Artstock Entries 2013

Finished my pieces for Artstock.  One piece is a bronze I made several years ago.  After the first and only show I entered it in a weld broke while I was transporting it home so it's been residing under my art table since then.  After getting the weld repaired and a little TLC it is ready for viewing once again.  I re-christened it "Theta".  My son suggested it.  It has something to do with a polar graph that creates a spiral.....did I mention that I that my husband and sons are all math/scientists?




This piece started with a ceramic figure I made a few years back but never glazed.  I painted it with metallic/opalescent acrylic paints and finished with a satin varnish.  The base is a piece of wood from a stump we chopped out of the backyard a few months ago.  I usually start with materials that interest me and work out my point of view as the artwork starts taking shape. I didn't really know where I wanted to go with this piece until I put the two together and got a strong earth mother vibe.   At this point it didn't look finished.  I wanted something more around the head that wouldn't detract from the figure and had a "nature" feel.  After digging through my stash of odds and ends and not being very inspired I was getting a little desperate.  I finally found a small metal wall sculpture I had picked up at a thrift store ages ago and cut off a piece that seemed to do the trick.  A scrap of bronze a little gold paint and some varnish on the base pulled it together and I called it done.





If I had more time I may have adjusted a few things but the deadline had arrived and it was time to submit.  I was just glad the glue and paint was mostly dry and it was staying together.  I liked the idea of mother nature but it didn't quite work for me as a name.  I finally decided on "Gaia", the Greek personification of Earth and the mother of all things.

Fossils Part One

My second grade classes are currently learning about fossils so I am using fossils as the inspiration for two art projects.  For the first project the students are creating abstract pastel drawings using the lines and shapes they observed in pictures of fossils.  They used black glue to make thick outlines on black or grey paper.  Next week when the glue is dry they will use brightly colored pastels to create colorful abstract shapes and patterns inside the black lines.

For the second project they are sand casting their own "fossils" by making impressions in sand and then using plaster to fill in the negative space.  The students picked shells and leaves and arranged them carefully in the sand before mixing pre-measured plaster in plastic cups.  They carefully poured the plaster into the sand trying not to ruin the impressions.  The hardest thing for them is waiting until next week when they can "excavate" their creations.  This is a fun and relatively inexpensive 3D project.  It's messy but worth it!

Newspaper Sculpture Week Two

Week two of newspaper sculpting. With their bundles of tubes rolled and ready to go the students got busy figuring out how to turn them into geometric forms. Some stuck to the basics creating cubes and pyramids. Others were a bit more adventurous tapping into their inner engineer designing houses, chairs and robots. And then there were the students who, though still unsure what to make or how to make it, thoroughly enjoyed cutting and taping while they waited for their work of art to emerge.

 One more week to go. Hopefully the newspaper lasts.

Newspaper Sculpture Week One

In addition to my own artwork I teach art residencies in schools around Sacramento. I am currently working at Edward Kemble Elementary School. Unfortunately funding is hard to come by and as a result I work on a spare budget. The students really enjoy sculpture but the cost of materials is usually prohibitive. Fortunately newspaper is a cheap and versatile material that works well for paper sculpture. This week the 3rd graders started working on a 3D project that will tie into what they are learning in math. Today we rolled the newspaper into sturdy tubes. At first there was a lot of "I can't do this, it's too hard!" comments but eventually everyone was making tubes and competing to see who could make the most and who could make the tightest tubes. It was nice to see many of the kids work together and try to help those who were having a tough time getting the technique figured out. Some even shared with those who weren't able to make as many. As a teacher I always hope for a fabulous finished product but sometimes seeing kids get excited about something as simple as rolling paper into tubes and helping each other is the most rewarding part of this gig.

Next week the students will use the tubes to create abstract, geometric sculptures. They can choose to create something on their own or team up and make a larger, collaborative sculpture.