Embroidery Basics - Student Art

I have an amazing group of Beginning 3-d Art students this year who are so enthusiastic and give me so much effort on all their assignments. And this one was just a simple preliminary piece to learn several embroidery stitches. But look at these kids go! The top piece was designed and executed by senior Nicole Gomeno. Isn't she something?

In the top piece middle we have a student who did not put their name on the back side of their work (oops), we will refer to this person as no name student #1 for the extra credit opportunity coming up. And below that one we have senior Anisha Mistry with the gorgeous butterfly piece.

These next 3 on top belong to junior Lorena Morales, sophomore Rita Labib, and senior Gabby Centeno. And below is a close up of all the work Rita put into her piece. I wanted you to see her attention to detail.

The ones above belong to senior Brenda Yee, junior Noel Kim, and senior Sylvia Tran. Can you believe what I'm getting out of these kids???

And as we finished up this preliminary assignment, I also had them put together a small pillow. They weren't even required to stitch on top,but many of them did for extra credit. Starting at the top left with the grapes going clockwise we have junior Elsie Aguilar, junior Claudine Talamayan, her sister senior Liezl Talamayan, no name #2, junior Marissa Fierro, senior Catherine Aguilar, junior Noel Kim again :), and in the middle senior Shalu Singh. Way to knock this assignment out of the park you guys! For EXTRA CREDIT: cut out the shape of a stitching needle from a large piece of gray paper. Put your name and period on one side and on the other side write the name of the person whose piece you liked the best from all the ones above.

Thanksgiving 2010

I just had to stick in this pix, shot from the Summit House Restaurant parking lot at the tip top of State College and Bastanchury Road in Fullerton. We've been having some crazy weather, one day rain, one day the Santa Anas are blowing and then the next day we drop by 40 degrees and have record lows. This morning as I was driving to school it was 35 degrees. I couldn't believe it! This shot was taken 2 days before Thanksgiving as a strom was approaching from the east.

Welcome to my home/studio where I actually cooked Thanksgiving dinner for J, and my kids. We had such a nice day playing scrabble and poker while we waited for the bird to be done.

Ta-DA.... there he is, the big bad boy, actually not so big only a 13 pounder and to be very honest a bit over grilled. Yep, I barbecued him up with a rosemary, onion, garlic, lemon,salt and pepper rub. He was still pretty deeee-lish even though the white meat was a bit on the dry side, and I served him with all the trimmings courtesy of Trader Joes. I did make my own mashed potatoes and gravy though. LOL And yesterday I made turkey soup with his leftovers. Yummy. Eating it right now as I post.

On Friday I asked J to take me to Santa Monica so I could visit my favorite fiber store, Wildfiber. He is always so patient with me as I browse and shop, never rushes me.

This shop carries so many beautiful fibers and great books. And sometimes if you are lucky you will spot a Hollywood star sitting knitting with all the regulars. It's oh so cool! This is comedian Tracy Ulman's favorite knitting store.

I think I know why it's so easy for Jim to be patient with me, this is the man corner below LOL

After Wildfiber, J drove me to the Santa Monica Pier, I'd never been there, and I was able to get these next couple of shots from the street and the No Parking Zones. We are soooo bad!

Like these 2 shots here. Top one is the amusement park on the pier, and the bottom one is looking off the other way towards Malibu. What a gorgeous day it was.

Then he asked me if I'd every been shopping along the 3rd Street Promenade. And when I told him no, he promptly found us a parking spot and off we went to send the next 2 hours enjoying all the sights. Of course it was really crowded, but there was so much to see, musicians, singers, jugglers, etc. plus all the people watching from our favorite outdoor cafe', Mickey Dee's. And I was even able to fit in a bit of Xmas shopping and some new boots for myself. :)

On the way home J cut over to Wilshire Blvd and drove us thru Brentwood (home to the O.J./Nicole slaying thing) I took a pix of the Bundy sign below, that's the street it all happened on. What I loved were the sky scrapers in the distance as Santa Monica turns into Brentwood which turns into Beverly Hills.

And then our last stop of the day as the sun was just starting to go down was to visit my dear Aunt Elena's grave at the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City. Aunt Elena passed away a little over 3 years ago now and she was our favorite Aunt. She was also my second mother and helped raise me (for the first 10 years of my life) after my father passed when I was 8 months old. I had the honor of designing her grave stone below. J cleaned around it and polished it up for the photo. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of her. She was a great lady!

And below is her view of the skyline of Marina Del Ray and LAX. She gets to watch the jets come in. She picked a breathtaking view for herself.

Saturday my battery died in my camera when my son took me to see the beautiful Xmas tree displays at Rogers Gardens in Newport Beach, one of our favorite places to go together. Hopefully I can get back there soon to take some pix to show you how spectacular the trees were. And Sunday I took J out for brunch and came home and made my shopping list for Xmas and got myself organized for the upcoming season. What a great 4 days off!!

Needle Felting Prelims. - Student Work

Aren't these gorgeous? And they are just my 2nd year 3-d kid's preliminaries to learn how to control the felting needle. Some of the felt pieces were cut from recycled hand felted pieces made the year before. Then others, like the flower petals above, were formed and needled felted from dyed wool rovings. The students were also required to review their beading skills acquired in the beginning class and sew down some seed and bugle beads. The colors that junior Nandi Best used in the work above and below, are so sensory. I just love everything she does.

In the bracelet above and below senior Kelsea Lee needle felted a fabulous design. I was drooling over her piece so she gave it to me as an early Xmas present. I wear it almost every day. Thank you Kelsea!!

Above senior Hilary Chan did this adorable key chain.

