Felt Balls - Student Works

These are some very sweet, little tiny pieces.  Probably only about 1 1/2" by 1 1/2" square or so.  I give each Beginning 3-D student a baggie filled with recycled white and dyed wool rovings, and wool yarn snippets.  I demo how to fluff out their largest piece of white roving without pulling it apart, and then to surround it with the dyed fibers and yarns.  I also show them how to felt the wool with hot soapy water and agitation.  What the kids already have learned is how to embroider.  They are required to shape their wet ball into a form other then a ball, and then when it's dry to embellish it with whatever they can still find around the almost empty room.  By this time we are getting to the end of school and supplies are getting scarce.

This colorful top one was created by junior Stella Park, and below hers is senior Sunny Cheon's beautifully crafted dice.

This very clever star was done by junior Lydia Ko, and below we have a lovely triangle by senior Aparna Vancheswaran.

This cute little form above was made by junior Sheila San Agustin, and the Russian below belongs to junior Phoebe Liu. 

Love this very expressive bunny by senior Isabel Chua, she has even done a special design on the backside.

This spinning top was created by junior Nikki Shah, and this funky little race car is junior Tiffany Lee's. 

The darling bumble bee belongs to junior Hannah Park. and I'm loving the skeleton pirate by junior Ashley Chowdhury. 

I also really liked senior Daniel Ho's clever apple, and junior Julia Faith Chanco's very feminine ornament.

Junior Alice Zhang did this fun cube above, and then junior Edgar Aguilar came up with the clever dragon below.  The creativity that flows out of these kids is truly remarkable.  God, I love my job!!

Negative Space Plants - Student Work

This is always one of my favorite assignments with my Beginning 2-D kids.  They are required to draw a silhouette of a subject, then to draw from a live plant over top the silhouette in negative space.  With India ink they paint in all negative spaces, plus any other details they think will make the piece look good.  And lastly, they must bring something else into the piece that makes it extra special.

This expressive piece above was designed by very talented senior Michelle Chang, who I wish I could have worked with BEFORE your senior year, duh!  And below we have junior Gisel Zabala, who I'm hoping will be back next year.  Brilliant piece kiddo!

Next we have another superstar, senior William Luo.  One of these years William, you are going to come back to me and tell me you changed your major to art.  I so believe in your design skills as well as your happiness.  Good Luck to you my Friend.

Below, I feel so bad, I don't have the name written down of the fabulous youngster that created this piece.  So HELP me out young ones when yo see this post so I can make the correction.  Phenomenal piece by the way!

And then we have sophomore Shiree Lee who very cleverly put the red tempera paint into her Red Riding Hood piece.  Very , very nice kiddo.

And then there's senior Tiffany Yeh, extremely gifted young artist, and she's fast.  So she can be competitive in the art world..  But is she going on into art?  NOOOOOOOOOOOO.  Which breaks my heart.  But then, I have to always remember, we are an academic based magnet, we work with the smartest kids in the So.Cal. area. and these kids are gifted in MANY areas.  So Tiffany, best of luck to you in your chosen field, but always remember, I have great confidence in you as a very talented designer.

Here are two close-ups of her very sensitive ink and watercolor washes.

Next is senior Joan Kim, an actual art major, yeah!  I really like how she designed the wings with the arrow shapes that grow larger as they go higher.

And below hers is senior Victoria Wang with her lovely and sensitive design.  I like the small addition of blue watercolor. 

And lastly, senior Joseph Pang, who was so delightful to work with and get to know.  A really fun sense of humor, and when he finally got himself going, always did a great job.  Right Joseph??  :)

Welcome to My Blog Jessica...

It gets pretty silly here sometimes  LOL

What a Free Day Looks Like...

I found these two photos from a day that my Beginning 2-D kids finished an assignment a day early so I offered up some craft wire to them and turned them loose with my beads, buttons, and hardware findings.  And these were the ones I was most impressed with.

Loved the ring above that senior Archie Ravichandran made.  She was able to put so many cool goodies together and make a very pleasing design.  

