A LONG TIME COMING

SELF-PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

mixed media

Haven't posted artwork from my ex-students in a while,

but these pieces have been on my mind since 2017-2018.

These works are by 3 of the most talented kiddos I ever worked with.

All High School seniors in 2018.

The assignment was to do a Self-Portrait 

in any 2-D medium they felt most comfortable in.

Each final work is truly remarkable

and I'm thrilled I finally got around to showcasing them.

This was their last assignment of the year for me.

We begin with Sarah Oh,

a young woman headed off to art school

 (she might have graduated by now),

accepted into Art Center in Pasadena.

Over the years and even after she graduated from Whitney,

we kept in touch and I continued to show off her pieces.

Sarah excelled in both the 2-D and 3-D realms.

Sadly over Covid we lost touch.

If you put Sarah's name in my search engine you can she most all her pieces 

for me and beyond.

First of all,

I love where Sarah chose to work from,

the classroom floor.

Here she was able to prop up a piece of mirror as well as her canvas.

She created her portrait in Acrylics.

What I just noticed for the first time in this photo below

 is she has reversed her image from what she is seeing in the mirror.

Or maybe it just seems so in the photograph.

Not sure??

When Sarah was in my classes,

she frequently brought over top her main subjects images of animals,

a secondary content for the viewer to ponder.

What I find so visually appealing about her Portrait 

are the harsh cast shadows she put in.

I love that she chose to use violet and blue/gray tones.

And that she chose a canvas that was more vertically inclined than most.

An exceptional work Sarah.

I miss you and hope you are doing amazing things!

One of my favorite things about all 3 of these works are the close-ups.

I love to see the brushstrokes, color mixing & blending, plus the fine details.

Here are Tiffany Chen and Mary Kim.

Just look at the concentrated focus one needs 

to pull off something this difficult.

Both girls worked from current photographs.

Interesting that Mary chose to prop hers up 

while Tiffany laid hers on the table.

What do I recommend?

Usually by propping up your photo helps the image from distorting

and keeps it looking more 3-D.

By laying it down sometime shapes can become distorted.

But I've always believed in letting the kids choose what works best for them.

I only did 2 self-portraits in my lifetime,

one in Pencil (from a mirror in college) and one in Acrylic 

(from my High School photograph).

I hated the subject matter,

ha ha,

and completing them was like pulling teeth.

But I did because I was being graded on both.

Mary,

like Sarah,

 chose to deepen her shadows with warm tones that are so rich.

And I adore her color choices for the background blanket.

The aqua compliments her warm skin tones.

Mary is also working in Acrylic, 

but you can see her style is so much different than Sarah's.

Mary has watered down her paint so that it almost comes off as Watercolor.

Acrylic can be a very versatile medium.

Just lovely Mary!

And we end with Tiffany.

In her photo,

the lens of the camera caught an additional image in its refection.

Tiffany could have left it out,

but I'm so glad she chose to keep it.

Like Sarah,

she has chosen to give the viewer a real treat.

But I know it had to be killer hard to deal with.

But in most all Tiffany's works she does love to challenge herself,

always pushing to be her very best.

Tiffany has an incredible work ethic and headed to Art Center as well.

Couldn't be prouder!!

Of course the close up is amazing to see.

If you look closely you will note that she has chosen to bring Colored Pencils 

over top the Watercolor to help with the cast shadows.

This also brings delicious texture to her portrait.

Another superb piece!

As I look back at these girls and their Portraits,

I know I was very blessed to work with such incredible talent.

What a wonderful job I had,

to love going to work everyday to this.

I still miss it so much.

Special Note:

I looked for all 3 girls on LinkedIn and found 2.

Both Tiffany and Sarah graduated with top honors from Art Center in 2022,

and are now Illustrators and Motion Designers.

Wow!!!

One proud teacher!

FOR DEAR GRACE

I know I've probably lost quite a few of you in my blog audience 

because I haven't been posting much about my art students from the past two years.