And starting with the pix above, these were buried in my picture file and I'd forgotten to blog them last school year. So I'm going to try to remember who did what. The sweet flower bracelet was made by last year's senior Alma Gudino. And I'm pretty sure the cute whale was done by then senior Christie Connors. And the bottom bracelet was done by alum Trisha Shah.

The little love heart above was completed by this year senior Angeline Tran last year, and the 2 cats were produced by alum Jullian Kuo, and then the bottom flower was done last year by this year senior Olivia Hill. And last but not least, the fabulous creature below was playfully put together by then senior Nicholas Francisco.

Veteran's Day Trippin'

Since I had 4 days off last week and the weather was beautiful, J and I drove up to the nearby mountain town of Idyllwild, it's the mountain right above Palm Springs, the one that the tram goes up to. The town is a little above 6000 feet, and it's an artist's community with several galleries and fun stores and eateries. Many people, adults as well as children, live there so they can attend the USC extension campus called the Idyllwild School of the Music and Arts. 30 years ago I took a summer class there and learned how to weave a Navajo rug from a Native American Indian weaver who came all the way from Arizona to teach the class. In the summer they hold many of the classes outside between the pine trees, it's absolutely beautiful. And you can here music wafting through the trees from the classical music students who are practicing on an outdoor stage. A fabulous experience!

On the way home going down the mountain we stopped at a couple of interesting spots to take some pix. J wouldn't let me take his picture so you have to see me instead. What I really liked both going up and down the mountain were the number of large spots to pull off at if you were slowing traffic down. And boy oh boy did the temps drop going up. It was 80 degrees at home when we left with the Santa Anas blowing but 43 degrees by the time we reached the town. And it was windy there too. Berrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

We saw a lake on the way up and stopped to see it on the way down. As you can see it was breathtaking.

But too cold to hang around at for very long. For the couple of students who asked here are the directions as best as I can remember them. Take the 91 Fwy. east to the 60 Fwy. going towards Moreno Valley and Beaumont and when you get to Banning start looking for the sign to get off at. Took us about 2 hours to get there from home.

Value Studies - Student Review

I'm very tardy in posting these. It was a review assignment in graphite, done during the first week of school by my Intermediate and Advanced 2-D students, the Advanced kids having to do a 13 step value scale and the Intermediate kids doing a 10 step value scale. The lovely piece above was made by senior Shirley Sun (2nd year), and the 2 beauties below were completed by junior Jaimee Chirico (3rd year) and sophomore Hannah Park (2nd year).

7th Grade Value Scales - Student Art

I'm also a bit tardy getting these posted, they belong to my 1st Quarter 7th grade wheel class. But I did want my 2nd crop of young ones to see them since they are working on a similar assignment. They were required to give me at least 5 values of grey within their scale.The 2 top pieces belong to Sarah Chan and Jason Yoon, and the bottom one was done by Jimmy Hwang. Pretty darn good for ones so young! Miss you guys! For EXTRA CREDIT: on Monday when you walk in the door hand me a piece of orange paper cut into the shape of a pencil with your name and period on one side and the name of the student who designed the most creative value scale. You can choose from the 7th graders here or from the advanced classes in the post above. The student who gets the most votes will receive an extra credit point if they are currently enrolled in one of my classes.

Jim's Wound Update

Many of you have been asking how Jim's leg is healing, so here you go, an up close look see. He's been to the wound clinic for the past 3 weeks and they are really helping him to deal with this thing. But what's so cool is that it's healing in the shape of a heart. :) So a heart scar, how perfect is that? LOL In case you didn't see the before pix, here it is down below, when the doctor was debreeding it. Yuck!

Tissue Collaged Portfolios - Student Art

My Beginning 2-D students just completed a huge design assignment that they then made into their portfolios to house and transport all their flat art work. The piece above was one that I featured 2 years ago belonging to alum Christina Lee. Let me show you part of the process below with this year's crop of kids.

Senior Tiffany Wang began her design (above) with some images she had printed out at home that she then collaged to a piece of 18" by 24" construction paper with Matte Mod Podge. She then chose a warm color scheme in tissue paper and ripped random shapes and collaged those over top her images (below)

She made another construction collage in exactly the same way but in a cool color scheme. She was then required to use a sun motif as her subject and cut the two collages so that she could alternate those sun designs when laying out her 2 portfolio tops. So below is her finished portfolio. You are seeing it laid open so you can see both sides. Many of the kids chose to protect their work with clear packing tape, that's why all the photos are somewhat shiny.

This next one is quite a bit more complex in how she laid out her tissue paper pieces. Instead of ripping, sophomore Ashley Tang cut all of her pieces before she collaged them down over top some sheet music and other varied paper images. She made this one in a cool color scheme and then one in warm colors. Below is her finished portfolio, after she designed her subject and cut and alternated her pieces. It's a brilliant design for one so young.

Below is a close up of one of the finished halves with the clear tape over top.

Both Ashley and senior Jennifer Park (above) figured out how to alternate their names into their designs (their names being the rays of their suns), clever girls! And my favorite this year belonged to junior Crislyn Ogawa (below). I will be featuring a lot of her work this year because she is an incredible designer and craftswoman. Because of all her thin and wispy shapes within her design, she came up with a new solution to lay them out before gluing so as not to loose placement. Hard to explain but it sure worked well for her. We've got such smart children here. I'm so lucky!

For EXTRA CREDIT: on a yellow piece of paper cut into the shape of a sun with rays, write the name of the student whose portfolio you liked best. On the back side write your name and class period and hand to me when you walk in my door tomorrow. :)