Cartabella Art Notes

2010-03-01T06:00:00.003-05:00

ALTERED ART: BOOKMARKS AND TAGS

2010-03-01T06:00:00.001-05:00

ALTERED ART FOR KIDS. Bookmarks, Tags, and Artists Trading Cards are good first-time-projects. Cupcake tins can be used for sorting objects and styrofoam food trays are perfect containers for gathering supplies for one project at a time. A cardboart or plastic mat will make clean-up easier, too. For girls, have lots of ribbons and pretty papers on hand. For boys, stickers and stencils are popular. All children enjoy postage stamps and fabric scraps.

2010-02-07T15:12:00.004-05:00

COMBAT WINTER DOLDRUMS WITH ART THERAPY. When your grandkids claim to be bored, grab the art supplies! We had fun exploring different things to do with simple origami projects! What do you like to do with the paper folding origami birds, animals and buildings you make?

2010-02-07T14:48:00.008-05:00

ALTERED ART. "Altered art" is transforming an object, like a discarded library book, into a creative work of art. Typically it encompasses a theme and utilizes a variety of media and techniques. In a beginners' workshop we start with ATCs (Artists Trading Cards) and manila file folders. This is the time to haul out scrapbook supplies, rubbing stamping tools, and your bins of ribbons, buttons, and fabric scraps. And a photo box of collage materials like photos, postage stamps, wrapping paper, magazines and scrapbook papers. You'll need a basket of basic supplies: glue, scissors, gel pens, markers, paint, stencils, rubber stamps, stencils, wax crayons, watercolors.

Memorabilia like brochures and ticket stubs from your visits to museums, or your travel folder from your last vacation, can be used to create a keepsake.

2010-01-28T19:08:00.009-05:00

KINDERART CLASSES. Drawing and Watercolor Painting. At certain ages and stages children are drawn to animals. My set of wooden jungle animals from Africa make good models for drawing from life projects. Negative space is a concept which helps the student draw the trunk and the legs.

Using the watercolor sketches found in the Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady is an excellent source of inspiration for landscapes captured with a Cotman pan set of watercolors. The #5 travel brush comes with the case and is easy to handle for a young painter.

2010-01-28T19:01:00.005-05:00

KINDERART CLASSES. Same elements: Window, Cat, Curtains. Different interpretations by young artists of different ages.

2010-01-15T19:51:00.006-05:00

KINDERART. More ballerinas. More pastel paintings. Bravissima!

2010-01-15T19:45:00.006-05:00

KINDERART. More Dancing with Degas images. "Painting" with pastels, just like Degas. Bella Ballerinas!

2010-01-01T06:00:00.008-05:00

INTERMEZZO. "New Beginnings". Inspirational example of lifelong learners: two Left Brainers willing to learn how to creatively express themselves by delving into never-before-explored Right Brain exercises. Love it!

2009-12-30T13:57:00.010-05:00

KINDERART. These are a few of my favorite things....some Favorite Art Projects for the Christmas season. Symmetry angels, German nutcrackers and electric guitars belting out 'JOY TO THE WORLD'!

2009-12-30T13:47:00.003-05:00

INTERMEZZO LADIES. "Flipping Hobbies". Quilt Artist turned Watercolor Artist. Inspired by the world around them, this neighborhood group continues to express colorful responses to their observations and feelings about a new way of "seeing".

2009-12-30T13:34:00.006-05:00

INTERMEZZO LADIES. "Later in the Game". Honestly, these women are serious about their new "hobby"! Quick learners. Their progress has been "molto rapido"! Exercises of blending colors, value studies, and practice-practice is paying off.

2009-12-30T13:25:00.005-05:00

INTERMEZZO LADIES. First Brushstrokes. Six courageous women eager to enter the world of watercolor. Shopping for supplies, then loading up new art bags and baskets. A "first" for everyone---taking an art class to explore a very challenging medium.

2009-12-22T11:04:00.002-05:00

KINDERART CHRISTMAS. With "Joy to the World" as our theme, we drew electric guitars and sang Christmas carols while we worked. Each student chose an image to copy and then added their own design and color choices.

2009-12-10T19:56:00.002-05:00

PAINTING WITH BONNARD. One of the founders of the turn-of-the-century Les Nabis movement, Pierre Bonnard used intense and close value colors. We studied his technique by personal interpretation of one of his interiors---one of his many "open window" paintings. When I discovered that quite a few of my scraps and strips from old watercolors were close to his palette, I ended up with a collage approach to my own study. Other Intermezzo ladies painstakingly mixed colors from their own palettes to mimic Bonnard's choices. Beautiful results!