I haven't quite figured out my rational for this yet,

other then I'm trying very hard to find a new path/journey in this new retirement phase of my life.

I was getting closer until this Corona Virus showed up.  

And now with all this time on my hands,

 I find I'm also having a hard time focusing and disciplining myself to post.

Mostly I've been outside,

 gardening and walking, 

then inside taking online classes in watercolor and eco-dyeing/slow stitch with India Flint.

At night I'm cooking (every nite which I thought I'd never do again),
 slow stitching and knitting.

And in between living vicariously thru you my blogger friends and the lovely work you are doing.

Many of my ex-students have been reaching out to me with work they are doing or had been doing
 in art school,

or the crafts they are getting back into during this pandemic
which makes me incredibly happy.

I was really excited when 2018 Alumni Sarah Oh sent me this link (below).

Grace, I think you will really enjoy seeing Sarah and what she's up to at Art Center in Pasadena.
She was interviewed by an LA magazine called Voyage LA.
I couldn't be more thrilled for her.
I hope Grace you get a chance to check it out.
I know you were one of her biggest fans.

http://voyagela.com/interview/meet-sarah-oh-sarah-oh-pasadena/

SCRATCH THAT ITCH

SCRATCHBOARD WITH WATERCOLOR

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

scratchboard, nubs/pen holder & watercolors

Every year the kids are intimidated but excited to try this completely new medium.

They've seen the results from years before and they want to give it a go as well.

I buy the nicest scratchboard I can find because if you don't it won't hold up to the watercolor.

I get mine at Art Supply Warehouse in Westminster, Ca. 

I'm sure they take online orders. 

You will also need two different types of nibs that fit into a pen holder.

One is pointy and the other is a scoop shape.

tiny amplers done by seniors Christian Balbido and William Tan

1 1/2 " by 3"

2" by 2 1/2"

I start the kids by demoing the two different nibs on a tiny piece of scratchboard.

Then I give them all a small sample piece and have them choose a subject 

and practice working on this little piece.

Then they practice their watercoloring over top.

In the meantime at home they are searching for a great subject for their larger piece.

Here is another sampler.

It looks enormous but is really very petite.

Probably about 2 1/2"  by 3" at the most.

I believe this kitty was done by Sarah Oh as her practice.

These are the larger pieces from last school year.

Some of these photos didn't turn out as colorful as I was hoping for

so I apologize ahead of time.

The best resources to work from are photos are animals because of their fur.

Most of the nib strokes are done with crosshatched or hatchure lines.

Some of the kids like to incorporate pointillism as well.

In this gorgeous owl by junior Angelica Luza, 

you can see her watercolor much better along with its range of value.

They had to bring in range in both the drawing and the painting.

These dogs above were beautifully done by senior Sarah Oh.

You can see the pointillism in the backdrop.
The kids were also required to make their own matt.
I really like the thin strip of gold that Sarah put on before the black matt.

And senior Christian Balbido choose to do his own adorable pup.

Loving the scale he worked to as well as how he cropped the piece within the matt.

 This regal and incredibly gorgeous piece is the work of senior Tiffany Chen.

I feel this work really shows off her amazing drawing skills and attention to detail.

I so wish there would have been an art competition at the end of the year.

I would have entered this piece.

Exceptional work Tiff!!

WAnd w end with this brilliant work by senior Mary Kim.

She spent so many hours on this work and it was worth the wait.

She wasn't able to complete it when it was due 

so this is the first time the kids from her class are seeing the finished product.

Exactly a year later because I'm so tardy getting these pieces posted.

CRITICAL THINKING GONE WILD

FRONTAL FRACTURED PORTRAITS

INTERMEDIATE 2-D ART

oil & water pastels, poster board, & various papers

My posting has been pretty eradicate lately.

I apologize,

I've been very distracted

(more on that at a later date).

But I'm going to try harder to get at least 3-4 posts up a week.

That's my goal anyways,

ha!

