Fall 2010 Week Two Wayne Thiebaud and Flipbooks

This week we took a look at the artist Wayne Thiebaud. He is a contemporary artist that had a love for food. Though he did traditional landscapes and portraiture he was fascinated with food particularly sweet treats. My kind of artist! He worked in pastels and oil paints mostly. Using his interest in painting and sweet treats we had the children draw their own ice cream cone. We had the children use oil pastels for this project due to its inherent nature of texture and blending capabilities. Oil pastels are a cross between oil paints, and crayons, though they blend so much better. I personally really enjoy using oil pastels because they draw like butter. You also don't have to press as hard to get beautiful intense color. When you blend and draw over other colors they mesh and move around on the page to create more natural color, shadows, and/or highlights. I think the ice cream treats the kids drew look amazing. Since, many weren't use to coloring over color it took a little coaxing to get them to understand how oil pastels can work that way. I love the way they turned out.

Our second project for the day were flipbooks. Growing up I remember being amazed by this concept that is the basis for movies and animation today. Flipping through these books and watching the pictures move and do funny things. We tried to break it down by using rubber stamps, and having one stationary object and one object that moves on each page. A simple enough concept, but challenging to do. The kids had a fun time stamping, and some stamps even moved way off the the page onto shirts and hands. The most difficult part was keeping the stationary object stationary on each page. The moving object was a much easier task for the children. Even though the stationary object may not have been perfect the small movements page to page make it interesting. I have to apologize to parents for any books that may have came apart at home. I had to replace new staples in the stapler we used and I think that they were an inferior staple. Who would have thought staples came in good, better, and best grades. If the book loses some pages you can re-attach the book back together with a home stapler if needed.

Fall Session Begins!!!

We are very excited that our fall after school session has begun. We have many fun projects lined up for this session. I guess I am a bit biased since I tend to think all of the projects are fun, but we wouldn't choose projects that I didn't think the kids would get a kick out of. Not to mention projects that can be fun and the children can learn something in the process. Tuesday, our first day of class, and I am happy to say our cup floweth over. As much as I didn't like doing it we had to turn some sweet children away because we are running at full capacity (this isn't a complaint). On our first day of class we made three simple whistle type instruments. First up was the paper whistle, which my friend brought to the table, and I never made them as a youngster. Super simple to make but not as easy to get the noise out of. We also made a straw whistle that sounds more like a kazoo. I get a kick out of this one because the first time I got it to work it tickled my lips and I almost jumped out of my seat. A feeling I wasn't expecting. Lastly, were our harmonica/kazoo which we have dubbed the harmonizoo. Shaped like a harmonica but sounding like a kazoo. Oh the sounds that were coming out of our classroom. It was fantastic.

This session we are also bringing more traditional art into the class. So first up basic drawing skills. Today we started off with reading the book "Harold and the Purple Crayon" to get things going. Then proceeded to talk about basic shapes and lines. All of the children practiced drawing basic shapes and lines. We then brought out a chair and had the class point out basic shapes and lines that made up the chair while I drew it on the board. The idea is to show the children that everything around us is made up of shapes and lines, and if we break it down to those simple shapes it can make it easier to draw. Sometimes things can be very daunting at first to think about drawing it, but focusing and pulling out what shapes make up an object can make it simpler and more accessible to draw. After that exercise the children were asked to draw something crazy from their imagination using simple shapes and lines. They certainly didn't disappoint. We had everything from bad monster pets, a thousand face house, springing eyes to buggy-snail clocks. We are looking forward to the rest of the classes and getting to know and appreciate all of the new and old faces that our joining us.

Nature Lover Day Three

Last day of our summer camp crafty craziness. Starting the day with a colored pencil finale. We created many large bouquets of flowers the children could draw from. They practiced drawing with paper and then we gave them a special card that they could draw their own botanical drawing on, and then give to someone special.

Terrariums, terrariums, terrariums, everywhere. This was incredibly fun project. I enjoyed making my example one many weeks before. This is certainly a project for all ages. We tag teamed this project with our pet rocks to put into the terrarium. The kids were able to paint a rock and while that was drying they made up their terrarium. They first filled the bottom with rocks for drainage, and then dirt and 2 or 3 plants into their terrarium. We gave them each a little frog or lizard to place into the terrarium as well (plastic of course).

To end the day and the summer session we created wiggly worm ranches with the children. We love the idea of taking something and turning it into a dessert somehow. So we thought the wiggly worm ranch would make a perfect dessert. I guess this might seem a bit unusual, but to me it screams chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate. We first had the kids make a sign for their worm ranch to make it appear official. We then had them do layers of chocolate pudding, and crumbled chocolate cookies. Then on top they put candy rocks and a gummie earthworm. They looked great, and I loved, let me rephrase that, LOVED it. Though to my dismay some of the kids, shockingly, didn't like them so much. I think because the pudding was a super dark chocolate that I made, as well as the cookies that were homemade. It was a chocolate lovers dream, if you ask me, but if I had to do it again for kids I would lighten up on the chocolate, and probably get an easy mix. Partner that with some chocolate wafer cookies. I think that would be more child friendly. Still yummy either way. Next summer we'll know better. That's it folks, next up fall after school craft kitchen!

