WHO'S IN YOUR CORNER?

CORNER OF THE ROOM DRAWING

BEGINNING 2-D ART

graphite on paper

It's always so much fun to see the liberties the kids take when they draw the corner of my room.

Their only requirement is to draw the corner foundation correctly,

but then they can get as crazy creative as they want.

The technique we use is called "Sighting",

and it's basically perspective but taught a bit differently.

For more on it see Dr. Betty Edwards book

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain.

I'm starting with an incredibly talented young woman,

junior Malaya Sithichoi.

She has impressed me so very much this year with her work ethic, 

positive attitude and as you can see her gift of drawing.

Just wish this was a bit darker so you could enjoy it even more. 

Next we have another amazing talent,

junior Ayesha Durrani.

She picked a very difficult corner to deal with but pulled it off beautifully

and with great skill and playfulness. 

In this next sensitive & lovely piece

 junior Eileen Lee has actually drawn the watercolor images on the wall,

so well in fact,

 that I recognize the art pieces.

And then I adore the sweet butterflies she has added that are flitting about the room.

Next we have junior Jazz Lo,

another skilled young artist with great potential,

who has turned my walls into an aquarium.

Delightful!

And we end with sophomore Matthew Flores whose skills have grown by leaps and bounds this year.

He is one of the most hardworking young men in the class

and comes in often to spend extra time on his pieces.

I'm thrilled to say that all these young ones will be back next year for another art class with me.

I'm so excited to be working with them again 

and have my fingers crossed that my class will fit into their schedules.

ROOTS & WINGS

Collecting Plants & Making Fairy Gardens...

and adding Succulents to the patio wall.

Buying Tropical Plants with super cool flowers 

at the most spectacular nursery along the Newport Coast,

one of my favorite places in the whole world.

And collecting seashells at the sea shore in Corona Del Mar...

with my beautiful boy last weekend.

Then receiving a glorious orchid bouquet the next weekend...

with brunch down in Laguna Beach

and a pit stop to see the Rescued Seals.

A visit to a new yarn store,

and time made to place flowers on my mother' grave...

with my incredibly thoughtful and patient daugther.

A mother couldn't feel more loved or cherished.

Thank you Zach and Danielle for always coming back to the nest that I built for you,

for taking time out of your hectic & crazy lives to spend these days with me.

What a special treat from the both of you.

I couldn't ask for more wonderful children.

Everyday with the two of you in my life has been a blessing and a joy.

LOVE IS IN THE AIR

A Very Romantic Asking

was played out this morning in my classroom.

Senior A.K. Manivannan formally asked the great love of his life senior Katherine Ku to the Prom.

He got here early at 7:30 a.m. with his buds to create the setting.

Clever boy brought in Xmas lights

 and pinned them to the wall in the shape of a heart.

He also had one friend at the door letting another friend inside the classroom

 know when to turn out the lights.

A.K. had his guitar in hand 

and when she walked thru the door he began singing to her.

Beautiful roses were waiting for her as she thoroughly enjoyed his performance.

Sorry the pix was so blurry Katherine.

But I managed to get a good one of the both of them when the lights were turned back on.

What I wasn't able to get a shot of was when he kissed the top of her head

 as she was gathering up her goodies.

Sooo sweet!

He adores her.

And below is the sweet poster he made for her.

Memories to last a lifetime,

Hail to Whitney High!

UNMASKED

CLAY MAKS

BEGINNING 3-D ART

clay & oxides

Every year I'm so pleased to show these off.

For many in the class it's their first experience with clay,

yet they control it like pros.

I'm starting here with superstar senior Elias Rodriquez.

There are two ways to see this work,

 first as a mask but also as a torso.

I'm wondering if he was aware of that as he was creating it?

And if so, what it meant?

Next up is Helen Park.

Helen has really impressed me this year with her designs and craftsmanship,

as well as her willingness to spend tons of extra hours perfecting each piece.

I really like how she controlled her oxides to create contrast between her design edges.

Very difficult to do!

And senior Charity Lizardo always delivers.

I love the ears she added and how playfully expressive her piece is.

I also like that she was brave enough to add a touch of paint for extra emphasis.

But it was junior Cheryl-Mae Mallabo's mask that really stole the show.

Two sided, 

super expressive,

and dynamic.

Cheryl is another one who has really outdone herself this year 

and I'm sure hoping you will be returning next year!

