Artistic License Art Fair

Come join me at one of the best So.Cal. craft fairs of the year at Estancia Park in Costa Mesa (Oct. 29 & 30). I'm actually taking the day off work so I can be the first person in line when they open tomorrow. I'm bringing lots of money so that I can get new art pieces to teach with. I find that when the kids see a professional piece of art that's really well made and has great design, that they will rise within their own work to the piece they see. Plus then I'll have more great art to hang in my home. A win win if you ask me! Hope to see you there. EXTRA CREDIT: for 5 points of extra credit visit the show on Sat. between 10 and 4 and bring me back one of the artists business cards, or show me something that you bought there, or get one of the artist's signatures on a piece of paper, something that proves you were there. Hope you enjoy the show!

Block Party 2010

Two weekends ago, Jim had 3 band jobs, Friday night at Java Joe's, Saturday was this block party, and then Sunday he spent all day playing music at the Orange County Fairground's Annual Chili Cookoff. I went to the first 2 but I heard later that the cookoff was the best cuz of the free food and drink (also Wine Tasting Event), and because a lot of people got up and DANCED! This is the 2nd year I've attended John and Kaye's Block Party in Anaheim Hills, with lots of food and drink and a bit of dancing.

Because it was such a casual event I got to do a lot of the background singing (Jimmy shames me into coming up, but once up there I really enjoy myself even though I can't sing worth beans LOL). The pix look a little gloomy cuz it was drizzling on us most of the evening. Check out Kaye's amazing roses that are in bloom! They have a beautiful home and are the bands sponsors. John was able to book the band this last summer at the Pontresina Jazz Festival in Switzerland where they played their hearts out to huge crowds in the streets.

Check out this little cutie pie getting some eats off her grandma's plate.

The kids did most of the dancing that night and we all had a great time.

One More Tye Dye Post

Left this one out yesterday, enjoy! What I love about this assignment are there are so many different solutions.

Tye-Dye Extra Credit - Student Art

After my Beginning 3-d students finished up their preliminary exercises and experiments, as well as their main assignment, they had an extra week to go wild and tye-dye as many items as they could. The main criteria being that their clothing were made from 100% cotton fabric. So these are some of the results as they were dying on my walls. My favorite was the one above done by senior Abril Guzman.

We used Rit dye for a very inexpensive assignment. I bought only the 3 primaries and a black,s so it was also a lesson in color theory. As you can see the kids came up with some clever designs.

Color Theory - Student Art

My Beginning 2-D students are getting off to a strong start with this 1st assignment. Many of these kids are coming to me with drawing and design skills already in place, so it's really exciting to see what they are going to create. In this 1st assignment they were to design a piece in which they could incorporate their color wheel as well as their color schemes (monochromatic, analogous, complimentary and neutral), mix all their own colors except the primaries, and then paint with tempera. I also had them outline all their edges in felt tip marker to make the piece pop. The striking piece above was done by sophomore Ashley Tang. Can't wait to see what else she comes up with this year!

This next one was designed and painted by junior Michelle Lee. Just look at her attention to detail in the close up and what she did with the felt marker. WOW! Beautiful work woman!

And check out this sweet one above. What a clever design and so beautifully crafted by junior Sarah Zhang.

And lastly we have one of my favorite new students this year, senior Jennifer Park. I love this girl's energy and enthusiasm, and her big bright smile that she sends my way every morning. Plus she has some skills as you can see. What a lovely piece she has created. So stay tuned to see what else these kids are going to be creating this year. Just wait till you see their portfolios!!

Sophie Update

For those of you who have been wondering how we are getting along with the new pup, here she is, hiding from the recent thunderstorms we've been having. She's such a love, so well behaved, until we put her on the leash, then she turns into a little pill. Pulling, barking at everyone and everything she sees. We bought one of those Pet Zoom things that's supposed to interrupt their bad behavior, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But she sure is a cutie pie.

