Mosaic Frames - Student Art

Once again my Beginning 3-D kids have outdone themselves with their first attempt at mosaics. This is a group shot of all the ones that were turned in on time. Let me show you some close-ups.

I want to start with junior Shayna Franklin cuz hers is one of my personal favorites this year. It's close-up below shows off the cool pottery chards she used along with the awesome checkerboard pattern. Plus look at all the text she incorporated. So well thought out. Hers was one of the most difficult to grout because of the multi-levels.

Another incredible piece came in from senior Abril Guzman. Working out a mermaid in her very first piece, extremely difficult. Way to hang in there woman! And then below another challenging piece done by senior Tiffany Wang of 2 giraffes in love :)

The class voted on their favorite piece and the most votes went to senior Catherine Aguilar for her bumble bees buzzing round the cattails. A lot of very intricate work. Congrats Catherine. Below hers is sophomore Rita Labib who came up with a very unique design. Love yours Rita!!

And 8th grader extraordinaire, Karisma Dev, once again comes up with a stunning work. Below is senior Anisha Mistry who spent hours working out her gorgeous design that balances so perfectly.

And look at the subtle stylings of junior Noel Kim, her work is so delicate and lovely. And below hers is another junior, Marissa Fierro, daughter of our Math teacher Ms. Fierro. Just look at your girl go - Beautiful!!

Junior Elsie Aguilar also dipped into the larger pottery chards and came up with this beauty. Notice how she's allowing a couple of the pieces to work their way outside the box. Love that! And sophomore Shivani Patel worked out this incredible design below. I really like those tiny black lines leading your eye thru the piece.

And one of the boldest works was done by senior Gabi Centeno. Love both her design and her choice of colors. A very striking work. And our last 3 beauties were done by senior Jonathan Han, and juniors Lorena Morales and Paul An. All 36 will be on display at Open House in April.

For EXTRA CREDIT on a black piece of paper cut into the shape of a frame, use a white colored pencil or crayon and vote for your favorite. Put your name and period on the other side. Just like always.

Guess Who's Getting Married????

Yep, that's right, you guessed it, me and Jimmy. We've been kinda talking about it the last couple of months, but he officially asked me Valentine's night. And I said YES, YES, YES!!! I'm so thrilled, I love this man soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much!! I feel like my mom sent him to me after she passed away, I couldn't ask for anyone more wonderful than him. Like Forest Gump said to his Jenny, "We are like peas and carrots", we belong together, forever. :) I love you James Vincent Sposa xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Professional Watercolor Artist Judy Schroeder

Today I'd like to showcase a local watercolor artist and gallery owner, Judy Schroeder. Her gallery, Schroeder Studio/Gallery is located in the Orange Circle in Old Town Orange, Ca., home also to Chapman College. Judy teaches great watercolor classes at her studio there; in fact 3 years ago I took a fundamentals class from her to brush up on my own techniques. I learned so much from her that I didn't pick up in art school, and now I incorporate her lessons into my curriculum whenever I teach watercolor (see Label- Watercolor Lemons). Jim and I went to visit her gallery last Friday nite after eating dinner in the Circle at Watson's Drug Store and Soda Fountain. The burgers there are yummy, and the portions generous. Anyways, Judy was working the store that night and she remembered me and we got to chatting about blogs, so I went on hers the next day and really enjoyed all that she had posted, from her drawings above

to her on location pieces above and her watercolor collages below. What I really appreciated was her showing her step by step process for watercolor collage. Very interesting and informative. Her gallery showcases many crafts artists as well as other watercolor painters. So drop on by if you can and tell Judy I sent you.

Extra Credit - Student Stuff

I just had to post the extra credits the kids turned in the other day cuz they were pretty creative. I'd asked the kids to use multi-colored paper that they were to cut into the shape of a face, and these were my favorites that were turned in. The solutions for multi-colored paper were so varied and the faces were fun too. My favorite one was done by junior David Hyun below. Loved the staples that he used for the hair. Soooooooooooo clever :)

These extra credits are used by the students to vote for their favorite student work that I put on the blog. The kid that receives the most votes also gets an extra credit point.

At least 20 years ago I took the funnest quilting class with national quilt artist Gwen Marston who wrote "Liberated Quiltmaking", and I have used her techniques ever after with my 2nd year 3-d art students. First I teach them how to sew on a sewing machine, and then using Gwen's method of allowing no templates to make the pattern with, off we go to create extremely original works of art with cotton fabrics that have been donated to my program. Before the students undertake this assignment, these donated fabric are color coordinated by either me or one of my trusted T.A.'s, and folded neatly and stacked in see-thru bags. These bags are then lotteried off to the kids. It's so much fun to watch the kids fight over some of these bags. At the end of choosing, I pick a bag for myself from the remaining ones. Every year I try to pick a different bag to change things up for myself. The reason I need a bag is because I demo with it as we proceed thru the whole quiltmaking process. So I have to stay one day ahead of the kids. Mighty challenging with my busy teaching schedule, but I somehow just manage it every year. This first quilt was one of my personal favorites in the bunch this year. It was made by one of my top crafts students, senior Brittaney Lee. I love the bag she chose along with her design. And what I was especially impressed with was her quilting design that she top stitched over the pieced top, it was so well thought out. Fabulous work kiddo :)

This next piece was created by junior Nandi Best. She went all out with her design of shooting stars. Hers was the largest made and took the most amount of effort. Phenomenal color choices for a spectacular piece!

