NEW ADDITIONS

Spent Memorial Day with my son and his girl

and they took me to Green Thumb in Canoga Park, 

one of the largest nurseries I've ever been to.

Get this, 

the nursery has an entire room dedicated to Fairy Gardens,

so I was in Heaven.

:)

The little doo-dahs inside are expensive so I only bought a few items.

I added that stone bridge,

and a little rock on the left with birds perched a top.

I also bought a pound of really lovely pebbles

and made a few pathways.

This little garden is growing so quickly 

that I've already had to trim some of the foliage back.

But I enjoy peeking at it when I get home from school everyday.

It really relaxes me.

MORE

My ginormous tulip got even larger this week.

All on one stem.

Incredible.

A new daff variety opened this week.

Forest Pansy from the front,

and breathtaking from behind.

And a fern haven this spring.

We weeded for 4 weekends in a row,

and found these.

IMAGINE..

International Day 2016

My beautiful juniors and seniors dressed in ethnic grab ready to perform for the school

on one of their favorite days of the year.

From left to right:

Sitara Puliyanda, Sarah Chang, Brian Hu, Archana Vancheswaran, Robert Dunn,

 Manav Gandhi, Tarun Desai, & Sandhya Raghvan

These are a few of my Ceramic I & II students this year.

ANOTHER SNEAK PEEK...

of my Beginning 3-D students felted pieces drying 

after I brought them home to full them in my washing machine.

Wait till you see what they made from them.

THE MOST PRECIOUS OF GIFTS...

comes with thoughtfulness and kindness,

 and a piece of herself.

Senior Hapshiba Kwon and

Fiber Artist Hazel Cindy Montes of Handstories blog fame 

have found each other via my blog,

and I feel have made a lifelong connection thru their love of stitching, 

fiber & the written word.

Hapshiba started following Hazel's blog 

after I bought two stitched art pieces from Hazel to share with my students.

I happened to mention to Hazel how much Hapshiba admired her delicate stitches 

on those sister ships.

Hazel was so moved by Hapshiba's reaction 

that she took it upon herself to make a special work for Hapshiba for a graduation gift.

Here we see Hapshiba as she opens her gift,

and the joy on her sweet face as she holds Hazel's stitched piece up for a picture.

Thank you Hazel for bringing so much joy into one of my all time favorite student's hearts.

It means the world to me.

LITTLES

These baby daffs look ginormous on the screen but in real life they are no larger than a quarter.

And they are so fluffy & frilly.

I wanted to pick them and bring them down with me but they looked so sweet

right where they were under the wood arbor that Jim built.

This is the second year these cuties have appeared in the mountain yard.

I think they are called Bleeding Hearts or String of Hearts?

All's I know is that they are so petite and delicate.

They will last all summer.

I laid on the ground to take this pix.

No wonder I'm itchy tonight.

LOL

And these tiny daffodils are about the size of a nickel.

They are just starting to open up and are delightful.

And I planted this rose for my Mother,

 Rose Patricia,

up at the cabin for Mother's Day.

Lavender was her favorite color,

and it bloomed last weekend.

This weekend it was loaded with roses as you can see,

and they are so small,

just like my momma who was 4'10" tall.

Missing her like crazy.

A SNEAK PEEK...

at a few of our pieces at the 19th Annual ABC Unified School District Art Show.

All the high schools in the District are participating this year.

so it's really interesting to see all the different types of art & levels going on within our schools.

I'm showing off a couple of our tables & walls...

but we also have our larger pieces on easels throughout the hallways.

The show will be running all next week,

so my art students,

 I'm hoping you will be able to drop in and see whose pieces made the cut.

Also offering my art students 5 points of extra credit for going.

Just take a pix with your phone at your favorite piece and show me.

The District Office is located 16700 Norwalk Blvd. in Cerrotos

 on the corner of 166th and Norwalk Blvd,

and is open from 7:30 till 4:30 Monday thru Friday.

Hope you enjoy the show!

WHAT'S IN YOUR BUNDLE?

TAPESTRY WEAVING W/ RUST & ECO-BUNDLING

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

natural fibers, rusty objects & windfall

Whoo Hoo,

a new assignment that was a hit!

A couple of weeks ago I posted about being inspired by the work of Alice Fox & India Flint.

So I asked my kiddos to put the two ideas together onto a tapestry woven base of all natural fibers.

And wella!!!

It worked and they loved all the processes and the results.

This was their second time to weave.

The first was in their Beginning year where they wove a 3-dimensional bird's nest.

This time I had them warp up a frame loom which they loved.

In fact,

junior Shreya Sheth liked it so much that she made two weavings.

When I brought them home for a gentle washing to full & soften up a bit,

my husband caught sight of them and was instantly smitten.

He wants one so he can use it for a guitar strap.  :)

Maybe when I retire  ha ha

And here they are now on display at the District Art Show.

Wish the picture was a bit better quality but the light is so bad where they are on display.

The Artists:

senior Liana Chie, juniors Jacqueline Yu & Shreya Sheth, seniors Antoniette Jabat, Hazel Cruz, William Kim, Kristine Luong, & Amber Wu

THE POWER OF THE BULB

The rain and snow this year have brought up some beauties at the cabin.

SNEAK PEEK...

of what my 4th Quarter 7th graders are looking like.

Having way too much fun!

Ha ha

And how messy they are getting.

Sorry Mom!

Doodling or Zentangling?

LINEAR TEXTURE WITH WATERCOLOR

7TH GRADE ART WHEEL - 3RD QUARTER - 2015-2016

watercolor & marking pen

Both.

Back in the day we called it Doodling,

but now it's called by a new fancy name,

Zentangling.

Let's see what the 7th graders did with it.

Reese Velez,

one of my most artistically gifted 7th graders this year ,

blew us out of the water with this very sophisticated design.

Than Mmossi Gamero brought in her signature butterfly to tell her story

on top of her atmospheric watercolor wash.

Loren Kim put in tremendous effort with this crazy amazing design.

And Athena Rose Sanchez found a clever way to incorporate her name

overtop her lovely design.

And we finish with young Palmer Patel 

who always gives us an original take on all his art pieces.

BARBED WIRE

NEEDLEFELT PRELIMS.

INTERMEDIATE 3-D ART

dyed wool roving, wool locks, recycled wet felted pieces leftovers, & handspun yarns

Before I show off the incredible felt 3-D structures these kids made recently,

I want to show their sweet little experiments in needlefelting.

If you've never tried the technique,

you start off with soft wool roving in various colors

and you punch threw it to tangle & dry felt it with a very sharp multi-barbed needle.

It's super fun & addicting but a bit scary.

Fortunately nobody was injured this year  :)

Here are all 8 of their prelims.

Senior William Kim

Senior Liana Chie

Senior Antoniette Jabat

Senior Hazel Cruz

Junior Shreya Sheth

Senior Kristine Luong

Junior Jacqueline Yu

Senior Amber Wu

The students not only used wool roving but handspun yarns, wool locks & wet felted leftovers

for a variety of textures.