wishes in your new home. I'll see ya this summer.

7th Grade Art Wheel - Graphite Spheres

Here are the best 3 spheres from my new group of 7th graders. Once again, within this new group of kids, I am seeing a lot of artistic talent. Can't wait for these young ones to sign up for one of my 2-d classes. From top to bottom: Sharon Fu, Kellie Zhao and Victoria Cheng.

Great News!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Our pup Bogey who inspired the quilt below. LOL

Guess what? Assistant Editor, Pippa Eccles, from Quilting Arts Magazine contacted me this morning and asked to possibly feature the art quilts that she saw on my blog yesterday. Can you believe it? I'm so thrilled I could hardly contain myself all day. I'm so excited for my students works to be featured in a national magazine. Especially the one that is most important to the Art Quilt Community. Doesn't get any better than that!!! :) So congrats go out to Period 4, Beginning 3-D art. I'm so very proud of you guys!! Also wanted to tell you how excited I was to get comments from two professional fiber artists, Susan M. Hinckley and Jamie Fingal, on my student's pieces from yesterday. Wow! (both their blogs are listed to the right under artists I follow). How COOL is that!

This is an example that I made last school year where I tried really hard to stay one day ahead of my students so that they could watch me demo. all aspects of the assignment. My subject was my very naughty pup Bogey Agrums, who when we first got him was so bad that we had to bring in a dog trainer to our home to try to teach us to work with him. Did it work? Not real well, he's still to this day a handful. One of the key words we were to use when disciplining him was Bah. So that's how the title came into being. My ex-husband found him on a golf course and brought him home to us about a year and a half ago. Now I know why he was turned loose on that course. His owners couldn't handle him either. But we try our best cuz he's so cute.

My beginners are currently working on building a paper mache collaged frame to float their quilt on. And on the back side they are to include a label and hanging device.

This piece I dedicated to my last years Beginning 3-D class. EXTRA CREDIT: on a piece of blue paper cut into the shape of a heart write down the name of the student whose appliquilt from yesterdays post that you liked the best and WHY. Put your name and period on the other side of the paper

Appliquilts - Student Art

Trying to find a day with enough time to be able to post all these incredible quilts that my Beginning 3-d class created. Also hoping that they are seen by Quilting Arts Editor Pokey Bolton, so that maybe they could be featured in her magazine. They were based on pieces done by Susan (Lucky) Shie (http://www.turtlemoon.com/) and Andrea Stern (http://www.embellishmentcafe.com/) from QA articles that I had seen that had inspired me to teach their style of quiltmaking to my students. See labels on right (click appliquilts) to see the piece I did after I saw the QA article as well as last years pieces that my students did. I had the kids start by tye-dyeing their own back and foreground fabrics, then after units on stitching and embroidery I felt they had the skills necessary to make an applied quilt or Appliquilt as Tonee White coined it in her quiltmaking books years ago. So I hope you love them as much as I do! Starting off with the owl is senior Kevin Ni, look at the close-up to see all his amazing stitch embellishment.

Here we have senior Jenny Dai and her close-up. I think I've probably featured close to everything Jenny has made this year, she is a terrific designer and an impeccable craftswoman.

And of course you have seen everything senior Ashlee Chang has made both this and last year. She is one of my top art students this year, hopefully headed off for a career in the arts.

Her close-ups are ridiculous!

And below Ashlee we have her boyfriend Daniel An's piece, also a senior. They sit next to each other and I do believe inspire and encourage each other to always do their best work.

An here is junior Brittaney Lee, one of my up and coming super stars for next year. Beautiful, sensitive workmanship.

Another up and coming star is junior Hilary Chan (above) who always comes up with outstanding work.

And then there is sophomore Kelsea Lee, who I adore. I'm hoping she will be back for another two years with me. Can you just image her work when she's a senior if she is doing this now?

And one of my all-time favorite students ever, senior Anne Guu, who actually wants to be an art teacher :) YES! Hoping she'll come back and take my place here when I leave in another 6 years. I'm grooming her now.

