Wayne Thiebaud Lesson for 3rd Grade

Introducing Wayne Thiebaud to 3rd Graders:

My 3rd grade classes loved this delicious lesson! Read on to see exactly what we did:

Materials:

• white construction paper

• Colored construction paper for backgrounds (we used yellow, blue and lavender)

• colored drawing chalks

• black marker (we used sharpie)

1.) Introduce the art of Wayne Thiebaud to the kids. Here's a link to get you started. Ask them what kinds of things they notice from the slideshow of his art that you show them. (Pastel colors, repetition, bright shadow colors, they're all desserts!!). Make sure you mention that Thiebaud worked in an ice cream parlour in his early artist days, which inspired his paintings!

2.) Show how to draw a cupcake. Start with a cylinder with tapered sides (don't forget the rounded bottom, not straight across!!) Add frosting on the top, sprinkles and a cherry maybe. Tell them that making 3 cupcakes is one of their options. Their other option is a big cake with a slice taken out. Start again with a cylinder, then a triangle and lines down to take the slice out. 

3.) Kids draw with pencils, then trace over in black marker.  Show how to draw with chalks over their drawings and then blend in with their fingers. The black lines remain. No need to be super careful and stay inside the lines, they will cut these out anyways.

4.) Give them a colored sheet for their backgrounds. Remind them of Thiebaud's signature bright shadows, and suggest that they make a line for a table, and bright shadows for however many desserts they drew.

5.) Cut out desserts and paste onto the table over the shadows. YUM!!!

A Sale is a Sale.....Or Is It??

I have an Etsy site where I sell paintings and prints sometimes, and I most recently sold the one below:

Here's what this painting is about, from the description on the Etsy listing:

This painting is a part of a series that depicts female characters from books I've read. This particular painting is inspired by the "Hanna" character in the book, "The Reader" by Bernhard Schlink. 

The book was first published in Germany in 1995 and explores a post-war, post-Nazi Germany. The book centers around Hanna Schmitz, a former SS guard at Auschwitz. "The Reader" is a story about her struggle to come to terms with her past and about how she deals with things in the present moment. Hanna learns to read during her journey. The book was very well received and won many awards. Hanna is such a complicated character and I just had to paint her when I was done reading her story!

So, the newspaper behind her symbolizes her new life, learning to read. The black and white stripes symbolize her being thrown in jail for war crimes after the trials following the Holocaust. The swastika made of skull paper symbolizes her horrific past as an SS guard. To me, a Jewish woman, Hanna's story is a tremendously sad one, but worth exploring as an illustration and part of my Literary Heroines story. (To see this whole series, click here)

So, here's the ironic punchline: with a little cyber stalking (initiated because of a strange sounding email address), I find out I sold the painting to a white supremacist.  Or, at least to someone who likes Nazis so much they make the swastika with the "SS" bolts, their profile picture.  This person's money was already in my bank account, and I had to follow through with the sale in order to keep my reputation on Etsy. This turns my stomach. This is not the point of this painting.  But what am I supposed to do? It's a very exaggerated example of how differently people can interpret artwork, and find their own meaning and connections to the same image.  A good lesson, though one I would have preferred learning another way.  I think I'll have to make a donation to Yad Vashem, the holocaust museum in Jerusalem, that I visited awhile back, to even out cozmic karma. Ugghhhhh....YUCK!

Faux Kickstarter Campaign: Let's Do This!!

So awhile back, a talented journalism student from the University of Oregon used me as a subject for an assignment to write about art education. That article is here:

http://blogs.uoregon.edu/shagyg1w13/turning-points/

A month or so later, she contacted me again for another class project.  This time, she and a couple other students were assigned to create a kickstarter campaign for one of their previous interviewees. They asked me if I was interested, and had any projects brewing that I might want to get funded.  Um, duh!  They created an entire website for the project I proposed, and filmed and edited a video that could be uploaded to kickstarter, whenever I'm ready. Their assignment was only to do a mock, hypothetical project, but said that I can make it "real" when and if I chose.  (Kickstarter is a website that helps people fund their small (or not so small) projects.)  Here's the link to the site:

http://blogs.uoregon.edu/ledeg3spring13/

If you know what I've been excited about lately, you can probably guess what my project proposal was about.  It's to get funding for 10 more murals for Madagascar, done by elementary students here in Oregon.  The pilot project went awesome, so 10 more would be a dream!  I'm heading back to Madagascar soon, and will network with folks while I'm there to start getting the go-ahead for this. Once I'm all set up on that end, I plan on posting their video and content as a Kickstarter campaign to get the funding.  Then, fingers crossed, more health-related murals for Madagascar!!!!!! Yahooo!!!!! Big shout out to these girls who made all this for me. You guys are awesome!!

