From Our House to Yours...

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and safe Halloween

Charcoal Cones - 7th Grade

Here are my young ones again, gotta show off more of what they are learning.  After graphite we moved on to  charcoal pencils, vines and sticks.  We talked about light sources, cast shadows, value ranges, and foreground and backgrounds.  These were the top in the class.

Sabrina Chen

Annie Oh

and Alison Oh.  Beautiful work ladies!

Blog Challenge - Student Work

At the start of the school year I offered up an extra credit challenge to see how many kids were tuning in to my blog, and these were some of my favorite results.  These first 2 pix were the ones done by my terrific 7th graders starring from top to bottom, left to right;  Tiffany Pan, Chirag Doshi, Shreya Sheth, Sabrina Chan, Raymond Bolanos and Melissa Ongko.

The challenge went like this: : on a multi-colored piece of paper (yes you can make the paper multi-colored by using crayons, markers, collage and such) cut out an asymmetrical geometric or organic shape. Yes, it must be asymmetrical! Then fold, tuck, wrap, bend and mold the piece of paper into a 3-d vessel like the girls did above(see 5 Day Quilt Challenge). When you have a pleasing form glue, staple or stitch (or however you can think of) to hold the vessel's form. The most creative, interesting solution will win 5 extra credit points. For participating you will earn 2 extra credit points. Have fun!

I loved them all, so unique and well thought out, and I also felt the 7th graders did just as well as my older students.  Above we have junior Alice Zhang, junior Corrine Marcus, junior Sheila San Austin and below my personal fav was senior Shivanti Kariyawasam.

All three views.

I was especially impressed with the stitching Shivanti brought into the piece.

Then and Now - My Babies

Just a look back to see where they where then in 1996 and where they are now, my beautiful children, best friends always, Zachary Aaron And Danielle Rose, I Love You With All My Heart, Forever...

Peacock Feather as Inspiration - Student Work

Thinking about you Jaimee since you've been absent for the past 3 days.  But your gorgeous piece hanging on the classroom wall is helping me to not miss you too much.  :)

Senior Jaimee Chirico has been taking art classes with me since the 7th grade.  She is in 4th level Drawing/Painting/Design this year as well as Ceramics I,  plus she tried my Beginning 3-d class last year for a total of 6, yes 6 classes with me in her career here at Whitney High School.  As you can see, she is extremely talented in the arts, and I'm hoping that one day she might come back to be the new art teacher here at Whitney when I retire in 7 more years.  She abstracted this peacock feather in oil pastel, and then built a collage frame to mount it on.  Beautiful job kiddo!  Below is a close up of her color overlapping to achieve all the value changes.

7th Grade Linear Texture with Watercolor

My talkative, energetic, and always sweet 7th graders have done a spectacular job with this colorful and fun assignment.  Above we have Pearlina Boc, and below is Shreya Sheth.

And the adorable one above belongs to Melissa Ongko, and the beauty below is Annie Oh's.  Great job young ones! 

7th graders ONLY:  for EXTRA CREDIT on a piece of multi-colored paper cut into the shape of a rainbow, put your name on the front, and on the back put the name of the person's linear pattern piece that you liked the most.

Participating

This summer I discovered Jude Hill and her Spirit Cloth blog, and if you scroll down a bit (or click on Professional Fiber Artisit Jude Hill on the right) you can see the feature I did on her and her work. Currently she is offering up wonderful stitching workshops about how to create a variety of stitched feathers.  Her goal is to collect 1000 from stitchers around the world and put them together into a piece that she will donate the proceeds from to charity.  To date she has collected a little over 400 feathers, ours included from my students here at Whitney. 

Here's how the process went:

I offered this up as an extra credit assignment and had 7 students participate.  We started off with a bit of Eco Dyeing (ala India Flint)  We prepped our fabrics as we would for Tye -Dyeing.

Then choose natural dye stuffs to work with.  Many of the kids chose pomegranate seeds, Korean grapes and various tea leaves.   

It was fun to open the cloths up to see the results.  A rock that leached a bit of it's pigment into the cloth above...

fan folding and resisting with paper clips...

and laying down a few leaves and wrapping them around a stick as the stick was rolled into the cloth. 

These were some of the results.

My two favorites were done by junior freshman Karisma Dev and junior Rita Labib.

Below are the finished stitched feathers along with their story cloths that we mailed off to Jude.  Jude featured our pieces today on her blog with the stories.  Once on her blog click on Gathering Feathers on the right.

Junior Joyce Lee (above)

Senior Aparna Vancheswaran

Senior Ingrid Huang

Senior Johanna Paz

Senior Pauline Yang

Freshman Karisma Dev

and Junior Nida Fatima

Ever since I started this project I'm seeing feathers everywhere.  Here on my arm with a bit of shaving creme that came up off my leg LOL

So anyways the feathers flew off last Monday to Jude and she posted them today, so make sure you check it out.  One of my best art students this year, senior David Hyun, decorated the mailing package that we sent them in.  Beautiful!

For EXTRA CREDIT: cut a piece of brown paper into the shape of a feather and on the front side put your name and period.  On the back side tell me whose feather you liked the most, and hand your feather to me tomorrow when you walk in my door.

Doggie Update

Sophie had her cousins over again this weekend for a sleep over, so of course I had to snap a few pix.  Here's my new son-in-law Mike with Miesha.  Too cute!  And ladies, Mike's not so bad either  LOL

Alumni Julia Meng - Class of 2010

A shout out to you Julia. I saw this amazing little watercolor in Mr. Z's room the other day when I was visiting with him and immediately gravitated to it.  I asked him who made it for him and he said Julia Meng.  I don't remember seeing this piece when you were in my class, but I fell in love with it and asked Mr. Z if I could enjoy it in my room for a day.  The watercolor technique in it is brilliant, and of course it make me think about you and wonder how you are doing.  Drop me a line when you can. 

My First Gallery Show that Counts

Ok, here it goes, I tried this once before when I was 21 years old and it wasn't such a great experience.  So I never got on that horse again till now, some 34 years later.  All because my new husband believes in me and my art work, and he pushed me to try again.  So I truly hope it's well received this time around, but I gotta tell you, I'm soooo scared. 

With that said, I'd love for you to join me for the artist reception on Opening Night this Saturday, Oct 15 from 7 till 9 p.m.  If not, the show is up till December 3.

The gallery, The Drawing Board,  is brand new in Yorba Linda and this is the owner Jamie's first show to put on to the public.  The address is above but basically it's on the corner of Yorba Linda Blvd. and Yorba Ranch Road, in a nice little center.  Other artists will be featured as well, one with baked goods  :)

So here is a sneak peek of a few of the 60 pieces I have in the show.  Many are for sale and a few are just to show.

My art quilts...

my needle punch and embroidery...

my polymer clay buttons...

a few clay pieces...

my hand dyed, hand spun, hand knit baby garments (some of the hand dyed rovings and yarns came from my friend Lori Lawson at Capistrano Fiber Arts)

Crochet and felted pieces..

and above, one of my new favorites, inspired by the works of Morna Crites Moore, my Journeys series...

and my all time favorite, most exhausting piece I ever made, my garden sphere.

So please come join me this Saturday nite as I celebrate my art and the art of the other artists in the show with my family, friends and students.  See ya there!