Winter Formal 2010

Just had to show off my beautiful girl Danielle and her boyfriend Tyler as they were headed off to their Winter Formal Dance at the Auto Museum in Tustin. The weather was gorgeous for them, I think we reached 88 degrees in Yorba Linda this last Saturday. They had a great time and as a mama I couldn't ask for a nicer young man than Tyler for my girl. Love you baby!

Attic 24

I want to introduce you to my latest blogging find, Lucy from Northern England, a fiber artist who is into crochet, exuberant color and finding happiness (http://www.attic24.typepad.com/)

She also takes amazing photos of Northern England, and showcases many of her latest projects.

Love these birds of hers, I'd would like to try to make a few for Xmas gifts next year. She also loves to cook and shows off some of her favorite foods. Yummy!

She is also into showing how she incorporates her pieces around her home. Such vibrant color everywhere. Love it! And every so often you get a glimpse of her newest little one sleeping on her lap while she crochets. Looks like a wonderful life.

The Rockits and Highlites

My favorite boy and his band, The Rockits, are gonna be playing tonight at Java Joe's in Yorba Linda, so if you are in the area, drop on by. The Highlites from Las Vegas will also be here singing with them. They will be playing from 8:00 till 11:00, so hope to see you there.

Shapes of Shadow Portraits - Student Art

Rarely do I show an entire class' work, but since my 2nd level 2-d art kids only number 12, I was able to group their pieces all together for the shot above. The assignment was to draw from a live model (senior Audrey Pulido volunteered). I put her in darkness with one spotlight on the side of her head. Then my students were told to draw ONLY the shapes of the shadows that fell on her head, neck and shoulders in pencil. Then they were to use black india ink to fill the shapes in with. Afterwards, I asked them to bring in at least one more medium to enhance the piece with. Many of them chose watercolor and collage.

Audrey got to pick the one she felt looked the most like her. The piece above by senior Shabnaz Khandoker was her pick. The piece below was done by senior Ashlee Chang. I like how she colored and cut out little tiles and then glued them back on in relief. Such a clever designer. :)

Above is a very sensitive and lovely portrait done by senior Brandon Liao, and below is one of senior Anne Guu's most incredible works to date.

Close ups of Anne's work. Isn't she amazing? The amount of extra time that she puts into her pieces really pays off in usually the strongest piece in the class.

7th Grade Wheel - Value Scales

Here we go again, meet my next new batch of 7th graders. Lookin' real good I have to say, with loads of artistic talent within the mix. This was their 1st assignment, to create a 5 step value scale, and these kids just went to town. Above we have Nikita Govind, Victoria Cheng, Amy Igarashi, and Sharon Fu. And below is a close-up of Amy's piece. For EXTRA CREDIT: on a black piece of paper using a light colored pencil so it shows up, put your name and period on one side, and on the other side tell me which was you least favorite assignment this year and why.

Audrey Pulido - Student Artist

I'm very tardy in posting senior Audrey Pulido's bag from 1st quarter, but better late then never I guess. This was a really labor intensive piece that Audrey, who is a 3rd year 3-d art student, started the year with. I gave her some white blue-faced leicester wool roving that she dyed with food color, and while doing that she learned to spin yarn on the spinning wheel. I then had her spin and ply her dyed roving (all the pink fiber you see in the bag)), then she designed and knit up this bag, needle felted the flower, and lined the entire piece after she washing machine felted it so it would shrink and be stronger. Phew! Lots of work. But look at what she learned and created. Remarkable piece Audrey.

Pam de Groot - Fiber & Textile Artist

Just had to share my new find with all of you. This is fiber and textile artist Pam de Groot from New South Wales, Australia. I found her on a friends blog recently (see column on right - Lori Lawson) and I just adore her work. She is a hand spinner, feltmaker, basketmaker, and so much more. She has a fabulous blog http://www.pamdegroot.blogspot.com/ and I thought I'd post a few of her works to share with you. Would love to know her process for her handspun yarns. It looks as if she felts her yarn after she spins it, and then in the pix below is she crocheting it into a basket? or coiling it? not real sure but I'm definitely gonna try and find out. Fabulous, that's all I know :)

And then take a look at this sculptural yet very functional hat she has made. Her color choices are bold and inspiring. So much fun to look at.