Recycling At It's Best

WOOD ANGELS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

When I first started this assignment about 5 or 6 years ago, I required the kids to include angle wings on their abstract human figures, thus "Wood Angels".  But as the assignment has evolved, we've dropped the wing requirement, and brought in more whimsical characters.  So not just abstract human figures, but animals, insects, you name it, it's been done.  

The kids love working with the wood, especially learning to use the power tools.  I do a big safety demo., then monitor and check the students as they are learning to use them for the first time.  They learn to saw, sand, drill, chisel, dremel, wood burn, stain and use the jigsaw, and circular miter saw.  

Scary, yes, a little, but so worth it, as you will see in the results. 

Youngster Kaili Hamada (junior) here accidentally chiseled into her finger.  

So occasionally accidents do happen but all is well, it's all healed up now, and she's a happy camper as you can see. 

Here we go!

One of my favorite wood pieces this year, because it had so much personality, was created by senior Megan Yeu.  

I was thrilled that she was able to do a lot of up-cycling with hardware store findings that I pick up at garage sales.

Senior Jinnie Choi made this adorable, interactive bunny.  The head bobs back and forth, and I really like how she has shredded up fiber and glued it down for fur.  Very tactile!

Another favorite was made by junior Jonathon Madamba who took advantage of the wood burning tools as well as paper collage.

Junior Clarissa Bloemhof also brought in a lot of wood burning along with her wonderful paper collage.  Love that she has built an umbrella as an accessory which brings even more appeal to her work.

Senior Vinisha Kothari went all out on hers.  You can't tell the scale from the pix , but it was ginormous, and very impressive; full of color, wood burned designs and fun!  Below you can get a better idea of the size of this piece.

Here is senior Rebecca Tjahja cutting away with the jig saw to shape her wings.  And above is her finished piece.  Notice how she has built her boy and girl figures completely with hardware findings on top of the paper collaged heart?  Very cool solution!

Next we have the work of the very handsome and debonair young junior Justin Jang.  Love his take on Spiderman!

8th grader Annie Lin has cleverly used twigs for her arms, legs and neck.  She has also done a beautiful job with her staining and wood burning.

Senior Esther Woo has made this adorable young girl by incorporating recycled laces, and hardware pins for arms and legs.  But it's the idea for the dolls hair that is brilliant; gluing down the sawdust shavings that we were going to throw away.  Fantastic critical thinking woman!

8th grader Cassidy Chansirik brings so much personality to her doll by the tip of the head, the miss matched buttons, crooked smile and wire wrapped hair.  So sweet Cassidy!

This next one by junior Bianca Tolentino has so much content built in thru attention to detail.  Wow, heck out the side view below as well!

Senior Ema Shah made an adorable Santa complete with toy bag.

And junior Daphne Chiang gives us a sweet young woman dressed for the prom.  

  At least that's where I think she's going.  :)

I hope all of you have enjoyed seeing so many of the finished wood pieces.  

These kids worked so very hard to make them as wonderful as possible.

Karisma Dev - Mixed Media Wallhanging

Last year sophomore Karisma had an independent study art class with me, so she was able to set her own course.  This amazing bas relief structure was the culmination of several of the pieces she worked on put together.  So enjoy!

Side Views

Close up of the embossed metal heart

These next pix are side views of how she used recycled materials to build with to hold her dyed cloth up with.

Above are packing pieces that she glued together, and below are used pieces of wire from the scrap bag.

Rolled up newspapers, and toothpicks (not used)_LOL

A better look at her metal sculpture that dangles in front.

Again, from all the scrap pieces that were leftovers!

You are thinking really imaginative, outside the box, creative, impressive child??

Yeap!!  You nailed her.  And she is just so much more.  Working with Karisma on a daily basis for the past 5 years has been one of the highlights of my teaching career.

Can't wait to see where she goes from here!

Hats off to Joohi Sood  for raising two beautiful, bright, kind-hearted young women on your own!!

