Work in Progress for Art Today

Well! Time flies doesn't it! After completing all my classroom observations for the Children's museum program, I got busy with family life for awhile. Recently, a couple of the other artists that just finished the program and I met to talk about; where do we go from here? Some artists have businesses they have worked to establish for some time, and they are using their new skills to enhance what they are doing. Some of us are starting out and trying to find the door toward creating a more stable income. One thing I want to do toward that goal is to develop more of an identity in my work. I have been working so much with kids the last few years and developing my skills as a teacher, that a lot of the work I have done has been toward a particular curriculum idea, as a volunteer or aimed at a certain age group of kids. I want to take the "Artist as Educator" experience and be able to market myself better as an artist in the community. I think it would be good to have a specialty in my work, and then be able to branch out and still do varied projects when needed. It was good to have a period of time to reflect on what I learned and where I might go with it. Now, the sunshine has finally returned and the colors outside are brighter and richer then ever. That was a long rainy season, right? This Spring I want to explore some work that I have not completed and am inspired to finish. One of these is this dimensional piece that I started last year. Inspired by a 1950's dimensional fairy tale picture I saw, this is a collage of xerox images, painted backgrounds and a hand-built scrap frame. It still needs something....?  I have plans to do a small series of these once I figure out where I am going with them. Just sharing a work-in -progress today....as I evolve...

What I've been doing for Art since my last post...

Ta-Da! It's March already! This image is from the Portland Children's Museum. It is a piece that symbolizes the work the museum is doing when teaching art using a constructivist approach. Children helped imagine it, design it and build it during classes there.

Back in December I was accepted into a program at the Children's museum called "Artists as Educators," along with about 10 other Artists. We have been busy attending workshops and classroom observations.  Our mission: to absorb as much as we can of what the museum has learned about kids through research, practice and a hearty respect for children and how they learn. Then, to share these approaches and teach art using these techniques so that children of all ages can create more enriching and meaningful visual work. I will have more pictures to share as I get them organized to post.

New Baby Name Signs

Sharing something today that I make for special new babies in my life, babies born to co-workers, neighbors, cousins. 
I am enchanted with the names of babies and how one ever decides which one to pick!
I like to paint custom name "signs" with the "new" name.
This one incorporates symbols  of wood and plumbing to signify the work of the father and grandfather. The bicycle wheel is a symbol of how the two parents met.

What I did for Art today, and yesterday...

Two new images here, from what I guess is turning into a Whirl/Swirl series of computer manipulated images that I made from an original painting of mine. It has been fun getting to play with the programs and learn how to do watermarks, etc. I hope I have saved them correctly in order to link to a publishing website for print orders. I'll be working on that in the coming weeks.











Recently, I have been selected to have go through a residency program for art educators with our local Children's Museum. I am excited at his new possibility and look forward to designing some art lessons for kids with the support of this wonderful program.

What I did for Art today

Still having fun manipulating my digital image I made from a painting. This is is the newest version and I have a couple others that I am still working on. Sometimes I get hung up on reducing and saving the image the right way to have options for posting etc.

Swirl Girl

 This is a piece I am working on now. In my first posting I showed the paper painting I started with, again the image on the left. Now it is flipped and I am evolving it along to it's next level. This stage, on the right,  took multiple image programs to produce.

4th Grade Art Lesson

These are some pictures from a volunteer project I did with one 4th grade class last year. The students had to follow directions, think of design ideas quickly and spontaneously, and fill the final work in with marker lines. It was great to see how each artist perceived the lesson. This was about a 30-45 minute lesson in a class of about 27 students, and another session was done in class to finish coloring.