One Point Box Constructions - Student Art

These belong to my new crop of 2nd year Intermediate 2-d art kids. We have been working with one and two point perspective this quarter as well as shading. So these are a few of the one point box constructions. The top one belongs to sophomore Hannah Park, and I think the way she built her trees is brilliant. I also like that her subject matter goes out of her borders. The one below was made by sophomore Sam Arias, and I love that she incorporated her brothers hand prints into the piece, it really works with her subjects.

The Start of the New School Year 2010-2011

Woo-Hoo, I'm finally there, I get to start showing off my new students and their art work. I like to begin my Intermediate and Advanced 3-d classes with a fiber unit, so above my 3rd year Advanced kids are learning how to spin their own hand dyed wool roving on a spinning wheel. In the first year class they learned to spin on coat wire hooks I made for them. From left to right are seniors Angeline Tran, Olivia Hill and Breena Jhong. They are spinning on 2 of my Ashford wheels, and my new baby, my Kromski Sonata. My other wheel, my Schaht, is on overnight checkout with senior Brittaney Lee, who over this last summer has become a prolific spinner and is crocheting granny squares with her beautiful hand spun yarns.

My intermediate kids started their fiber unit with handmade knitting needles that they created by sawing up wooden dowels, sandpaper, shoe polish, and Polymer clay knobs. Then I gave them each a skein of Knit Picks Super Wash Merino yarn and they used acid dyes (kool aid and cake frosting pigments) to color them with. The finished products are above and below. The yarns and needles were done by junior Nandi Best. Look at her attention to detail in the patterning she worked out in her knobs, brilliant work! And notice how her yarns flow visually with the colors in her knobs. Those sure would make a swell Xmas present for your favorite teacher, Nandi. Hint , hint. LOL So as always, we are off to a terrific year.

Java Joe's Tonight

The Rockits and Highlites are playing again tonight at Java Joe's in Yorba Linda from 8 till 11, so join me if you can. The cross streets are Yorba Linda Blvd. and Yorba Ranch Road. Let's Dance!!!

Tapestry Weaving - Student Art

Well, with this last post, I have finally shown all the highlights from my last school year. I will end with senior Audrey Pulido's sweet little tapestry piece that she wove on a wooden frame loom in the Advanced 3-d class (3rd year). She was required to finish off the piece and showcase it in a special way. I like her solution. She floated it in a wooden frame that she painted and then made her own polymer mosaic pieces that she glued down over the frame. Great job Audrey, and thank you for all the years you worked so hard for me, and created so many outstanding works. And farewell to the fabulous artwork produced for me by all my students from 2009-2010.

Lump Boxes Continued - Student Art

Take notes Ceramics I. I forgot to include this shot in my last lump box post. I really wanted you guys to see the locking device on this sweet little lump box made by last year's senior Jennifer Su. Very clever girl!

Felt Balls - Student Art

My Beginning 3-d students get a taste of feltmaking with this unit on felt ball making. They begin by choosing from bags of recycled wool yarns and rovings. After being shown how to layer the wool they then stuff it into a nylon and dip it in hot soapy water and work it until the mass turns into a felt ball. After rinsing out excess soap they then manipulate their ball into another form (squares, hersey kisses, hearts, etc.), and let then dry overnight. What I really like about the one above created by Marisela Herrurte is that she stitched on top of it to bring in a bit of embellishment. What a great idea, so beginners this year, you will be stitching your balls :)

Preliminary Water Pastel - Student Art

Senior Brian Choi did this beauty last year in the Beginning 2-d class when we were building spheres in pastel. For the preliminary, they had to turn in was a simple sphere that was shaded from light to dark with a cast shadow and horizon. Well all of that is in place along with this wonderful creature he has created. What talent I get to work with! Speaking of talent, I just got an e-mail from one of my students who graduated in the early 80's, Rik Slayman. Talking about a blast from the past! Loved hearing from you Rik. :) Hope you enjoy the blog, you will definitely see some art assignments from your days here at Whitney. Check out what the kids are doing now for color theory, you are gonna be flabbergasted. And the before and afters are still exceptional, just like when you were here. Give Robert and Danny my love. You guys better come visit me LOL

Woven Pouches - Student Art

One of my favorite assignments to teach my Beginning 3-d kids is to weave a pouch using some of their hand dyed/hand spun yarn they made earlier in the semester. I have them make a basic cardboard loom with a flap, that they then warp with cotton, and weave from the bottom up. So look closely and see if you can see their beautiful hand spuns versus the store bought yarns. The 3 above were done by last years seniors Sherri Singh, Anne Guu and junior Kelsea Lee. Notice Kelsea's wavy edge treatment. Love that!