This one above was clever in that it came together in a heart shape with many unrelated items.  It's always fun to watch my students produce such original pieces in such a short amount of time.  And I need a little help here with the owner of this work, it's been so long ago that I've forgotten.  E-mail me please.     

Wire Pendant

For some reason this sweet wire pendant got left out from a long ago post.  But it's clever and I want my next year's students to see it.  This very clever piece was designed and made by junior Ashley Chowdhury.

And yes, that's a rock from probably right outside my classroom door that the wire is wrapped around.  Before my students do the actual pendant that they are graded on, they learn on a practice one first, and I was so impressed with this practice piece that I photoed it.

Clay Masks - Student Work

I always give my Beginning 3-D kids a project in clay and they seem to really enjoy making masks.    And each year they seem to get even more remarkable.

This first one by Nikki Shah is so gorgeous.  Love how she made hers in two pieces and then connected them with metal.  Plus the way she finished it off with oxides really showcases her work.

This next one by junior Tiffany Lee was so realistic, a very difficult thing to do for a first timer.  Love the way  she distorted the right side.  A brilliant design idea, and of course the way she finished it really shows off really works with the design.

Below we have senior Shane Suniga with this beautiful, decorative piece.  Shane took a lot of care in building this work with both carving and applied decoration.  and like the rest, finished t off in a very complimentary way.

And one of my favorites this year belonged to junior Edgar Aguilar.  I really like how  he elongated the face and then used a metal chain and pushed it into the clay for embellishment.  And of course the finish looks terrific.

Enjoyed taking a Silk Painting Workshop last month with owner Jamie Kough at her Drawing Board Gallery in Yorba Linda.  This is Jamie showing us how to apply the dye onto the silk.

Below is her 1/2 done piece.

She gave us all round silk frames (from Dharma Trading Co.) to work on and a small bottle of gutta (a resist) to outline our design.  I tried silk painting once before and I forgot how difficult it is to control the line width of the resist.

This piece here, done by a fellow class member is coming along nicely as she paints on the dye.

Two more gals painting their pieces.

And their finished works.

I really liked the intensity that this gal was able to achieve with her paint.  In order to get darker values you have to reapply the paint many times on top of itself.  Kind of a hassle.

This is me getting started and the finished painting below with the gutta still in the silk.  You can see that my outlines were way too thick for the smaller design.  

And here is the finished piece with the gutta removed.  You can see that I lost a lot of my color intensity when the gutta was removed.  This was my second attempt at silk painting and I still have a lot to learn before I can teach this as a unit in my classroom.

There's a New Sheriff in Town

Congrats to my son-in-law Michael Leeb for graduating this May from one of the most grueling Sheriff's programs in the country, The Orange County Sheriff's Department. 

The ceremony was impressive and we were so proud to learn that Mike won one of the highest honors by graduating top of his class in academic achievement.  He earned the highest test scores of his group. 

(the very handsome one on the left below)

He was accepted into the Orange County Sheriff's Department by the highest ranking sheriff, Sharon Hutchinson, another huge honor.  

But the best part was when our daughter Julie pinned Mike's badge on him for the very first time.

Congratulations Mike, we are all so very proud of you.  Way to hang in there, you never complained, not even on the day they sprayed mace in your eyes.  You are our hero!

Now if you could just make my speeding ticket go away  LOL

Love you!!!

The Best Part

During our lunch break as the kids were finishing eating, they asked my husband to help them play a song on the guitar.  Not only did he learn their song but they all started singing and laughing together.  It was a very special moment for me.

Another perk to the workshop was that Glennis left me a whole vat of indigo dye.  So I played a little more with some thrift store dollies and a small piece of cotton.  I really liked my baby dragonfly and butterfly.

An even better, after we unwrapped the shibori poles that we had twined over with cotton string, I was able to unravel it all so that my students and I can embroider with it next school year.  Just look at all the different values, gradations and intensities we achieved.  So cool.

Life is like a Box of Chocolates...

Ya just never know...

what you're gonna get   LOL

The last time I saw this I had placed it on Mary Pinedo's desk at school, a present from one gardener to another.  I promise... I didn't try to grow this on purpose...sometimes s _ _t  just happens  :)