Ak! Bug Infested Studio!!

This week we sculpted insects, snails and arachnids (real and imagined) with newsprint, packing tape and straws. The sounds of eight unraveling rolls of packing tape are still ringing in my ears! I saw amazing varieties of scale, details and imagination. Very exciting!

Zarinah looks for inspiration from above.

Hady designed a huge dragonfly!

Katie adds three sets of legs to her queen bee with the help of Miss Monique.

This week's Altered Book Challenge was bug infested as well!

Ilana takes on the challenge of the green grasshopper. It turned out amazing!

Amelia cradles her baby bumble bee. 

!!!

Annie sculpted a large Desert Scorpion. Watch out for that stinger!

Next week we're on to creating our insects exoskeleton's. We'll use plaster and paper mache. Stay tuned!

It Feels Like Autum

I love this style of making monoprints. Starting with a "sandwich" of stapled together drawing paper, freezer paper, then black paper. You sketch on the drawing paper, the freezer paper layer becomes the printing plate and the black paper becomes your final.

The kids picked it up really fast. The challenge was to show yourself in an Autumn landscape. Here are some results.

(Click to enlarge!)

Johnny's piece above shows how he hiked with friends at to the Mendocino lighthouse last Autumn. LOVE this!!

Tristan shows Mt. Tamapais in his fabulous monoprint which was different from his original print and yet totally captured his intent. We all learned that the sketch was a jumping off point and that the materials and process were going to limit us and challenge us.

Gemma's piece above captured herself swinging in her back yard in front of a brick wall. Gemma just turned five and she printed more than ten separate color layers to tell her story. Amazing, huh?

Zoey knocked my socks off with this portrait of she and I walking happily down the road of life together! Be still my heart!

AiLi created a sense of depth in her landscape above with the layered colors and trees. What a natural with color and perspective!

Marco's piece above shows an island with houses on it. Look at the colors pop on the black background.

Ivy's joyful piece above shows her with her mom, dad and sister walking through a field of flowers. Ecstatic!

Leah's impression of Autumn was a delicious, modern slice of berry pie! 
Topher (below) created a magical world of mountains with a giant toadstool. Look at that color combo!

One of my samples above. 

Zarinah doing her third color layer above.

Wow Faith! See the serpent coiling around the apple tree trunk?

Amelia's sunset with lavender sky above!

Katie was able to fit in every animal that she owns in to this successful monoprint above!

Rebecca taking a snack break in the sunshine.

I love this awesome apple harvest above by Jesse! 

Can you see the pink snake about to cross the highway in Azia's piece above?

Amity created a foreground with apple trees, middle ground ocean with a dolphin fin in the ocean, and sunset background in this
colorful landscape above.

Click on Simon's piece above to see the variations of color he got on this landscape. Liam showed a volcano erupting below.

We discovered that monoprints makes you giddy.

 

Thalia got so much detail into her piece above. I love the way her pinks and green just jump off the page! The same goes for David's piece, below! Look at the stretch of highway going off into the distance and the figure relaxing on the blanket! It's not easy to get that kind of detail from a monoprint.





Rebecca was able to show a mermaid on a rock overlooking the ocean. See the large shark lurking below? Juni chose a large rose below for her print.

Laura showed her trip to a farm, including a red barn, horse and herself touching a tabletop worm display.

Mia was able to capture a lot of imagery in this friendly apple orchard picture. See the driveway on the left?
See the large basket of apples in the foreground?

I started to get the hang of sandwich monoprinting with this happy little girl, above. I used paint right from the tube to create her beads. Super fun!

Annie shows herself and her dog Harpo above on a grassy hillside on a sunny day above.

Maggie got some beautiful effects by stippeling with her brush to create this landscape with self portrait,
above. Hady's joyful piece below shows her pushing her sister on a swing hanging from a beautiful purple.

Ilana, above, sitting on a crescent moon in a lavender sky and her second piece, below, a quick self-portrait. Bravo!

James still had cats on the brain from last week and created this powerful graphic cat creature. Love it!

All the layers of printing and pressing drove Katie outside where I found her doing dozens of  handstands.

25 Cats Named Sam

Andy Warhol lived with his mother and (reportedly) 25 cats in a New York apartment when he produced this collection of watercolor cats. It was a great way to teach line quality and editing. Aren't these cats fabulous? 

We used Dr. Ph. Martin's liquid watercolors, (the same watercolors brand that Warhol used) plus India ink applied using brush, pen, and quills.

This project's challenge was to draw an almost life-size cat, paint it with a watercolor wash leaving only the eyes unpainted. Then choose one color for the eyes, then simply convey what a cat's fur feels like, what a cat looks like and what their personality is with simple ink lines.

It's so wonderful to see all my returning students busy at work in the studio again! Yay!

And a big, big, big welcome to new artists Izzy, Ivy, Gemma, Marco, Ashby, Sky, Maya, James, David, Zoey, Mia, Amity, Jesse, Azia and Simon. 

I'm so happy to have artists like you in the studio and I can't wait to see all the projects we will do together this Fall!

What variety! 

What challenging cat positions and postures the kids took on!

What awesome results!

(I'm working on posting the rest of the cats!)