(**disclaimer: the only mistake I found in the website says that there are no art teachers in K-12 schools in 4j. I know there are still some, and some great ones at that!)

Feeling grateful and super excited for future projects. Yay!!

Summer Work with National Geographic

So there's a major project I've been working on in between things for awhile now, and I guess haven't mentioned here yet.  So, here's the exciting news: This Summer, I'm helping illustrate a field guide of medicinal plants found in Madagascar!  

Here's how this came about. During my first year in Madagascar, there was a guy in my banking town  doing research and living there off and on.  (By "banking town" I mean a bigger town about a 2-hr bike ride away from my village, where I stocked up on phone credit, did my banking, and filled up on protein and beer.)  When I got home, we became facebook friends (naturally).  Last winter, he mentioned on his facebook, that he'd gotten a grant from "Nat Geo" (meaning National Geographic - I didn't put this together at first, but was pretty stoked when I did) to make this field guide, and was in search of illustrators.  In the end, they chose me and one other guy to bring to Mada to work on the project! 240 illustrations total, meaning we each have to complete 120.  That's a lot! So for the last couple months, we've been working on getting a jump start on some of the illustrations.  Right now, we've been working from photos, drawing and painting everything digitally in Photoshop.  When we get there, we'll actually get to go out in the forest and find, photograph and sketch the plants ourselves.  Here's a small sample of what I've been working on so far:

I'm still pinching myself that I get to go back to Madagascar this Summer. If you're a Peace Corps Volunteer, you know that living as the only westerner for miles, integrated into the community through learning the language, making friends, cooking, working, laughing along side people, for 2 YEARS..... it becomes a second home.  I can't wait to go back and see the individuals and families that I became close with over there.  AND, my parents and sister are going to come visit me for the second half of my time over there!!!! I can't wait to show them what an incredible country it is.  So anyways, part of the point of this post is to just say that I won't be posting here from mid-June to August. I have a few more weeks of work here though, so I'll post a few more kids art lessons, and say goodbye before I go ;)

IT HAPPENED! - An Idea Becomes A Reality.

I can already tell, this post is going to be a meaningful, mushy one.  Way back last Summer, I had an idea.  This idea was to create a mural with kids (something I already do in my job a lot anyways), but on specialized fabric, instead of a wall. The mural would get sent to a rural village in Madagascar (the country I served in as a Peace Corps Volunteer 2008-2010), where a current PC Volunteer would help recruit villagers to finish and install it on the wall of their hospital.  The mural's subject matter would have to do with Malaria prevention, helping to educate through pictures, those who could not read.  If you want the WHOLE scoop, read this earlier post.

Anyway, so then after forming the idea last Summer, I found an extraordinary Principal with an extraordinary staff (Bertha Holt Elementary), to help me make this idea into a reality.  They wrote a grant to the Eugene Education Fund to get a residency with me funded through my employer, Lane Arts Council.  I also got my old Peace Corps supervisor to help me find the right PCV and village to coordinate with.  The villagers there already knew the deal about using mosquito nets to prevent Malaria, but they needed more info about the care and maintenance of the nets to be dispersed.  I came up with the design below, explaining to wash the net with regular soap not detergent (so as not to wash away the mosquito repellent), dry the net in the shade not sun, tuck it tightly under the mattress, and repair any holes it gets.  The language is Malagasy.

Then, during a week-long residency with the Holt 4th graders, I taught them about Madagascar, did art projects with them that related to it's unique flora and fauna, and facilitated them in painting the mural on the fabric.

When completed, the mural was shipped to Madagascar, along with some adorable postcards that the 4th graders hand drew and wrote on in Malagasy (with some help from me of course). What follows are the pictures we received of it hung in it's final home, the hospital wall in Tsivangiana, Madagascar.

Women waiting in line at the hospital to get vaccines for their babies.

Eddie Carver, the Peace Corps Volunteer who helped us coordinate and finish this project.

