Perspective Lesson for Kids

The thing I love about tutoring kids in art, is that I can focus all of my attention on one student. I have the luxury of time and focus to making sure that my one student "gets" whatever we're working on. I can modify my lessons to suit their individual needs, wants and interests. Whatever she's into learning, I teach. Whenever she doesn't understand a concept, we back up and go slower. Ahhhhh how nice it is to only teach one kid at a time. And it helps that my student is a rockstar and a sweetheart. I will very much miss our tutoring sessions when I'm in Portland. Anyway, onto my student's favorite lesson. I was blown away that this was her favorite. Perspective had to be one of my least favorite classes of my entire college career. Didn't help that my Professor had a big rubber stamp that said, "DO OVER" that he used liberally with bright red ink on our homework assignments.... that took hours. Ugh! This lesson takes a little know-how and basic knowledge in perspective rules and techniques. But it's not that complicated. Here, I'll help:

One-Point Perspective for 4th grade and up:

1.) All you need is a paper and pencil for this one. 

2.) Give basic concept of perspective rules: Why do we use these "rules"? They help us build anything 3D on a 2D surface and make it look real. Talk about how things that are farther away are drawn smaller to trick the eye into making depth.... etc. etc.

3.) Draw a Horizon line. Talk about what this even means - it's where the sky separated from the Earth in the viewers point of view. 

4.) Draw a vanishing point. Or, if you're me, you call it "The Magic Dot". Explain that that thing is basically the point where things are so far away that they're out of view. You're making an interior, now, so draw a small rectangle, with your "orthogonal" lines as shown in the bottom picture. 

5.) Erase the horizon line. Use the Magic Dot to help build objects for your interior. Remember you will have vertical lines, horizontal lines, and the others will connect to the Magic Dot. You can even go into ellipses, and how they operate in Perspective. Give it a try. My Tutee rockstar student really got into this lesson. At first it's hard, then its freeing to know this amazing, amazing rule of drawing. Have fun!! 

Look at the amazing bakery interior that my student made!!!! Can you believe she's a 4th grader? So proud :)

Environmental Posters with 4th and 5th Graders

Hello everyone!

So first and foremost, I have an announcement. In my last update post, I talked about how I was on the job hunt. Well, I found one! I'll be a Social Media Specialist and Graphic Designer for the Portland Jewish Academy in Portland, OR. I'm soo excited about this opportunity! I've been wanting to get up to Portland for awhile, since there's just so much going on there for artists. I've also been wanting to get into the Graphic Design field. It will be a great thing, I think. I'll be working half-time, but will be making enough to get by on. While of course I will need to be full-time, being able to pay my bills with part-time work initially, seems like a blessing. I'll be spending the rest of the work week trying to get my mural business off the ground in Portland. It takes a lot of time to do the networking/social media-ing/website building/business card-making, and all the rest that goes with promoting a small business. I'm excited to see what kind of new mural projects Portland will bring :) 

Since I'll be leaving Eugene in 2 weeks, I just finished my *LAST* school residency last week. This is really bitter-sweet. I have absolutely loved working for Lane Arts as a Teaching Artist. I've learned so much about teaching, and the kids have continued to make me laugh and inspire my own art work. If you are a teacher, please continue to follow my blog, as I hope to get on a teaching artist roster in Portland this coming Spring and will be posting more lessons as I create them. In the meantime, stay connected, as I'll be posting personal artwork and hopefully some mural projects as they happen. 

My last residency's theme was all about asking the question "Can art help save the Earth?". The 4th and 5th graders and I used that question as a base for our two weeks together during the after school program. We made a big mural with an environmental theme, and talked about how murals can be used to teach things to other people who view them, or express an opinion, or illustrate a concept. Because all 25 kids can't paint at the same time, we had other projects going while we rotated groups of painters. The poster project below was our first project. After introducing our "Big Question" about art saving the earth, we brainstormed some ways that we could use art in our own school, to help out the environment. We decided to make posters for the hallways and the bathrooms, that would help remind other kids (and teachers!) to use less water, less paper, etc. The kids could use any environmental theme they wanted though, so some of these turned out pretty funny. Anyway, I think they turned out adorable, and most of the kids really spent some time and effort on them. This would be a great Earth Day week project..... but really, do we need that as a reason? Every day can be Earth Day. :) Enjoy!

Warm and Cool Colors "Imagination" Lesson

Hello, all! 

I promised some more lesson posts, and I'm starting with this one! I'm loving how these turned out. If you want to try this with your kids or students, keep reading!