I'm very excited to share with all of you these gorgeous & creative portraits

done last school year by my 2nd year art students.

The kids were asked to find an interesting frontal portrait from a magazine or the internet,

in color and blown up fairly large so their teacher could see it.

The kids these days want to work off their phones

 and that's just too small for me to see their subjects to be able to help them.

I asked them to fracture these portraits into at least 5 different pieces.

They also had to enlarge the artpiece to at least 16 by 20 inches.

And they could choose to do the work in either oil or water pastel or both.

The students solutions are so well thought out and executed as you will see.

In fact,

the critical thinking in this first one by senior Sarah Oh is beyond creative.

We all loved the way she chose to fracture her work with floating bubbles.

And she asked if she could bring in additional media and I told her to go for it.

I see pen & ink, watercolor, prismacolors, & charcoal.

Sarah, 

I know you check the blog,

did I forget anything?

And then her background complimented the portrait so well.

Do you see the netting she glued down in the backdrop?

And did you notice that her bubbles are going off the edge of the format?

All are wonderful attention to details and just plain great designing.

Bravo young woman!!

Next we have senior Tiffany Chen.

Such a soft, lovely work.

I especially enjoyed the thin rice paper  she cut and glued onto the blue background paper,

makes it even more optical and dimensional.

But my favorite part are the petals of the daisies floating thru the work,

as well as how she built up the dimensional flowers.

I believe she used prismacolors for the value ranges on the petals.

But it was this one that all gravitated to.

It was so different then the others and was the work of senior Mary Kim,

an incredibly gifted artist.

The portrait she drew of her boyfriend was so realistic that we thought it was a photograph.

Here it is below.

She used oil pastel.

Instead of fracturing the face,

Mary chose to fracture the backdrop only,

something that no one had thought to do before.

I so love when the kids give me additional ideas for the future!

I have a give away area of old pieces of art that I don't teach with anymore.

And last year I put out several pieces of demo art that local Fullerton Ca. artist Mary Zarbano

had demonstrated Monoprinting on in the 1980's.

She had done them on thin parchment paper that was yellowing and falling apart.

So Mary plucked them from the pile and fractured and collaged them into her backdrop.

Brilliant idea I thought.

It's so great when the kids can repurpose.

BEST EXPLAINED BY SARAH OH

Hi, Ms. Sposa!
I just recently finished my second term at art center with a 3.85 GPA!!! (Only one B plus, but all A's other than that!!!! YAY!) 
It was a really tough term and I had a lot of tough projects that I've never done before, but I'm really excited to present to you the one final that was the most challenging for me.
The final was to create a piece that was LARGER than you on a material that you've never used before.
So for this assignment, I decided to do a lifesize portrait of myself on acrylic glass.
The front side will be realistic and it was all done in oil paint!
The back side is supposed to be like my "insides" with a lot of small little dog creatures running around inside my body. And for my brain, it's just a large toad!
I wanted to utilize the glass aspect of the piece and to do that, I made small windows in my body so that the viewer could look through the glass!
It was really a challenge to get that 5.5 feet tall piece of acrylic glass to stand upright, so I had to make these large wooden stands to keep it upright.
I've included some process pictures of the piece to help showcase just how much brainstorming I had to do for the piece HAHA

After seeing these pix that Sarah sent,

I couldn't even imagine coming up with something this critically thought out at such a young age.

And then to actually pull it off.

My hat is off to you my dear.

Your talent and gift assound me!

Thank you for sharing with all of us.

FOCUS ON THE NUDE

While in Art School the Figure never came easily for me.

It still doesn't.

But for two of my students,

one past and one present,

 they nail it like the champs they are.

We start with 9th grader Madison Plotkin,

one of the most artistically talented students I've ever had the pleasure to teach;

first in the Art Wheel in her 7th grade year,

then in Beginning 2-D Art last year.