Nature Lover Day Two

One day down two to go. Today we worked with the children on blending with colored pencils and practiced on flowers. We went over primary and secondary colors, and how they can achieve those colors with blending colored pencils. Some of the drawings turned out quite amazing. It is interesting to see how children can be drawn to different mediums. Colored pencils are certainly more controlled and exacting. Last week with watercolors those children who like controlled mediums had to let go a bit. I think it is good to let them try all different kids of mediums because it challenges them to think differently about how to achieve what they want to produce. Below are some photos from our session.

Tweet, tweet, or these days I guess I should say chirp, chirp so web savvy people don't get too confused. Birds are all around and certainly in the east bay. We get so many birds that come into our backyard. Some even get brave enough to come into my kitchen. They quickly realize they are in the wrong place when our small dog Bento goes chasing after them. While researching projects for the summer we came across so many birdfeeders, and we really liked the idea, but we wanted to do something that didn't use plastic bottles. My partner in crime remembered doing them as a young girl with lemon rinds and nailing them to a tree. We really liked this idea, and since I have two orange trees we thought it was a perfect match and compostable. So we sliced the oranges in half, and had the kids scoop out all of the meat of the orange leaving the rind. All of the students then got to fill their "birdfeeder" with birdseed and peanut butter. Then we spot glued some string to hang the birder with. They turned out cute, and they attracted some other living friends as well, particularly a bug that looked like a ladybug but was green and black.

Our last project for the day was our posable frogs. This is one of those projects I was really looking forward to because I wanted to have them around the house. We gathered some really great fabrics for them to, and being a fabric fiend it was fun going through all of our fabric and creating groupings that would work really well together for the kids. The kids picked out two fabrics that they liked best, and traced to pattern piece onto the fabric. Promptly then utting out the pieces, and then we assisted the kids in sewing the two pieces together and helped them turn the frog inside out. We used buckwheat hulls to fill up these frogs. They picked out pony beads for the eyes and we sewed them on for them. Some of the children wanted to help sew them on which was a great help. I just love how they turned out.

Nature Lover Week Day One

Last week of Craft Kitchen, and I'm getting a bit teary eyed. Nature Lover week is on. This is the week we are focusing on colored pencils, and having a hand at botanical drawings. The kids seem to be doing well even on the first day. We started out with working on some of the techniques with colored pencils. Techniques such as light and dark lines, thin and thick lines, cross hatching, stippling, and smooth. I was amazed at how well the children were seeing what they were drawing. It seemed as though most of them were pleased with what they had done. I always tell them that if they are happy with their work/art then that is all anyone can ask. Typically we are all our own worst critique. Below I am sharing some of the artists that we get to work with this week.

Once we finished with our botanical drawings we moved on to our sun print totes. We pre-made the totes using ribbon for the handle and samples of pants/jeans that we just sewed closed at the bottom. They worked well for this project, and we always love being able to use interesting items that we can customize some how. So the kids first painted the tote with a foam brush and water. This just gets the fabric wet and allows the paint/dye to bleed and cover easily. After they "soaked" the fabric they picked out the leaves they wanted to use, and made sure they all fit onto their bag. Then they picked out which color they wanted to use between a turquoise and magenta color. After we mixed some paint up for them they then coated their tote with the paint, and then arranged the leaves onto their bags. Using some small rocks since it was a bit breezy we were able to hold down the leaves on their bags so they would leave an imprint. The bag stayed in the sun for about 30 minutes before we unveiled them. The children then took all of their leaves and rocks off to see how what sort of imprint was left from the sun. These particular paints are sun paints/dyes by Setacolor. There are a variety of colors that you can get them in, and I bought ours from Dharma Trading Co. located in San Rafael, CA. The totes turned out cute. They each have a pocket on the other side just like jeans would.

While the sun print totes dried we moved on to our leaf jar lanterns. We used tissue paper, leaves, foam brushes, and matte medium. The kids cut up some tissue paper, picked out leaves, and went to it. They first painted some matte medium on the jar, and then stuck the leaf to the painted area and then placed one piece of tissue paper on top of the leaf. Carefully they pressed down to get the paper to stick a little, and then painted more matter medium on to the tissue paper from the center of the piece out to one side then the other. They repeated that all the way around their lantern jars. When lit they look really nice, and have so many possibilities.

Last project for the day we made nature prints. It was a chance for the kids to do some pounding. We picked petals out of flowers that we had. I have some bougainvillea growing into our yard so we picked some of that to print with. The bougainvillea actually works extremely well because it is really thin and delicate yet not to juicy. They children arranged their petals and leaves on the paper, and then sandwiched them with another piece on top. We didn't have enough hammers for each child so they had to take turns using them. They did a great job sharing and using the hammers. The petals and leaves get pulverized, but leave behind the color from within, and can create some really interesting patterns, and beautiful color too. I think the kids liked pounding those hammers, if only I were to judge by how loud it got. Fun stuff.