Matisse Still Lives

It's the end of November already and that means posting about this month's art lessons!  Here is the lesson I did with 3rd grade. (Look for more posts to come about my 2nd and 1st grade projects!) Read on if you'd like step-by-step instructions for this lesson. 

MATISSE STILL LIFE

1.) Introduce Matisse to the students. Show a short slideshow of his still lives. Ask kids what they noticed. What was similar about all these/how do we know it's the same artist? Make sure they notice: color palette, texture and patten elements, the thick black outlines in a lot of his work. 

2.) Set up still lives on each table. I used silk flowers in vases and fake fruit. Talk about how still lives were studies of composition, how an artist arranges objects on a page. 

3.) Hand out small sections of cut wrapping paper and have kids glue them down and cut off access to make their "tables".

4.) Kids draw still lives in thick black sharpies.

5.) When they're ready to paint, they can use tempera. (I use those little white round kids palettes with the wells all the way around.)

Winter Wonderland Window! (say that 10 times fast)

I just spent three days with a few artistic youngsters at Oaklea Middle School in Junction City, making this window painting!  Oaklea's after school coordinator asked me to come out and help the kids get their courtyard windows all dressed up for the season.  I worked at Oaklea last spring, making a big jungle-y mural near their gym.  For this project, the program coordinator chose 5 students who were the most dedicated and serious about the work we did last year.  These select few kiddos and I made this window mural!

Man, is window painting a different animal than regular mural-ing! The paint looks so different when it's got light shining through the back of it! Every brush stroke really shows up. The whole thing changed so much too as the sun went down since we were working from 3pm to 5pm!

The main concept I introduced to the kids for this project, was simple perspective.  As objects get further away from you, they get smaller and lighter in color.  Without further prompting from me, the kids remembered this concept as they painted their trees and mountains.  Proud art teacher!

Overall a good, new experience for me and the kids.  Hope to go back to re-haul these windows again for the spring! I'm seeing fields of spring flowers..... :)

Rice Gluing Adventure!

Madagascar mural project mini update:

I made some glue out of just cooked rice and boiling water. Then I went to the local graffiti wall and pasted up samples from 2 different mural fabrics: one thicker, one thinner.  Both fabric samples were painted with the paints we will use here in the U.S., and the oil paint that will be used once the mural is in Madagascar. Guess what? The glue worked amazing and adhered both samples to the wall! I think after this experiment, I decided I like the thinner fabric better...easier to put up and felt like it would stick better. 

(For other muralists: this is the Pellon 830 fabric. It's actually called "Easy Pattern" and used for pattern making. You can buy it at pellon.com . It's also pretty affordable and comes in small amounts (the other fabric only comes 250 yards at a time!)

Also, I'm going to silkscreen some of these designs on t-shirts to help me fundraise for this project and future ones. I'm so excited that this is happening!!!!!!! If you want to see what project I'm talking about,  read this. Yay!

October Art Lessons

I've decided to start blogging about the art lessons I'm doing with my students every month.  I teach 2nd and 3rd, and have recently added 1st grade as well.  I love to read other art teacher blogs, and thought I would add myself into the mix.  Maybe I can inspire a few other teachers out there! So look for lesson posts at the end of every month for some more ideas this year.  Hope you enjoy!

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TIM BURTON HAUNTED HOUSES

For my 3rd grade October lesson, we did haunted houses inspired by the art and movies of TIM BURTON! If you'd like to try this lesson, read on!

here's what you will need:

- yellow, purple and orange construction paper

- thin and thick line black pens (sharpies work well, just make sure to put scrap paper underneath kid's work areas... sharpies can bleed through and stain desks!)

- glue sticks

- (optional) a "Principles and Elements of Art" poster

Prep: 

- Cut yellow and orange sheets in half. Students only need half a sheet of one of these colors or their choice. 

Lesson:

- Introduce the principles and elements poster and explain that for each lesson, we will be learning about another principle or element of art.

- Introduce Tim Burton and give a super short bio (wikipedia him!).

-Show slideshow of a few Tim Burton character designs, art and scenes from his movies. Ask students to be thinking about what makes his art look like his art, but hold their comments till the end.

- Ask students what they observed during the slideshow.

- Go back to principles/elements poster and explain how Tim Burton uses "Positive and Negative Space".

Project:

- Talk with students about what makes a house look haunted. (Ex.: pointy shapes, tall and skinny house, ghosts, old and broken looking, etc.)

- Students cut out moon shapes out of their half sheets of orange or yellow paper and glue to the top of their purple sheets.

- Sketch their houses in pencil first

- Small details in skinny black pens, use thicker sharpies to fill in larger areas.

FOLK ART BLACK CATS

For my 2nd grade October lesson, we did black cats inspired by FOLK ART! If you'd like to try this lesson, read on!

Here's what you will need:

- White paper

- Oil pastels

- Watercolors

Lesson:

- Introduce concept of Folk Art.  (Art that is usually made by indigenous cultures. Rather than “fine art” (art that goes in galleries) It is usually on useful items or for decoration (baskets, on pots, etc.). Usually they are not trying to make things look “real”.)