Sadly she couldn't fit in my 2nd level 2-D class this year

(she had to start her Foreign Language)

so after school I recommended the Ryman Arts Program for High Schoolers.

It's an art program connected to USC with an extension campus in Fullerton

which is only about 15 minutes away from our school.

I've sent several of my students there over the years and they have given it great reviews.

Madison is loving it as well.  

She just recently started and is already doing amazing work like you see here.

This was her very first exposure to a live, almost nude model;

a highly uncomfortable situation for a high school freshman I'm sure.

What is so remarkable about this work 

is that not only was she required to draw it on a large scale,

but then she had to completely cover the drawing with Colored Pencil!

I was flabbergasted when she showed me this piece and told me about it.

It's incredibly done Madison and I'm so very proud of you.

What patience and time this must have taken!

And next we have 2018 Alumni Sarah Oh with one of her first live figures,

completely nude in black & white Charcoal.

For any of you out there who have had to be in a Figure Drawing class,

it's one thing to draw from a picture but quite another to work from the real thing.

I think that was part of my problem when I was in college.

It was pretty uncomfortable and I don't think I ever got past that.

So bravo Sarah for dealing with this young man in this 3/4 view.

Three quarter view is the most difficult view to work from

as it is when drawing a 3/4 head portrait.

You've got part of the body and head that is coming at you and is closer than the other parts,

 so you are dealing with foreshortening and perspective.

Also,

for most people,

hands are more easy to draw then feet because we practice hands so much while learning to draw.

What's really challenging is getting the head, hands and feet proportional to the body

as well as getting the arms and legs the right length.

Basically,

it's all hard.

Ha!

Did you know that the average human body is 7 1/2 heads high

compared to a baby that is 3 heads high?

A fun fact.

ALUMNI ART

Sorry I've been away for so long,

my family and I flew to the big island of Hawaii for my son's wedding,

so I took a couple of weeks off my blogging to enjoy all the festivities.

But I will try to be more present from now on.

I really wanted to show off this monumental painting by 2018 Alum,

Sarah Oh.

I believe this was her first time working this large.

I also believe it is her 2nd or 3rd self-portrait that she has painted of herself.

And I'm guessing it is oil.

Sarah,

could you please fill us in more thru the comment section on this work,

and what was required of you. 

In every work that Sarah has ever done for me (whether in clay or drawing/painting)

 she managed to bring in her love of animals or fish.

I believe it will be known as her signature style when she becomes famous,

as I know she will be one day.

Once again,

thank you for sharing yourself with us here Sarah!

FOR YOU GELLI

ARTISTIC INTERPRETATION

ALUMNI ART

ADVANCED 2-D ART

acrylic & oil paint, conte', charcoal, pen & ink, graphite & pastel

I asked Alumni Sarah Oh,

Class of 2018,

to send me a pix of her finished project from Art Center in Pasadena.

I'm not exactly sure what all the criteria was but this was an incredibly challenging assignment 

for a mere Freshman Art Major.

(I'm hoping Sarah will send in a comment and tell us exactly what hoops she had to jump thru)

Anyways I have a similar assignment for my 3rd year level 2-d kids 

in which they pick a famous Master artist,

research their style ,

then try to duplicate it using themselves as their subject matter.

But they only have to pick one Master!

It looks like Sarah had to pick 32.

Thirty two!!!!

You've got to be kidding!!

Did she even sleep for the semester?

And can you identify any of the Masters works here?

Sarah had to duplicate one of their famous portraits then use herself as subject matter

and in the Master Artists style and medium recreate her own portrait.

Of course then it looks like she had to mount them side by side and all together.

I just wonder if she clocked her hours on this assignment?

My current student in the Art III class,

senior Angelica Luza,

only has to pick one Master to research and work from.

And she doesn't have to create one of their originals,

only use herself and do her portrait in that artist's style.

She has picked Edward Hopper.

Can't wait to share it with you sometime next year.

(yes, I'm a year behind schedule posting, still)

Ha ha!