A few close ups.

Not to be outdone was this piece made by senior Florence Buendia. The kids learned several patterns; log cabin, flying geese, strip piecing, sewing curves the Ricky Tims' way, and an 8 point star. The other patterns you see like Florence's pinwheel, the kids taught themselves after looking thru many of my quilting books. Can you believe this is their first quilt with the sewing machine?? The kids amaze me every year.

The beauty above was done by senior Albert Choi, one of two boys in this class. Albert has been impressing me all year with his work ethic, craftsmanship and his innate sense of design. Below we have senior Kelsea Lee's sweet landscape. She taught herself the house and the tree patterns from Gwen's book. Way to go Kelsea, your effort on this piece was truly something.

Above we have the work of senior Hilary Chan with her very subtle color choices and sensitive design. Watch out Hilary, I think Suzanne from the office staff wants to buy this from you at Open House, she was drooling over it. LOL And below, senior Vivian Vo log cabined her stars for an eye catching piece.

Junior Carolina Navor, who I've been waiting to come back to me since I had her in 7th grade went all out over her Xmas break to put together this very complex star pattern. Senior Jessica Jay put some subtle curves in and threw in a couple of flying geese for her pretty piece below.

And my other male, a brilliant 9th grade designer, Aman Patel, created this striking design above. And this last, very lovely piece was made by senior Abby Ilagan. Thank you all for your hard work and dedication to this assignment, it really paid off for all you.

For EXTRA CREDIT on a piece of blue paper, cut into the shape of an 8 pointed star (see Abby's stars above) put the name of the person who created your favorite quilt from above. On the other side of the star put your name and period.

One More 7th Grade Piece

The second assignment for my 7th graders was to use those 5 value steps that they practiced below and shade a sphere with them. But this time they weren't allowed to let the transitions show between values. This was extremely difficult for them but as you can see 7th grader Jane Juan did an outstanding job. I'm so impressed with her work so far. We saw her value scale yesterday (below). Sure hope she continues on in art with me! :)

Meet My New 7th Graders

Even though I was very sad to loose my last group of 7th graders (a very sweet group of kids), I'm very excited about the new crop that came eagerly thru my door as we changed quarters and rotated the wheel. My young ones went off to Ms. Improta for drama lessons and I received Ms. Yun's kids from Speech and Debate (20 some years ago Sunny Yun was a student of mine and now she teaches here with me- pretty cool stuff!). So anyways, I'm really liking these new ones. Their first assignment was to make a 5 step value scale for me and these were the most exceptional ones turned in. They belong to Jonathan Hsu (above) and Annika Brandes (below). Jonathan impressed with with creating more value steps then I asked for , and Annika with her wonderful shading style.

Above we have the very sophisticated design of Jane Juan and below Aaron Liu has managed to convey a sense of movement through his design.

And lastly we have the sweet little clock that Jean Kim drew and the clever sword design by Albert Lee. Great job all of you, I'm really looking forward to seeing all that you will produce for me.

Winter Formal 2011 - My Girl

And it only took 3 hours of prep work to make it happen; hair, make-up, and pouring herself into the dress. The results are above and below. Was it worth it, you bet!! But boy, oh boy, did she have one big mess to clean up the next morning LOL

Dan's boyfriend Tyler was so patient with her as 3 of us took shot after shot so she'd have plenty to choose from for her face book.

The flowers T picked out for her wristlet were gorgeous, the boutinier I paid for, for him, ridiculously expensive. I can't even imagine how much T spent on her wristlet. But those flower shops have you over a barrel now, don't they?

But the best part was the great time they had together dancing and hanging out with their friends. You make me so proud Dani, you are a beauty both inside and out. I love you so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Shapes of Shadows with Collage and Watercolor - Student Work

These 4 beauties belong to my 2nd year drawing/painting kids. It was a mixed media assignment involving india ink and a choice between watercolor and collage or both. I turned the lights out in the far corner of my room so I could put a spotlight on our subject, my 3rd period T.A. and model for this assignment, Michael Chen. Then the kids positioned themselves around him and were allowed to draw only the shapes of the shadows they saw on his face, neck and shoulders. Then to go back in and ink those shadows. After that they could bring in watercolor, collage of both. The top left piece belongs to sophomore Hannah Park (Michael felt this one looked the most like him), far top right belongs to sophomore Cindy Kim, bottom left is senior Kevin Aquilo's and next to his is sophomore Samantha Arias.

A close up of all the work both Hannah and Cindy put into their pieces.

And then a closer look at both senior Elsie Engly's work above, and Kevin's piece below. I felt that Kevin captured Michael's likeness the best. For EXTRA CREDIT, on a piece of multicolored paper cut into the shape of a head, put the name of the student whose piece you liked the best, and on the other side of the paper put your name and period. Give to me when you walk in the door tomorrow.