- Show slideshow of examples of Folk Art from around the world. Ask students to hold their comments till the end.

- Ask students what they observed during the slideshow.

Project:

- Tell students that there are a few rules for this project:

#1 They must draw a border on their pieces.

#2 They must draw the cat inside that border as big as they can fit it.

- Students draw in oil pastels, without coloring everything in.

- Paint over drawings with watercolors.

Good news!

I haven't updated this since I was in Philly?! Oops.

First of all, the idea I talked about in my last post is beginning to come together.  I wanted to do a mural on fabric with my students here, ship it over to Madagascar, and have a Peace Corps Volunteer finish it up and install it in their village with their students and/or villagers.  Part International art project collaboration, Part a way to get word out about important topics. (The murals would have to do with Malaria prevention and be mostly visual communication for those who can't read). 

So the update is, I've gotten the "go ahead" from both my old supervisor from Peace Corps Madagascar AND the arts council I work for here.  People have responded really well to the whole thing, so that's exciting!  I've got a few 4th grade classrooms that are interested in being the pilot project!!! AND, a current Peace Corps Volunteer who wants a mural in their village! A perfect match!! Only thing is, the time that the 4th grade staff has available is in early December. That's like, a month away.  And I still have some questions and specifics to work out with the volunteer getting the mural....but they have  sketchy phone service and no internet.  They are relaying messages to and from me, bush-style, by relaying messages to people who know other volunteers who DO have those modern conveniences.  I definitely know what that feels like, and am sympathetic to that.  It's just that I don't have a ton of time to plan this thing.  I want my first project to be PERFECT and GORGEOUS and WORK SMOOTHLY so that it will bring many more murals for Madagascar....or Africa....or even more of the world!!!! ...Someday.

What I think is the strange part is this:

#1: This idea first hit me like a lightning bolt in the middle of the night and energized me like no other.

#2: The perfect match of having a classroom AND a volunteer be ready for it came at about the same time.

#3: The idea for the project logo came to me and got sketched in about 5 minutes. Unusually easy.

#4: I ordered the fabric that we will paint the mural on, experimented with it, and liked it.  But I needed some more.  Without my account being charged, I found another box of the fabric on my doorstep today. Shipped for free, by mistake. 

I think that something out there wants this project to happen and is using me to channel all the creativity and good luck that it can provide.  The universe seems to be on my side.  All good signs that I should pursue it. Cool.

Here is the logo I designed for the project (someday, organization?).  I painted this on some of the fabric we'll paint the murals on. I want to make sure it can adhere to a wall using glue made out of just rice.  Rice is something that Madagascar has PLENTY of, so it would be great to have a glue recipe that's super easy and affordable for people to help them install their murals. We shall see... I'll be making a trip to Eugene's graffiti wall this week with this puppy.  :)

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In other news, I'm getting my calendar filled out pretty good for teaching this year.  I was hired to teach art lessons for 3rd, 2nd and 1st grades this year at Holt Elementary.  And I have a few school mural residencies booked throughout the Winter and Spring.  While teaching my last lessons with my 3rd graders, something hit me: I get the same "high", happy, fulfilled, joyful feeling from teaching kids art, as I get from painting murals by myself.  Discovering...or rather acknowledging this to myself was really special.  This means, if I can just figure out how to combine BOTH a freelance mural painting business AND being a teaching artist into a full-time gig, I could probably be happy career-wise for my whole life.  That's pretty cool to figure out.  I've struggled so much with trying to find a direction.  It's been stressful and hard.  To just "do art as a career" seems like a direction, but it was too broad and I was scattered and not getting anywhere.  I toyed with trying to become a tattoo artist, an illustrator, a graphic designer, etc etc.  Now, I feel like I know where to put my energy and my motivation and feel that it's right in my heart.  I have a SPECIFIC goal, and it's cleared up my mind a lot and leaving space and energy that I'll need to make it all happen. 

Ok, rambling.... just wanted to share the good news for those of you who were so encouraging about my last post!  Thanks you all for your support.  It means so much, you don't even know!!

Corie

The forming of a new IDEA!

Late last night, laying in bed, my mind was wide awake for no particular reason.... I walked a lot yesterday, I should have been tired.  My train of thought looked like this:

"Hmm, that new Astrology book I picked up was pretty creepily dead on about a lot of things when I looked up people's birthdays. Weird. It said people with my birthday should either "create something unique" or "help people" to "win fame or fortune or be happy and fulfilled or all of the above". Create something unique.....help people...........Hmmmmmm.......
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Murals are a unique career.... WHAT IF I tell all clients I'm donating a percentage of my fee to some Peace Corps Partnership project? Hmm...... WHAT IF I could make that money go specifically to sponsor the Malaria awareness murals that Peace Corps Volunteers are throwing up everywhere now in Madagascar? Hmmmm......
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WAIT A SECOND, I JUST LEARNED THE "PARACHUTE CLOTH METHOD" OF MURAL-MAKING!!! (This is a method where the artist(s) work on sections of a special fabric that looks and feels like a thick dryer cloth, then paste it all up onto the wall in big sections, like a gigantic modge-podge project. It allows artists the options to bring the work all over to have lots of community members help paint it, to work in snow or rain because they are working inside, OR to do the work far away from the actual wall where it will be installed.) WHAT IF I use any donations and/or commission percentages to make the malaria murals myself and then send them in a tube over to Madagascar to be installed by Peace Corps Volunteers and their communities!!!!!??? WAIT, MORE THAN JUST MALARIA, I COULD DESIGN A WHOLE SERIES OF HEALTH EDUCATIONAL IMAGES!! (With the help of my friendly Peace Corps Madagascar Health sector staff connections to make sure all the visual info (for the many illiterate) and text was correct and as informative as possible) Hmmm....
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OMG WAIT, Current Peace Corps Volunteers could fill out a form if they wanted a mural in their community, specifying the size they needed it, the specific message they wanted, and telling me that for sure the community was on board. 
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WAIT, this has to be more than just ME.  WHAT IF, I used my connection to Lane Arts and my access to classrooms to get kids here to help me paint the murals!!! I could start off each residency with a little presentation and Q and A session with the kids about what it's like in Madagascar and why we're making these informational murals. Then we paint. THE KIDS GET TO LEARN ABOUT OTHER CULTURES, GIVING BACK TO THOSE WITH LESS THAN THEM, AND ABOUT OF COURSE, PAINT TECHNIQUE, ETC.!!!!! YES!!!! COMMUNITY MURAL PROJECT FOR A COMMUNITY ACROSS THE WORLD! TALK ABOUT CONNECTING PEOPLE!!! 

WAIT. The communities in Madagascar would have to be invested somehow. WE COULD LEAVE SOMETHING FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE VILLAGES TO FINISH PAINTING! SOME TEXT? A MADAGASCAR FLAG? SOMETHING WOULD BE LEFT FOR THEM TO FINISH UP, MAKING THIS POTENTIALLY THE WIDEST-REACHING COMMUNITY MURAL PROJECT EVER - 2 GROUPS OF PEOPLE LITERALLY ACROSS THE WORLD FROM EACH OTHER, MAKING MURALS TOGETHER TO HELP OUT COMMUNITIES IN NEED THROUGH THE CHANNEL OF VISUAL COMMUNICATION AND EDUCATION!!!!!!
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This all came together for me at 1am, when I jumped out of bed, turned on the lights, and wrote it down before I let sleep take me away. Then I called my sister and told her about it, for double-insurance I wouldn't forget. This morning, I've been working the idea around in my mind, thinking about details and trying to get it "gelled".  I need people on board with me if I'm going to do this. I would need Peace Corps Madagascar's full cooperation and help in coordinating the volunteer's requests. I would need Lane Arts on board and willing to let me promote a new kind of Artist Residency in the schools, where kids are helping work on this project, rather than painting the walls of their own schools. I would need them to go through so that I can get paid for these new residencies. I would need funding to buy supplies and pay for shipping. Now, I'm researching "Fiscal Sponsorship" where you can partner with a non-profit so that any donations can be tax-deductable and you can apply for grants given to non-profits. The larger organization handles all your stuff, and they take a small percentage from each donation for their admin fees. There are specific agencies that do this for artists and their projects, and it sounds a hell of a lot easier than setting up a non-profit. Still formulating....thinking.....

Dear blog-readers, I know there are at least a couple of you....I see it on my stats page. I haven't much cared about comments up until now, but for this post, I'm especially interested in knowing what you think about this. Any other "BUT WAIT, WHAT IF....?" moments happen for you while reading this? Any resources that could be helpful? Do you even think this is a good idea? Thanks for reading everyone! More to come on this soon, I hope!

Corie

And...more pictures!!

I'm on a role! More visuals for all the stories. :) This post's pictures go with this blog post here. It's the ghost story one. Super creepy. You kinda have to read it to understand what I'm going to show you here...otherwise the following pictures, although interesting, will not be nearly as much fun! ;)

 The first frame is a collection of all the sculptures that represent the people most deeply affected by the murder of the fictional victim. Family, friends, baby-mommas, etc.

 Oh the tangled webs we weave.....

 Each piece represents a person affected by a single murder.

 Some are a bit creepier, despite all the glitter.

 EVERY SINGLE sculpture piece of this whole thing is going to get a tiny LED light. Most are already rigged with them, but more need to be added. Imagine this piece in a dimly lit room, all lit up!

 There's a tiny light inside that styrofoam ball, the tulle on that heart, inside that glass box. Can't wait to see it all lit up!!!

 Working on wrapping the entire frame in sparkly, metallic gold and black fabric.

 This is the second frame. This one contains sculptures of those the least closest to the fictional murder victim....the "haters", the neighborhood drug dealer, the post man, etc.

Hope you enjoyed hearing about "The 94 Effect" a.k.a The Murder Project!!