So stay turned.

EXPLORING THE HUMAN FORM

NUDE COIL FIGURE SCULPTURES

CERAMICS II

clay, glazes, oxides, ceramic pencil, & sawdust firing

I remember doing my first nude in my Ceramics I class when I was 16 years old.

Like my students,

my teacher,

Sally Foster Wilde,

gave us a choice between a male or female.

I choose a male and was completely in over my head.

She had us work in a  Reductive technique meaning we had to carve the figure from a block of clay.

That was my first time to do that as well.

The entire assignment was extremely difficult;

I remember my proportions were out of control,

and my craftsmanship was lacking.

And the only nudes I had seen were in art history books,

so those were my references.

But it was good for me to go thru this process.

I learned a lot about myself and my skill level,

as well as having to hang in there and push myself into something out of my comfort zone.

And even though it didn't look as good as some of the others in the class,

I was pretty proud of myself for having finished.

So as you view some of these works,

you may question why I put my students thru the same assignment.

You may also question if this is appropriate for a high school student.

(Most of my students who need nudes in their art portfolios for college 

have to go to outside art academies and pay for live models to work from).

Some of these might make you uncomfortable.

But I want to push these kids as I was pushed

 into a place they probably would never go on their own;

a risk that is too great.

It expands their minds and fine motor skills as well.

It's good for them and it's a part of life

as well as an art form to be studied and enjoyed.

And I save this assignment for my second level kids,

the ones who are going on in the arts and need this for their portfolios for college acceptance.

So are you  ready?

Here we go.

We start with junior Chloe Chang.

She picked the female form.

I asked the kids to work to at least 12 inches high,

most went over that.

I believe Chlo just made it to 12 " high but it ended up probably at least 20" wide.

There were several things I liked that Chloe did to her piece.

I love how she ended it with an organic lip,

and how she finished it off by applying Red Iron Oxide to her hand

 and stamping the form in various places.

You've got a nicely shaped behind as well Chlo.  :)

And do you see a bit of blue from the sawdust firing.

So cool.

That's very unusual.

My assistant and Alumni from 2012,

Alyssa Olea,

has been experimenting with different substances she is putting into these firings.

She is getting  interesting effects from salt, banana peels, cow dung, oxides, 

pine needles, newspaper and hay.

This next one was done by junior Eugene Ho. 

I believe that Eugene was able to get his to at least 18 inches high,

quite a feat.

He chose to do an older, slightly overweight male.

Love how he captured the sagging pectorals and the slight pouch of a belly.

And I felt the markings from the sawdust were gorgeous and striking.

Bravo Eugene. 

And then there was junior Julia Ruiz' piece.

A glorious male upper torso.

We all really loved how she glazed and decorated it. 

I'm pretty sure Julia was surprised at how well it turned out.

We were all so proud of her.

Next up was senior Sarah Oh.

Sara's piece was the smallest but looks larger here than it really was.

I'm guessing it was about 10" wide by 18" high.

All the other students started with much wider bases,

but Sarah started much smaller.

There is so much to love about Sara's female form.

The relaxed pose,

the ceramic pencil surface designs drawn onto either side,

the very realistic breast forms,

and how much of the body she built,

plus the asymmetrical ending at the top.

Just lovely Sara!

And check out the backside.

So fabulous, fluid and real.

You rocked this assignment Sarah.

We end with senior Ylia Madayag and her healthy looking male form.

It was quite an attention grabber at both Open House and Senior Awards Banquet nite,

as you might imagine,

but no one complained or protested.

I personally was holding my breath,

not sure what to expect of our parent community.

I was really proud of their openness, respect and acceptance of their children's work.

What I really liked about Ylia's piece was how it opened up at the top,

how she flared out the lip for such a pleasing ending.

I also thought the sawdust markings were quite lovely as well.

You are a brave young woman Ylia, 

and I'm so proud of you for giving this piece your all,

and not caving to all the teasing you got as you worked it out.