SUPPLIES:

- tempera paints in a variety of colors

- something for the paint to go in - we used egg cartons

- multicultural construction paper (9 x 12 cut in half sheets)

- green paper

- Large (11 x 17) white paper and smaller (9 x 12) paper

- brushes, water cups

LESSON:

1.) Show an example that you've made of this pieces. Talk a little about conceptual illustration. Is this a picture that could really happen, or is someone using their imagination to create it? You could also show some surrealistic or conceptual illustration by other artists. Ask the kids what they think your piece is trying to "say". Why did you choose to have flowers growing out of your head? I got some interesting answers from my students: "It's about using your imagination", "Our minds are blooming", etc. They got it.

2.) Have a little talk about warm and cool colors...review them. They have a choice of having a warm background with cool flowers, or cool background with warm flowers - for contrast. Have them paint their background on the big sheet of white - just designs and patterns covering the whole paper. The smaller white sheet is to paint the flowers. They should also cover their smaller flower sheet in paint, since they will cut their flowers out of this. 

3.) They can then make stems and leaves out of the green paper, and cut out flower shapes out of their smaller painted paper. 

4.) We did a self-portrait lesson right before this lesson, so the kids already knew how to set up their guidelines for drawing their faces. They should choose their skin color out of a stack of the multicultural construction paper, and then draw a self-portrait on it. They can draw in pencil and trace in pen, and color in lips, hair and eye colors. 

5.) Glue everything together on the background paper! This whole process took us about 3, 45 minute sessions. And as always, some kids go through it super quickly, some very slowly, so plan other things for early finishers. But you knew that. Have fun!!

Life update

Umm, wow. My last post was September 4th. Whoops! A quick little life update might be in order. And then I promise a few new kids art lessons are coming very soon, too!

Sooo how to summarize that last 3 months. Since getting back from Madagascar, Ive basically been job-searching, and here's why. While it would be my ultimate ideal to have 50% of my job be teaching kids art, and 50% of my job be painting murals for clients, at this point in my life, I've decided to pursue other paths to meet the same ultimate end-goal: being a full-time creative who gets paid to do creative things. I always hear that you should never, ever "give up on your dreams" and that you should "follow your bliss" and all of that. And in art school, you tend to hear a lot of "don't EVER sell out....man." I would say that one year ago, I was working really, really, hard at making that 50/50 Teacher/Muralist goal work out. And I still want it to happen, maybe someday. So what's changed and why am I job-searching?  I don't know how to put it any other way, other than my biological clock is ticking louder than ever. Ha! I know that at 28, I've still got plenty of time to make that happen. But, I guess I'm just realizing that I CAN still be paid to use my brain and creative energy, and also provide for a kiddo someday.... and have health insurance! As liberating as freelancing is, it wears on you. A stable, reliable paycheck would not be so bad. As fun as it is to work in a lot of different schools for a short amount of time (love the variety and changes of scenery), that wears on me, too. I'm ready for co-workers and a "work-family" that I can get to know, without having to leave them a few weeks later every time. The direction I decided to really pursue, is graphic design. Since learning Photoshop in my high school newspaper class, I've enjoyed the "techie" side of art. I like playing around with fonts and color palettes and arranging content so that it's visually pleasing. I've always made my own business cards and brochures and designed my own websites. That stuff is really fun for me. I didn't really think about bringing it to the forefront until pretty recently. I've done a little freelance work making logos, and the rush I felt, knowing my logo would be all over their printed materials and scrubs and street sign, was awesome.  This is a viable option for me, I realized. I think this will make me happy, too.  What it really boils down to, is that I am an artist who just likes the process of making art, in many different forms. I actually find I am MORE creative when given a set of constraints from a client, rather than creating something out of thin air for myself that can be anything I want it to be in the whole world.  I actually like being a commercial artist. Rarely have my mural projects been 100% concepts that I would choose myself for my own home..... but that's the whole point! My job is to get inside my clients' head and find out exactly what they might not even know they want. And then I make it for them, and it makes them happy. Whether I'm making that thing they want with paint or with a computer mouse, I think it would still be similarly satisfying for me. While that doesn't work for every artist, it works for me.  I'll never, ever stop loving the feeling of pushing paint around a canvas or wall, and if I get a full-time graphic design job, that doesn't mean I'll stop painting. But I won't have the added pressure of having that painting be something that has to make me money. That thought is incredibly liberating. So while it may seem that by working for an employer I will be giving up my freedom, it's actually gaining me a bunch of it, too.  So that's where I am right now... in the midst of job-searching madness, but still teaching and being a design intern at a local company in the meantime. Hoping to have something nailed down soon, but for now, staying busy, having fun, making stuff.

Stay tuned... next post will be more colorful, I promise ;)

- Corie