Watercolor Blob Creatures Inspired by Carla Sonheim

My 4th Quarter 7th graders went out with a bang last week with these whimsical, wonderful imaginary animal/creatures.  I'm teaching out of artist/illustrator Carla Sonheim's book Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals, my current Featured Artist of the Month.  

This was a great assignment to showcase a lot of the skills my 7th graders had learned in their 8 weeks with me; watercolor, pen & ink zentangling, charcoal, graphite, color schemes, and range of value.

I felt that the one above by Anna Park was especially well done.  The kids started by mixing up at least 2 watercolor pigments (perferablly within a color scheme), wet their paper with clear water in random drops, then dropped their water colors into the water drops.  They could blow it around, or tilt the paper to create more interest, or they could sprinkle smaller droplets of color around the larger blob.   

We let the paper dry overnight, then the next day the kids kept turning their pieces 180 degrees until they found a face or animal or something.  The kids had a lot of fun trying to find something.

Richard Tee above found a bird-like creature, and I love the stripes he added to the legs, and all the zentangling he incorporated.

And I'm finding at least 3 animals that Rachel Kannampuzha picked out and highlighted in her work below.  A brilliant piece Rachel!

I was really impressed that Matthew Flores was able to find at least 6 sweet and scary creatures in his work above.  Wow!!

And Bethany Chen really thrilled all of us by finding this man and his unicorn.

Britney Hong came up with this super sweet octopus-like creature.

 And Amita Muralidharan delighted us with her party animal.

Daniel Chung had a hard time finding anything so he just did his own thing which worked out really well for him.

And sweet little IsabelManalo found these very cool dancers; both people and birds.  These kids just give me so much creativity on this assignment.  

And lastly we have Ashley Perez who took the full 2 hours she had for the final and poured everything she had into her 2 creatures.  Crazy wonderful Ashley!  So proud of you!

I want to thank all my 7th graders for the best year ever!

And a special thank you to Eddie Ponce and Emily Yang for showing up almost everyday to help with the checking in and out of materials for you little ones, and to help keep you kiddos reined in.  LOL  It was a  blast!!!!!!!!!! 

Sneak Peak at Featured Artist of the Month

CARLA SONHEIM

Click on Featured Artist of the Month in the Bar above for more of her work and Bio.

Eco Bundling with Mango

I picked up this sweet cotton tank from the Good Will, hoping to get a chance this summer to try some eco- dyeing on it.  But when sophomore Karisma Dev checked into my class mid year I thought it would be fun to give the piece to her to experiment on.

I picked up this sweet cotton tank from the Good Will, hoping to get a chance this summer to try some eco- dyeing on it.  But when sophomore Karisma Dev checked into my class mid year I thought it would be fun to give the piece to her to experiment on.  I bought her two mango seeds and their peels, and after soaking the shirt for a few days in soy milk (mordant), off she went to create this wonderful design.  You can see where the seeds and the peels made their marks, and also where the string left it's marks where she tied up the bundle.  

This is the front of the shirt above and the back below.  Notice the lovely lace shoulder straps,   

as well as the hand embroidery work on the back side below, and how the same threads took the dye differently.  You just never know what you are going to get.  So much fun! 

I can't quite remember if we put this bundle in a eucalyptus  or ornamental plum dye bath.  Karisma, maybe you can comment on that if you remember.   Thanks!

Zach and Nicole in La Jolla

My son and his girlfriend Nicole sent me these great pix from their weekend in La Jolla, down near San Diego.  It's an upscale artsy fartsy community with lots to do there including caves to explore.

And sea lions to swim with.

I went there last summer with my daughter Dani and have yet to post the photos.  I know, I'm so behind!  She's going to be mad when she see's that I posted her brother before her.  Good thing she never looks at my blog  LOL.

By the way Zach, have I told you how much I love your Nicole???  :)  Good thing Zach doesn't look at my blog either!

Burning Calories while Jim Snoozes Nearby :)

Plying up a bit of yarn one of my alumni had dropped off after borrowing one of my wheels.  This is the beautiful singles she had spun up on my wrist and I plied it and skeined it up.  Thanks Brittaney Lee for the lovely yarn you left behind on the bobbin, I'll share it with my students next school year.