The kids were also supposed to incorporate some type of closure, like a button, snaps, ties and hooks. The weaving can get a bit tedious but it's so fun for the kids to see their finished and functional pouch when they take it off the loom. The piece above was created by senior Kevin Ni and senior Ashley Chang wove the fun and funky one below.

Mixed Media Metal Journals - Student Art

Last school year my Intermediate 3-d class created these fabulously detailed journals and I want to show you a little of what they went thru to build them. The top pix is of two of the pages out of senior Trisha Shah's journal. We will see her front and back cover later.

But before I begin I want to let you know that I was inspired to teach this assignment after I had seen and bought a journal from fiber artist Gail Perrone of Catfish Studio. To view her work see and click on her name under Artists I Follow on the right side of my blog. The kids built their frames from metal rebar that I picked up at Home Depot.

Here are a few close ups of the intricate beads, twisting and embellishing that they were required to incorporate into their frames. I had them incorporate a lot of metal findings as embellishments from the hardware section in Home Depot and Lowes.

The shot above was after the frames were built and the starting of the felt and fabric covers.

And here are the finished pieces. These are senior Trisha's front and back covers.

And two more of her pages above.

Above is the front cover of junior Olivia Hill's book. Love her design!

And above and below is senior Alma Gudino's journal. Alma took apart her wire sculpture peacock that she had made in Beg. 3-d and used parts of it in her journal. Clever girl!

My favorite belonged to senior Christi Conners. Below is a great close up of all her work and attention to detail.

And look at her color filled pages. The kids loved this assignment. It was a lot of hard work, but the results were so worth it. To see the results from 2 years past click on Metal/Canvas Journals.

Weekend Adventures - Part 2

Last Saturday Jim asked me if I wanted to drive up to Oak Glen to pick apples. I did this once before when I was a chaperon for my daughter's Girl Scout Troop and really enjoyed it, so off we went. Takes about an hour from Anaheim Hills to get there. Go east on the 91 Fwy which turns into the 215, then east on the 10 till you exit off Yucipa Blvd. From there turn left on Oak Glen and follow it up into the hills. Very easy. Once there you have a choice of many different apple farms to pick fruit from. We went to the furthest one out which is called Riley's Apple Farm. It's the one I went to with my daughter years ago.

You choose the size bag you want to fill (I had a 10 pounder) and off you go into the orchard. There were many varieties to choose from; Rome, Granny Smith, Fuji and more. I came home with 7 1/2 pounds of apples. Should last us well into December. At Riley's there are lots of other activities for the kids, apple pressing to make cider, rope making (below), a petting zoo, and historical building to explore. It's all free except for the apples.

After apple picking we stopped at Oak Glen Village to go thru the various crafts shops and picked up a couple of goodies. Then across the road we saw a sign advertising an Alpaca Ranch with Home Arts Gifts, so you guessed it, I had to see what that was all about. And it was so cool. All these peacocks strolling the grounds with lots of adult alpacas and their babies. This peacock let me get close enough for a pix and then promptly ran away.

Love the hairdo on the alpaca above, and below is a fella who just had gotta a hair cut. Their fleece is sheared once a year and turned into beautiful, soft wool yarn and roving's for spinning, felt batts, and fine woolen sweaters and accessories. In fact, the sweaters that she was selling were some of the most gorgeous designs I've ever seen, but fairly pricey as well.

There were many babies in the group, I thought this one was the sweetest below. I will definitely return next year, it was a great way to spend the day. The best part was the banana chip milk shake that we shared from Carl's on the drive home. YUMMY!!