the young Mozart

We recently attended a concert that featured the work of Mozart when he was only 16 years old. Even if this music had been composed by an older genius, it would still be amazing and sublime.

I drew all over my program while I listened.

batik/glue art project part 2

Last Tuesday, I had all my art classes make table runners, napkins and placemats for our school auction. Each class had a theme. The Kinders and First graders made placemats with a springtime theme. I had them trace their little hands and then draw spring flowers growing out of each finger. All the lines were then traced with gel glue on light fabric. Tuesday of this coming week, we will paint in the designs using watered down acrylic paint. I will try to photograph the process and the finished product, but that is hard to do because I am running about all day when I am teaching.

Here is my sample project after I finished painting colors inside the glue lines.

And here is the finished fabric after I washed all the glue out. It just needs a backing piece sewn on and hemmed. Oh, and ironing, to heat set the colors and get out those wrinkles.

I added my name.

my crazy art project

For the past weeks I have been going three dimensional with all my art classes. I am such a locked-in 2-D person myself that this is a challenge. It has been fun, but messy. I have almost all my classes, (but not the Kinder and 1st) doing paper-mache projects. We have two foot long Chinese dragons, the Nike of Samothrace, Egyptian pyramids, terracotta soldiers of China, statues of Athena, and more. Quite a sight when we walk into the art room.

Next week we will all begin a batik on fabric project. To prepare, I have been making a sample at home.
Lots of mess and "accidents" and questioning what will happen next? This is an unpredictable process.
I don't want to risk using hot wax technique with young children, so we are using a washable gel glue that has been recommended by art teachers I follow on their blogs.

I decided to make a table cover  using this design from a water color I made last fall.

I placed the sheer fabric on top of my watercolor and just traced lightly with a pencil over my outlines. I will figure out later if my pencil outlines are going to show in the final. Maybe that was my first mistake.

Then, I began to go over my design with the blue gel glue. Next step, wait for all the glue to dry. Speeding up the drying time with a blow dryer did not work, I had to wait overnight.

Next morning, I began to paint over the dried glue with a watered down acrylic wash. I found out that wherever I had not closed in a shape with the glue completely, the washes ran over like crazy. So I will have to figure out how to make the blue running into yellow areas come out to look like a planned event?

 I will show the final product but I have to let it all dry again. I need to apply more washes but I am worried about a lot of messy bleeding of my next colors, reds and oranges into the blue which will make a mud. So maybe more drying time and then some more drying time and the final washing out of the glue to see what we have.

Ash Wednesday returns

I have written about this before, how much I actually love the season of Lent. It is such a calm time for me. We are supposed to be quiet and thoughtful, perfect for an introvert like me. And then there is the all important question; what are we giving up for Lent? Always, I will give up sweets, and maybe my evening glass of wine.
A better question would be; what spiritual practice are we beginning during Lent? I would like to say that I intend to pray more for grace.
I have another type of sacrificial practice that I have taken up during Lent in the past couple of years, which is making church banners!  I have sacrificed time, talent and energy to paint and produce some artwork that our church will use in the Easter Vigil service which is on the night of Holy Saturday before Easter Sunday. And every year it ends up being a deadline that I work like crazy to finish during the six weeks of Lent. (not a quiet or calm practice).

Three years ago it was the Creation banners. I blogged about that here, and here, and here.

And then last year, I thought we (our team of visual artists for the church) had topped ourselves for good because we made a banner that was 40 feet high and 16 feet wide. I blogged about that a lot. Here, and here and here, in fact most of last April.

I must add, I am not in this huge project alone, we have a team of artists. Our leader is Laura, a talented artist full of energy to drive us forward. I know that I could not have finished the season of painting last year without her enthusiasm and fresh outlook. Our Church of the Resurrection is intending to continue to use the resurrected Christ banner again this year. In fact, they have printed small copies of the great painting to use as prayer icons and if you go to this link, you can see a booklet that they have made about the making of the work. They have titled it "An artist's journal, the making of the Resurrected Christ banner".

(Wow, this is one of the longest posts I have written this year).
All of this is to lead up to the announcement of our new huge project this Lenten season which will (hopefully) be seen on the night of the Great Easter Vigil again.
I say, hopefully, and with the Grace of God, because I have cold feet about completing this in time and with a worthy end result. I am worried because our church is in the process of purchasing and renovating a building to move to by the end of the year. We are painting ten (!) large canvases that will have a permanent home in the new building. This is daunting, to produce something worthy and lasting, not just a banner that goes up briefly and then is tucked away.
Showing here, one of my first rough sketches of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac (stopped by the hand of God). I will explain more as I post about the progress of these paintings in the next six weeks.

re-pose

A five-minute warm up gesture drawing.

gestures from Life

Five minutes for warm-up poses in Life Drawing class. We do five of these poses in rapid succession and when I pull them out weeks later, I enjoy them in a fresh way.

repose

poet

"The impermanence of everything;

Nothing can ever happen twice.

In consequence,

the sorry fact is

 that we arrive

here improvised

and leave without

the chance to practice."

Poet Wislawa Szymborka won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996. She died last month, and because of obituaries and tributes, only now has brought her work to my attention. How marvelous the skill with which she would weave complex thoughts into a few clear words.

Above, a five minute gesture pose from life drawing group.

Today

Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear
and sorrow?
It's in its nature not to stay:
Today is always gone tomorrow.

Poet Wislawa Szymborka

life pose

I am pleased with the result of my Life drawing/painting class this past week.