And check out the craftsmanship and design on this next one by 8th grader Malia Pulido!

So superb,

it's going on to the district art show next.

And how adorable is this one by senior Jordin Toney?

Brilliant how she embedded the paper clips into the clay.

And then young 8th grader Carl Estrella brings us this very strong skull mask.

And we end with junior Insha Khan.

Fabulous texture and patterning,

and love the beads she has glued on after the firing.

ANOTHER LITTLE DEMO PIECE

Woo Hoo, 

actually finished something  :)

Feeling good!

Gifting it to one of my favs at Whitney,

our Drama teacher,

Jodi Improta.

Tomorrow we will see the clay masks that my students made after this demo.

Demo pieces take usually no more then 20 minutes each

because that seems to be the longest I can keep my students attention.

Hard these days competing with the Internet,  

Ha ha

IN THE NEWS

Woo Hoo,

Whitney High School is in the news again.

#1 High School in the State of California &

#19th in the Nation.

We've had several news crews here recently doing stories on us,

but nothing like today.

KTLA's Gayle Anderson at  Channel 5 was here at 7:00 this morning to do several live interviews with our students and staff.

There were 3 already that aired this morning.

And I'm so thrilled,

she actually made her way into my classroom to film the students working 

and to do a short interview with me.

They've been shooting footage all day

 and then will edit it down to 3 minutes for their 3:00 broadcast.

So check it out at 3 today if you can!

TRYING SOMETHING NEW

JUNK MAIL PAINTING

ADVANCED 2-D ART

junk mail, magazines, modge podge, gesso,

sharpies & acrylic paint

For the past 3 years I've been teaching Carla Sonheim's Junk Mail Book,

and the kids enjoyed the process so much

 that they suggested I put it in the curriculum for 3rd year as a gigantic painting project.

So here we go.

I have two kids in this class,

both seniors,

Jonathan Hsu and Elias Rodriquez.

Let's see what they came up with.

Getting started Jonathan decided to use mostly magazine imagines and advertisement text.

Sadly,

I didn't get there in time to take a pix of Elias' beginning,

but I believe he did the same thing as Jonathan.

In Carla's original class she had use use only recycled pieces of mail.

But it all works.

Next we see that the boys have covered the magazine collages with gesso,

but not so thick that we can't see thru it to the pix,

and then Elias has gone one step further and given his a light acrylic wash below.

Above we see Jonathan has already started to draw his imagery in Sharpie right onto the gesso..

Here are the two finished pieces side by side.

Elias has gone on to build up his acrylic layers

 while Jonathan has used the lightest acrylic wash above and below his imagines.

Elias Rodriquez

Jonathan Hsu

A COLLABORATION

Rarely do any of my demonstration pieces get finished,

in fact if you were to go into my home studio,

my husband had to build me a huge entire wall shelf to stack all my UFO's on.

So it's very satisfying to see one of my works come to fruition,

even if it wasn't finished by me.

This is the Coil Trivet assignment that I demoed a few years back.

And of course I never got around to finishing it.

So this year one of my seniors who had been out ill,

Christine Caballes,

 who missed out making the clay mask project,

needed something to glaze while the other kids were glazing their masks.

I looked into my cabinet of unfinished clay pieces and gave her this trivet to work on.

She made it way more beautiful then I would have ever taken the time to do.

First she stained it with Red Iron Oxide, 

then put several shades of green and blue glass shards into the carved recess area.

When it came out of the kiln she glued on those lovely stones

(I think they are Tiger's Eyes)

and wella,

a collaboration that makes me very happy and gave her a perfect glaze grade.

Both of us loved how it turned out so I made sure she knew it was hers to take home. 

CONE ME UP SCOTTY

CHARCOAL CONES

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

charcoal on paper

The creativity is flowing in this group as they compose their cones in charcoal.

Let's take a look see.

Starting with this very sophisticated backdrop designed by Loren Kim.

When she turned this in for grading and I uncovered it from it's protective covering,

I was like "Wow"!!

So very impressed.

And check out this soft and lovely cone above,

that has feelings too.  :)

And Palmer Patel comes up with a clever design as well.

I just love how much thought goes into each of these pieces.

Ending with Mmasiolu Gamero's fun interaction between the cone and butterflies.

Butterflies are a signature symbol I found Mmossy including in many of her pieces.

