Last class at Old Poway Park

This week, the Poway class finished up their Pop art paintings using oil sticks.

Their suns were fired and ready to be taken home:

The class then worked from photo references. Their challenge was to combine 2-3 references into one drawing. They all did great with this! Some ended up on the floor:

above: Bria, Rachel, Saisha, Brandon and Ginjireh

Clay Classes

Lauren, Joseph and Hannah work on clay suns

"Yay! Clay!" That's what the kids say when they hear we are going to do a clay project. Here they are makings suns from slabs that they've rolled. An important technique they learn in this lesson is how to attach additions to a piece and secure it so it doesn't fall off. After a bisque firing, the suns are painted with glazes and then fired again.

Art Start "It's All About Color" class in Poway

Ginjireh and Eden make creatures

I had designed this lesson with this color class in mind....the students created color splotches using just the 3 primary colors. It's definitely a "process" oriented experience. The kids have so much fun squishing the paint together and discovering what new colors they come up with. Here you see them crafting aliens and creatures with their splotches.

Watercolor Churches

above: Abigail, Theo, Daniel, Kelton, Canyon, Sarah and Alicia. Paintings by Sarah Wester and Daniel Pierce.

This week, the CFS classes finished watercoloring the churches they designed in the previous weeks. They learned how to use a wet-in-wet watercolor technique as well as how to apply a graded wash.

Architecture!

above: Sarah & Kaitlyn, Lauren, Levi & Caleb

This is my favorite lesson! My students always come up with beautiful and unique designs.

Today we looked at a selection of cathedrals and churches from around the world: Chartres, Sagrada Familia, St. Basil's Cathedral in Russia, CA missions, and more. I threw the Taj Mahal in as well since it is a superb example of inspired architecture.

We talked about the various architectural components that distinguish these buildings from those that we see in Poway. Many features used in these buildings were influenced by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The kids then went to work designing churches and then transferred their designs to a large sheet of watercolor paper. To be continued!

Creatures!!

Today's lesson centered on creativity. This is a group of Christian homeschoolers so I asked them to reflect on God's amazing creativity in the construction of our universe. The kids viewed their paint splotches from last week, cut them out and reassembled them into imaginary creatures.

Above: Kate, Kristin, Priscilla, Kelton and Canyon with their other worldy creatures.

BUNNIES! A bunch of baby bunnies were visiting the CFS campus today. Sooooo CUTE!


FAREWELL JOSH! Josh will be leaving to go to school in Japan. Good luck, we'd love to have a field trip to come visit you!

Elements of Art: Color

From top: Rachel, Kelton, Calab, Sarah, art by Hannah W., Sarah W. and Kate.

Class started with a discussion of color and how it comes from light and pigment. We studied the color wheel, learning about primary, secondary,intermediate and complementary colors. I was determined to get some concepts into them so we went on to discuss triadic, analogous and monochromatic color harmonies and looked at examples of these in contemporary and historic paintings.

After that, we explored color mixing in a simple, yet extremely fun, activity using just primary colors. This generated a lot of excitement as the kids discovered pictures in their creations. I can't wait to see what they do with these "splotches" next week!

New Classes!

This week I started new classes for the CFS homeschool group.

Parents, here you can see what we did in class and what some of the concepts discussed were.

Our lesson was inspired by Mola embroideries made by the Kuna Indians of the San Blas islands near Panama. Much of the discussion was about sewing because many of my students didn't know what that was! I guess it's a dying craft.... I'll have to offer a sewing project sometime.

The assignment was to observe the different stitches and patterns used to decorate the Mola samples and to then then create an animal design decorated in a similar fashion using oil pastels rather than thread.

Caleb

Abigail

Benjamin

Nathan

Kaitlyn and Kate

Art Start Safari!

In Fall 2008, I offered Art Safari at Old Poway Park. We had so much fun! It was a great group of kids. Here are a few photos from our adventure:

We made African inspired masks from clay:

We painted Adrinka designs actually using mud and also drew elephants and lions. Here are some of the kids at work on their lions:

Scenes from Art Start Art Camp 2008

Full day campers have an opportunity to independently work on what interests them. Here, Kendra is turning the mask cast from her face into Bambi - her latest obsession! She also tries her hand at drawing forms using oil sticks. Super messy!

Art Camp - printmaking!

Campers in Poway's Art Start Art Camp cut blocks and printed multiples. Sorry about the blurry photos!

My students love watercolor! Here they have designed castles and are practicing their wet in wet technique.