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.

Art Career Rambling....

So I'm by no means already "making it" as a full-time artist.  I haven't yet "arrived" at the place I want to be with my career.  But, I can say that the last couple months have been busy as hell, and when I pull myself out of my art-cave to take a breather, I realize "hey, I'm not a Barista anymore, and I'm keeping a full schedule on making murals and teaching art!"  I am my own Boss.  That, to me, is an incredible personal victory.  Even though this insane busy-ness has only lasted for a couple months, I'm trying to keep the momentum going and the dream alive and well fed.  I know there will be slower times where I'm not working as much, and times that are even busier than the last month.  I repeat, by no means am I already THERE, but it feels amazing (if it's not too cheesy and cliche to say this...) to know that I am following my heart.   I feel I am on the right path, putting one foot in front of the other.  Along the way,  I think it's important to stop and look around every once in awhile, and appreciate where I've been able to get to thus far.  In this economy, a person is lucky to have a job that keeps food on their table.  I'm lucky enough to be in a situation where I was able to actually pursue my passion, and go to school to study it.  And now, I am in a situation where I don't have any huge debts, child care costs, or bad mortgages keeping me from taking the giant leap to ACTUALLY TRY.  I am actually trying really, really hard.  I'm trying to build a life for myself where I will be happy and fulfilled in my work that I do for a living.  I figure, it will be OK if I fail and have to move onto something else, as long as I know I tried as hard as I could to make my #1 first choice career happen for myself.  Because why not?  If you're in a creative field, check out this article on goal-setting to make your career happen.  It's baby steps.  It's knowing where you want to go, and putting one foot in front of the other until you get there.  Good luck to us all!

Spring Garden Porch Banner Mural

Here it is, the 40-foot banner mural I've been working on for the last few weeks! :)  The clients who commissioned this piece have a second story balcony running along the entire length of their house.  This banner was made to be hung over the railing on special occasions, for when guests come over, or just on sunny Spring days :)  The idea was to have a mural that could go up when they were in the mood to celebrate, for whatever reason.  The client and his partner love to garden, and mentioned Zinnias and Nasturtium flowers....and they are NOT afraid of bright color.  Perfect for me!  Even with a crazy month, I was able to pull this one off in time for them to use it to welcome guests to their big upcoming potluck :) It was a tight deadline, but I took the challenge, and feel good that with some strategic planning, was able to pull it off. 

I had a lot of fun painting this one.  This opens up a lot of possibilities for me and clients, too.  It makes for a mural that people can take down and put up as they please, if they're not ready for the commitment of a mural directly on the wall, or if they want to have a mural on an area that would be un-paintable.  It also opens up the possibility for me to work with clients out of my local area.  As long as I can get the measurements and concept ideas, we can work together over a distance!

I can think of no mural more Spring-appropriate than this one, and it was a nice way to ring in the season :)

Dali Collage Art Project for K-5

When I was in High School, I was obsessed with Salvador Dali.  He is still one of my favorite artists!  I so was excited to show him to my 3rd graders!  Read on to see how we made our Dali collage art projects:

1.) Talk about it: Show a slideshow of some Dali artworks and have kids share what they observed about them. Ask, "Why do you think Dali got famous? What is he doing differently?" 

 Talk about “Surrealism” and how it is unique the way Dali painted realistically, but his subject matter was not realistic.  Ask the question "Do his paintings look real?" and you will get some "no" and some "yes" answers.  It's kind of a trick question.  He's painting things that are dreamy and not realistic, to look like they are actually real.  Tell your students they are going to make silly, dream-like pictures, using their imaginations and creativity.

2.) Give them magazines and/or cut out pictures from them (I was lucky enough to score a huge box of magazine pictures, most already cut out perfectly, from a local organization that collects and distributes and sells recycled art materials. MECCA, in Eugene, OR.)  Tell kids to pick 5 picture pieces only, arrange them on their paper, and glue them down.

3.) Give kids super fine sharpies, and let them "finish their pictures" and draw around the cut outs to create surreal situations.  No words, only pictures!

4.) Color with colored pencils. Voila!  Loving these.  Not the most aesthetically pleasing kids art project I've thought of, but it really exercises the creativity muscles, and gets them to think outside the box, and think silly.  It's super fun for them, too. Enjoy!!

~Corie 

Spring Bird Drawing Collage

Lately I've been teaching a residency at Dos Rios Two Rivers Elementary in Springfield.  We've been making some art for the kids to keep, and some to sell at the upcoming art walk (they're having a section for local schools to sell kid art to fundraise).  This is our last project, and I must say, they are turning out super cute!  I made these with Kinder through 5th graders, and adjusted for complexity, depending on grade level.  Read on to see how we made them!

Step #1: Lead a step-by-step drawing of a bird.  Start with pencil, trace with thick sharpie.  We actually had both the thick and thin sharpies available, so for the older kids, I had them outline in thick, and trace all the inside lines with the thinest sharpie. This looks really cool....see below.  

I had the littler kids draw birds like the above, and the older kids draw the more complicated tropical birds like you see below. With a couple of the classes, we opted for drawing chameleons instead of birds, which the kids really got into. Need to take some pictures of those....

Step #2:  Next, have the kids color these in with soft chalk pastels.  I told them no black brown, or the super dark blue (these covered up the sharpie lines, whereas the brighter, lighter colors don't).  Show them how they can blend them, and how the sharpie lines show up again when they do.  

..... No need to stay in the lines since they will be cutting them out anyways.

DAY 2: We did this next step the next day. We needed 2, 45 minute sessions to get through the whole project. The next step is to make some leaves and branches, cut out the birds, and paste it all together!! 

Yachats Beach House Mural

This last mural project had some serious perks.  I got to stay at a beach house in Yachats, OR. with an ocean view for 2 nights, while I worked on the mural for their mud porch!  I brought my Dad along, who is a watercolor artist, so he could paint too!  It was great to have him there... good company and also another artistic eye to bounce things off of.  Love you Dad! (I know you're reading this.) At the end of the weekend, here's what it looked like:

BEFORE:

The approved digital collage/sketch done in photoshop.... 

And AFTER:

Painted shadows for all the objects for the beach...

REAL shells, driftwood, beach glass, agates glued onto the wall!!!

A few painted "shells" in the background to blend into the real ones glued on.

This one was really a lot of fun to do.  Not only was it fun to paint, but figuring out the 3-d and textural elements for the mural was exciting for me.  After sketching the design on the wall, I brushed a bunch of granular acrylic gel (basically just clear paint with sand and chunky stuff in it) onto the sand and beach area.  This stuff dried to a bumpy, sandy finish. Then I painted the sand colors over it, and added the shells and rocks and driftwood at the very end.  The mural is so much fun to touch!! Loving the idea of blending 2-d with 3-d.  

The vacation rental owners had a very positive reaction to seeing the mural. The honor and pleasure of turning someone's vision into reality, and transforming their space, is what gets me excited about painting murals for clients.  It can be really difficult to get inside a client's head, and try to filter their feelings, thoughts and words through my own brain, to still get an image they want in the end.  It's what unique, custom, tailored-to-you murals are all about - asking the right questions to find out what the client wants, and then giving it to them.