Lovely!

AN ASKING

Prom is just around the corner,

 so many of our young men are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps

 and "asking" their favorite gals to prom.

We had one happen at lunch today in my room between two of my favorite students.

Super duper shy senior Efrain Quintero,

 surrounded by several of his best friends holding signs of support,

got up the nerve to ask very vivacious senior Sitara Puliyanda to prom.

The answer,

YES.

I'm beyond thrilled.

These two kids are so very special to me.

They are both in my second year clay class and topnotch designers and craftsmen.

And they are always teasing each other and are adorable together.

Have too much fun you two!

WHISTLE WHILE YOU WORK

BURNISHED WHISTLES

CERAMICS I

clay, sawdust fire& glue/water mixture & metallic rubbing compounds

Let's see what my clay peeps have been up to.

Making clay whistle.

Not an easy assignment,

 but they were up to it as you can see below.

Junior Gary Liu Jr. patiently trying to get his clay to whistle.

They had to burnish the pieces with smooth river rocks as well.

And after whistles came out of the sawdust fire they had a choice to either rub with 

the metallics or to use a glue/water mixture to bring out the natural markings from the firing.

All 3 senior boys here chose the metallic.

They are Tarun Desai, Andrew Chen & Jonathan Hsu

Metallic was put on by junior Manav Gandhi (far left) and senior Robert Dunn (far right), 

but junior Gary Liu (middle) used the glue sauce to seal the sawdust fired clay with.

Next we have the work of senior Jonathan Gong,

and juniors Jessica Andres and Annie Oh.

And lastly we have whistles by juniors Cathy Huang, Benjamin Barnett, and Nathan Lam.

I want you to look closely at Nathan's whistle,

note the 6 holes on either side of the whistle area?

He figured out how to play a full scale of notes by the hole placement 

for a whooping 25 extra credit points.

It was very difficult and required great patience with a lot of trial and error on his part.

But he did it!!!

This sawdust was one of the best firings of the year.

Note all the cool flashes of carbon as it marks the clay.

Credit for this goes to my lovely assistant Alyssa Olea (Whitney Ceramic Alumni 2012)

who comes in to load, fire and unload these beauties.

We use anything combustible for the firings.

Poor thing has to put her hands in horse and cow manure

so that we can reach the temps. we need to get to in the oil drum we recycled to fire in.

Keeps it interesting around here  

LOL

EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITIES THIS SATURDAY FROM 5:30 -8:00

ATTENTION WHITNEY ART STUDENTS

offering up 10 points of EXTRA CREDIT points for attending this art show at Chemers Gallery in Tustin.

Then drop in next door at Discoveries Gallery and get another 5 points of EXTRA CREDIT.

Just take your pix inside the galleries to show me you were there.

Easy breezy.

This Saturday is the Day! You + Chemers Gallery + TACFA + 28 local artists + Broadway in the Park = a heARTful hoopla! full images not shown The heART of Orange County All Media 2016 9th Annual Juried Exhibit Juror: Julie Lee, Bowers Museum Vice President of Collections and Exhibitions Artist Reception & Awards Ceremony April 23, 2016    5:30 - 8pm show continues through May 7th Plus TACFA's Broadway in the Park reveal! Let the Jubilant Joyousness Begin! Delight all your senses with an evening filled with artists, artwork, awards, auditory amusement, and gustatory treats! Join Chemers Gallery and TACFA for our 9th annual juried exhibit featuring Orange County's art scene from the perspective of 28 local talents. This year, it's all about the ART! Entries to this unique exhibit are anything but ordinary - enjoy interpretations centered on dance, music, culinary and visual arts! Congratulate your favorite artists in attendance, schmooze a little, and enjoy all this spirited evening has to offer! Not only will there be artwork to admire and desire, TACFA will be announcing their 16th annual Broadway in the Parkproduction! Hear melodies from their much-anticipated summer show performed by cast members of Anaheim's Chance Theater as you enjoy the artistic atmosphere. If you can't make the opening, come see this wonderful selection of local talent through May 7th. For a list of participating artists, click HERE. All works, including paintings, mixed media and photography, will be available for purchase - help keep our arts community vibrant! A very special thank you to Enderle Center for helping to sponsor this heARTful event. All links above shown in purple 17300 17th Street Suite G . Tustin . CA . 92780 714-731-5432   art@chemersgallery.com