Raintree Montessori School

In Lawrence, Kansas, art teacher Cindy Sears found our blog and was inspired by the burnished primitive whistles my Ceramics I kids were making.  She sent me a lovely note, and asked if Id share the process with her so she could teach it to her 3rd thru 5th graders seen here.

So I sent her the rubric with a couple of sample whistles and off she went with the project.  Recently she sent me pix of the results and let me tell you, they were just as wonderful as what my high school kids where producing.  

Marvelous job to all!!

I was able to download 3 of the pix she sent, so here they are.  What I really like that she had the kids do at the end was to apply clear shoe wax then buff.  I really like the shine it brings to the pieces.  I'm going to have to try that next school year.  Thanks for the tip Cindy  :)  And thank you and the administration at Raintree for allowing me to showcase your school and your sweet students.  

The Boys Are Back In Town

This Saturday Nite, June 22, from 6:30 to 10:30 at Main Street Restaurant in Yorba Linda, the Rockits will be playing many new tunes.  So come on out and join me!

Let's dance, let's sing!!!

Primitive Recycled Dolls - Student Work

Had to start with you graduate Kevin Tang (hee hee) cuz in one hour I will be cheering you on as you get your diploma from Whitney High School, #2 high school in the state of California, #11 in the nation, OH YEAH !!!  So proud of you Kevin Tang!!!!

The assignment was for my 3 Advanced 3-D students to design a primitive doll with only recycled materials, both man-made and from nature. I adore what Kevin has done here with dried flower blooms, eco-dyed silk pieces, netting, wire and so much more.

In this next one by almost 2013 graduate Rita Labib, she has gone all out with leathers and furs from the Good Will, and some palm tree husks.  

Both Kevin and Rita used paper mache'  to form their heads. 

The feathers were collected on my nightly walks with the dog.

And this last one by very soon to be graduate Nida Fatima is a mixture of  glass shards, solder, leather and lace.  All three of these young uns learned to solder last year in the 2nd year 3-D class.

This was the first year for this assignment, I thought it turned out really well, so we'll see if I bring it back next school year.

Coil Pots - Student work

I'm very excited to share the coil pots made in my Ceramics I class. 

This first one made by senior Lilith Huang is simply gorgeous.  I especially love the two organic holes where we can see the black glaze on the inside.  The holes were not originally part of her design.  She took the pot home one night to finish it up and on the way back to school it fell over in the car and broke into several pieces.  All Lilith's teachers felt so bad for her that they allowed her to spend the whole day in my class putting it back together again.  I took her 8 hours of extreme patience to do it.  The holes resulted in the pieces that just wouldn't go back together again.  I'm glad they didn't, it looks so amazing just the way it is.  

Sorry about the color quality on this next beauty by senior Nikki Shah.  going to try to retake the pix tomorrow.  Anyways, this piece has so much movement and flows so nicely all the way around.  And the ending is brilliant Nikki.  Way to go with your remarkable design skills.  

In this big beauty by junior Justyn Li, she is trying to give the impression of  a lily pond.   I feel she has succeeded, including the feeling of rippling water.  Not many could have pulled this off Justyn!

Senior Sandra Osaji really got into the building of her pot.  She shows us great design with impeccable craftsmanship, and a lovely ending as well.

Senior Sophia Lu went to town building her piece.  I find it really interesting that she used two different color clay bodies then shows it off with a transparent glaze.

Junior Aditi brings us a lot of rhythm and movement with her coil work.  I wish I'd have taken a pix of the other side so you could have seen the visual flow around the piece.    

This pot by junior Carol Oh has been built with our white clay body, Arctic White.   When you glaze it with transparent it really is a spectacular look as you can see here.

I especially love this close-up of Carol's piece.

This work, by senior Emmerline Kim, is so lovely.  I love the asymmetry of the form and the way she glazed it.

And this last one by senior Kristen Palmer, is one of my all time favorite coil pots.  So unique, such simplicity but so powerful.  A brilliant design kiddo!