2009-12-02T07:33:00.001-05:00

SKETCHING LIKE LEONARDO. This theme has been popular in all of my home school and private school classes. Drawing is fundamental to every art project, so I want students to discover the joy of sketching and drawing as a way of life. Middle School students were able to have a sketch session in the plaza at the HIGH Museum of Art, drawing Leonardo's horse, a two-story high statue! Younger students filled a sketchbook page with everyday objects, mimicking da Vinci's passion for filling his pages with drawings of all sizes and all subject matter.

2009-11-07T19:25:00.007-05:00

WATERCOLOR PAINTING: A Snowy Forest. These girls love to draw and paint. In a style similar to Monet's Poplars, we used a variety of watercolor techniques [salt, kleenex, masking tape, sponging] to achieve this landscape scene with birch trees.

2009-11-02T16:07:00.000-05:00

A VISIT WITH CEZANNE IN MY KITCHEN. My watercolor class recently spent a session "painting with Cezanne". Instead of reproducing one of his works, and rather than paint the Still Life we set up for our class, I chose to do my own "study", pretending he was looking over my shoulder as I sipped my mug of Earl Grey and had a TCM marathon day. Even though I may see things differently than Cezanne saw them, his techniques and treatment of ordinary kitchen elements definitely challenged me to expand my personal style.

2009-10-23T15:53:00.001-04:00

FALL IS IN THE AIR. When you don't want to carve your pumpkin until closer to Halloween, you let your grandson use sharpies and markers to design a funny face! Radiating Leaves has become an interesting art project. First the children draw "real leaves" and then outline them with pens, keeping the lines as close as possible without touching, until the radiating lines "bump" into each other! Op-Art with vibrations!

2009-10-17T19:22:00.007-04:00

FLORAL STILL LIFE. Using oil pastels, this homeschool class demonstrated their expressive use of color and shapes. The fall bouquet was a hostess gift from friends visiting from Tucson, AZ and repurposed a few days later for this Still Life study!

2009-10-02T20:43:00.010-04:00

KINDERART. Alphabet Sampler Project. Even though needlework samplers are the most common "samplers", we created a papercraft Alphabet Sampler. How many different kinds of paper and styles of lettering? Each student had to create 26 "different" letters for their own Sampler and glue them onto posterboard.
It turned out to be so labor intensive, AND so much fun, that we didn't attempt another project during this session. Available paper/medium supplies: scrapbook paper, cardstock, wallpaper, construction paper, markers, pastels, paints, glitter crayons, stencils, magazines, etc.

2009-10-02T20:20:00.007-04:00

INTERMEZZO LADIES. Fall Colors!
Our centerpiece project this week was a pumpkin, picked up at a local fresh market. An excellent values study. An opportunity to contrast warm/cool yellows and figure out how to add those light green smudges on some parts of the skin. Discussed background and shadow color choices, including the use of complementary colors. And Voila! Two artists sitting next to each other "modeled" the Blue & Orange complementary color principles!

A visit to the produce market and I get carried away with the bounty of Fall colors! What am I going to do with all of these watercolor Gala apples after I get the Cezanne urge out of my system? If I continue to eat An Apple A Day. . . how many days are going to have apples in the house?

2009-09-18T21:38:00.007-04:00

DRAWING THE TAJ MAHAL. Architecture Project with home school class.

2009-09-18T20:45:00.007-04:00

TAJ MAHAL, Architecture Exercise. Students readily recognized that this "famous building" is a good example of Symmetry. We discussed how to draw it, focusing on breaking it down into shapes. My grand children's building blocks were used to "construct" a simple model of the Taj Mahal's basic shapes: rectangles, half circles, squares, and cylinders. Some of the Middle School students opted to use a ruler and follow a few precise measurements designed for the size of paper they used. Other students used a rule just to draw the horizon line and then using a rectangle template in the middle they were able to "construct" and draw the rest of the building, following the symmetrical design portrayed in the one-point perspective image.

2009-09-04T14:02:00.007-04:00

INTERMEZZO Ladies. "One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." ---Andre Gide.

"Losing oneself" is a frequent experience of artists. In our water color classes these past few weeks we've noticed how quickly time slips away from us. We become so engrossed in practicing a new technique and experimenting with our new tubes of paint that we literally lose all sense of time and space. For us "seniors," this is a good thing! We are enjoying a new passion and a new pursuit.
Last week we practiced laying down a wash, inspired by the blues of ocean and seascapes. This week, inspired by a watercolor from an artist in Maine, we tried a more subtle, atmospheric approach. We sought to define a horizon line, a middle ground, and tall grasses in the foreground.

Our personal painting styles are beginning to emerge, as evidenced by our varied "responses" to the same subject matter!