Behind The Mask: Hand Building With Clay

Behind The Mask: Hand Building With Clay

I had the opportunity to teach “Hand Building With Clay” to students in grades K – 4 for the City of Santa Monica’s  CREST Enrichment program.

After learning the pinch pot, coil and slab techniques, students had the opportunity to use slabs (pancakes of gently flattened out clay) in a different way, by laying the slab of clay over a sort of armature of loosely balled up up newspaper, so that it would harden in a shallow bowl form, and create a mask.

As the forms dried, and the clay hardened, the newspaper was removed, and the clay became ready to paint, embellish and add to.

Some students chose to use the convex surface of their half spheres or hemispheres as a place to create symbolic forms and shapes such as stars and hearts, rather than a face or character.

Students played with using the paint pens by working on paper first.

The paint pens allowed them freedom from choosing and washing  brushes, adding water, and controlling “loose” acrylic paints. They could use the paint pens to create intricate patterns like a drawing tool.

Students learned to pounce or “stipple” with the paint pens, using their tips to apply paint to creases and crevices in the clay.

Students could then add feathers, beads, pipe cleaners and other embellishments to their masks, to further develop their characters, designs, forms and images.

Some chose to focus on color through painting, adding a carefully chosen addition to enhance their character.

This young artists has incised, or drawn into the clay to create they eyes, and added clay to build out the nose. The mouth uses both techniques.

Students used foam plates to mix new colors on, as well as for palettes.

Mixing all the colors together was a popular choice, and helped the students to understand some of the principles of color mixing.

Detail and focus ruled, even with the younger children.

This young artist has mixed the secondary colors of green and orange, from his palette of primary colors, red blue and yellow.

We used both grey and red air dry clay.

Here a young artist mixes green…after painting the outside of the pot blue, and the inside yellow.

These two kindergarteners had a wonderful time painting and creating together!

There is something about painting that seems to clear out irritability, and at least temporarily suspend human anxiety.

It is wonderful to see creative”flow” in action!

Making Our Own Books: Together!

Making Our Own Books: Together!

I had the wonderful experience of teaching “MAKE YOUR OWN BOOKS’, an enrichment class offered at Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica by the CREST Enrichment program.

The sweet and talented students ranged from first to fourth grade, and had a blast making books of different sizes, structures and materials.

They first bound together their portfolios, made of hanging file folders, then designed and developed the outside covers of these,

getting acquainted with each other, their materials, myself, and their own creativity and imagination.

Then we began our book projects…which included accordion fold books, flag books, fan books,

single signature bindings, and side “stab” bindings.

To celebrate our achievements, learning and fun, we had a “last class” family event.

Family and CREST staff were invited to Make Books Together!

Did we have fun making “double” single signature books, learning the pamphlet stitch, and embellishing up a storm!

Moms,

Nannies,

and Dads got into the act,

along with our delightful students…

and CREST staffers who got to take a creative break!

i will miss this class, and the open, fluid creativity of the students. I hope to have the opportunity to work with them again!

 Wishing everyone a creative and healthful New Year…and a celebration of the positive power of the Imagination. Let us imagine a better world…and Make It, Together.

To Build a World…Inspired by Louise Nevelson

To Build a World…Inspired by Louise Nevelson

What a wonderful experience to introduce young artists to the wondrous wood work of the artist Louise Nevelson…and what better way than for them to create their own (mini) wood sculptures!

Working on simple cardboard bases, students worked with an assortment of new and repurposed wood objects, in a variety of shapes, thicknesses and sizes.

Playing with shape, space, form, pattern, dimension and design, they arranged their chosen pieces into sculptures (“built environments”), and secured them  using “tacky glue“.

Some used aspects of symmetry to create harmony and balance.

Some built their pieces up,

into elegant and contained structures,

some out, into strong, repeating patterns,

and some built up and out producing a magical sense of movement that is a joy to behold.

They used the color, texture and utility of the materials to establish strong compositions, sustain visual interest

and just plain have fun!

It was beautiful to see them build….their worlds.

Gratis Louise Nevelson.

The Art of Reflection

The Art of Reflection

Compelling design, part of a work of art of stained glass, at the Woodlawn Mausoleum

The seasons they are a-changing.

It is Autumn, the season of cooling weather and quickening hearts. The end of fluid Summer, and beginning of the school year, another stab at academic rigor, goal setting, focus, and pushing forward the vision. Perhaps re-visioning the vision.

After a bout of white-hot Los Angeles weather, I awoke recently to a cool(er) gray Santa Monica morning, and walked to the Woodlawn Cemetery & Mausoleum.  As I strolled through its spacious corridors, punctuated by magnificent stained glass windows, I was entranced by their reflections spreading pools of colored light across the smooth floors.

I was struck by the nature of reflection. Fascinated by these “secondary” works of art, a byproduct of the stained glass works they mirrored, I first photographed just the reflections, marveling at what was created by the transitory meeting of light with and travel through the colored glass.

The reflections reflected light itself.  They were transitory. They would change with the changing light. But that fact didn’t make them any less real. I was compelled to document them as I was privileged to see them right then, right there, on an overcast day, wandering alone in the Mausoleum. 

Here they are.

Double reflection..on both the gleaming floor and the wall of niche spaces.

An extraordinary place for reflection…of all sorts.

What are You reflecting on during this time of seasonal change and transition?