Wood Assemblages - Student Work

These were designed and built by my Advanced 3-D art students.  they had to jump thru quite a few hoops for their specific requirements, starting with a wood foundation, glass shards, wood staining, wood burning, wire, nails, and paper collage.  I might have forgotten a few.  Help Kevin  :)  What's so cool is that they all turned out so differently.  

You are looking at senior Nida Fatima's piece here.  Most students choose to display their work on a wall, but Nida knew she wanted to do a free standing piece.   

I really like how she built her tree with twigs from around the school and wire. Notice the soldered glass piece she made that dangles from the tree limb?  And the bird she made from FIMO clay?  and how the glass shards flow around the work to create a sense of movement.  Lovely Nida!

In this next one by senior Rita Labib, it actually is much larger then it appears her on the post.  I would say it was about 9" wide by 30" high.  Very elongated which I feel is a very pleasing format to work within.  

Rita began with lots of paint and stain on her wood.  I'm pretty sure she changed up the look and colors several times before she allowed herself to actually begin the layout design.  She worked from this huge plastic bag that she had collected tons of magazine pictures in and other misc. goodies that she felt might look good in her art works.  What I  really enjoyed about this piece besides the content (message), was the many layers that she built up with other chunks of wood; so that when you viewed it from the side, it was so interesting to the eye with many levels.  Sorry I didn't think to photo it from the side.  

This piece made a big splash at Open House and was bought by our Dean of Discipline.  I believe she will be hanging it in her office.  I love that our faculty and staff support our young artists.

This last one by senior Kevin Tang was a stunning work and I believe he gave it to his mentor and friend, our beloved Physics teacher, Mr. Z.  So all of us will be able to enjoy it for many years to come.  

Kevin spent a lot of time drawing and cutting out his wood shapes to get everything just right.  

I really like how he put his nails/screws in and wrapped wire around them, and the foil butterflies that he made and embellished with.  And this year Mrs. Z had donated these beautiful colored sands, so Kevin put them to good use by drawing glue spirals and sprinkling the colored sands over top for a very pleasing effect.  Also notice the cooper mesh and netting for the eyes.

These kids worked really hard to make these pieces happen.  Congrats you three!

Mixed Media Assemblage - Student Work

Senior Tiffany Lee, one of my top art students this year, shared with us several pieces that she had made for her portfolio for submission to art school.  This piece was done in her after school art academy class, and it is absolutely brilliant.

The piece was done in bas-relief, on a foundation that she built out from.  She bought a pre-made plastic face that she highly embellished to make it her own.  the body was sculpted from pre-mixed paper-mache'.

Even though this is a 3-D work, Tiffany is also showing us her outstanding 2-D skills as she painting color onto the body areas.   She is also working with a lot of glass shards for embellishment...

as well as a variety of lovely fibers such as velvet, netting, and silks, some of which she dyed herself.

I couldn't have been more impressed.  You really outdid yourself on this one Tiff, and inspired me to build an assignment around this work for next years Advanced 3-D kids.  Thank you!  And much luck at art school in New York.  Your instructors are going to adore working with you.  Much love to you as you continue your journey.

Artist Jim Thompson at Drawing Board Gallery

Recently I saw the work of Mixed Media Artist Jim Thompson at the Drawing Board Gallery in Yorba Linda that I thought would be of some interest. He calls his work Reclaimed/Redeemed which is very interesting to me because I really enjoy when artists used recycled found objects in their work.

But I have to be honest, what really drew me to his pieces where the clotheslines.  I grew up in the late 50's and 60's when my mother used to hang our clothes out to dry.  It's such a wonderful, vivid memory, one of my first actually, so when I see it in an art work it really tugs on my heart stings. 

 I don't usually like religious artwork, but his references to religion are so subtle to be almost unnoticeable.

I don't usually like religious artwork, but his references to religion are so subtle to be almost unnoticeable.

All the pieces above have been assemblages but this last work seems to be part self-portrait, part collage, and part painting, with another wonderful clothesline.