Now comes the mush.  I really just am so floored to see these pictures.  That a mural my students did, made it all the way across the ocean and is now on a wall in a hospital in the middle of nowhere, where it will help educate some people on an important health topic.  I can't wait to share these pictures with the 4th graders, along with the postcards we received back from Eddie's english club in response to theirs.  I can't wait to show them that at such a young age, they can make an impact.  This is how it feels to make a difference, I will tell them. YOU MATTER. 

Eddie also told me that the original design template I created is now being replicated by Peace Corps Volunteers all over Madagascar, in their own villages.  During training, Peace Corps Volunteers are all encouraged to paint world map murals on the walls of schools, and murals about Malaria are starting to be encouraged more and more in recent years.  Peace Corps wouldn't push this so much to people who aren't necessarily artists, unless they found it to be worthwhile as a form of community development.  These pictures disperse information to the public in a bright and colorful way, and are especially crucial to those who could not read other posted health bulletins and announcements.  ART MATTERS.  

So. Happy. I think of this is as the pilot project.  I envision doing many more of these, about other relevant health topics, all over Madagascar.  No, all over Africa.  Attention International health NGO's: call me ;) 

My "Stunning Seattle" Mural Proposal

So, I've been presented with a couple different opportunities lately, coming in the form of friends posting them on my facebook (thank you!).  One of those opportunities was a Portland neighborhood looking for artists to do a mural on their community center's wall.  All I had to do for that one, was send them a link to my portfolio.  The other opportunity, was an organization called "Stunning Seattle" , looking for artists to paint 4 walls in Seattle.  BIG walls.  For this one, you had to submit a design proposal of what you would paint on one of them.  My designs for this are below.  If chosen, I would go up to Seattle sometime between late August and early October, for 2 weeks, to complete it.  My best friend lives there, so that would be an awesome added bonus.  

Last Summer, while I was doing my internship with the Mural Arts Program, I got a brief introduction to the world of submitting proposals for murals of this scale.  Some of these projects' budgets run in the tens of thousands of dollars, and artists often apply to them from all over the country.  I think these first 2 things I just applied to are on the smaller side of that scale, but still represent my first steps into this whole deal.  Excited to apply to more and eventually, hopefully, get to do a mural that's this big and public someday. :) Wish me luck!

Laurel Burch Inspired Cats - 1st Grade

Laurel Burch for First Graders

I was inspired by all the Laurel Burch projects I kept seeing on Pinterest lately, and thought that my own version of them would be perfect for my next lesson with the Holt Elementary first graders.  By the way, if you are an educator and haven't yet discovered Pinterest to help you plan your art lessons, you've been missing out!  If you need someplace to start, click here to see my board for kids art projects.  I've been collecting for quite awhile, so there's a lot of inspiration there :)  Anyway, on to the lesson!!  Since I only have my first graders for 30 minutes each time I see them, I broke this lesson down into 2 sessions.  If you have a good hour with your kiddos, this could be done all at once, as long as they don't get the wiggles too bad.

Materials for Day 1:

• Colored 9x12 construction paper (we used soft pink, blue and lavender)

• Sharpie markers, or something similar...the regular thickness

• Colored chalk or soft pastels

Materials for Day 2:

• black 9x12 construction paper

• white colored pencils or crayons

On Day 1:

- Introduce Laurel Burch to the kids - show a slideshow of her art, or bring in those cat earrings made from her art that you've had since the 80's!

- Lead a step-by-step drawing of a cat sitting down. (Kids work on the colored papers, with pencil first).  Start with a big letter "D", then add a cat's head with ears overlapping the top of the big "D".  Add nose, eyes, whiskers.  Show how to make the back leg, then draw a short vertical line down for the front feet. Add a tail.  

- Talk about PATTERN, and what exactly makes a pattern a pattern. Ask, "Is one circle a pattern?" No, it must be a REPEATING shape to be a pattern.  (Hitting those art benchmark words, eh? eh?) Have the kids draw patterns on their cats' backs. 

- Trace it all with sharpie.

- Color in with soft pastels or chalk, demonstrating first how they can use their fingers to blend gently.... then their sharpie lines show through! I didn't let my students use black or brown.... bright only!

On Day 2:

- On the black paper, have kids make a border to frame their cats, and draw patterns in the borders.

- Make a "hill" on the bottom, inside the border so the cat has a place to sit.

- Make a starry night sky with a moon and planets if they want, in the background above the hill.

- Cut out and glue the cats down!

The kids had a blast with these.... some were blowing kisses and naming their cats.  So. Stinkin. Cute.