Where I am instead...

Hello, kind and sweet and wonderful and lovely readers of this ridiculously neglected blogsite. Perhaps I should offer an apology (and further beg of your forgiveness) for not being here but I don't believe that to be acceptable since... I'm actually not sorry for being so very not here. And I say all of this not from lack of appreciation but much more of absolutely pure honesty. 

Since last year about this time (maybe even a little earlier), I've had a great deal of challenge in my personal life. Much of this has to do with information I'm not at liberty to discuss openly (because it's information that technically belongs to other people) but some of it belongs to me as well as I have had my own share of some amazingly challenging health issues. This has included (but is not limited to) me having to see quite a number of medical professionals and even have to go through a biopsy in order to determine that I do not have cancer. (I repeat: I do NOT have cancer. PRAISE. THE. LORD.) I have been found to have other things though but... they aren't things that are new and are simply things that I've somehow always had but that still require some very focused, immediate, and steadfast medical attention. *sigh* It's not been fun or easy but I'm happy to report that I'm feeling so much better than I have in a very long while despite the toll it's clearly taken on me (and, in turn, this blog). 

All of this said, I've not stopped teaching art and/or creating it myself. I've simply being doing it in a capacity that is not so openly shared here or other social media conduits I have previously kept up. While not sharing is not so much "fun," it's been enormously instrumental for me and the continued movement that I make toward greater wellness and more solid ground. Not having the requirement or feeling or urgency to share has helped me find much more very real joy in my life and helped me to invest in being less of a producer of moments and a better of enjoyer of them. I'm more truly invested in life and it's paid off in dividends beyond what I could ever count. Basically? I'm less wired into a virtual world and more connected to the real one that always immediately surrounds me which has created richer relationships and greater value across the board and what I do have in my life? None of it is superficial or in excess in a way that I either want to or need to purge to make things more "manageable" let alone more enjoyable. 

The way it's all happened was certainly never planned (by me at least) but I'm happy that it has happened just the same. One any given day I can (and I do) look at my life and feel a beautiful and and wonderful peace which is always followed but a strong but quiet thankfulness. This is because I GET TO HAVE this life that I have. I've not been relegated to it and it's far and away from something that "is what it is." This is something that is beyond what could have been brought by mere luck or coincidental happenstance. Something this good can't and doesn't just happen - per my opinion or experience. And all of this brings me to the latest "development" of the place that I've been so blessed to find myself reveling in...

This was done with prismacolor colored pencil (a 72-count set) and blended with gamsol and then defined and dimensioned with Micron pens. I did not prep the pages (though you can do that) but I did do a light sketch to layout what you see. Also, no - the image or mediums did not "shadow" or bleed through the pages so they are perfectly readable still!

This is my Bible. And other than my family (which includes my husband, child, and our small menagerie of creatures), my Bible is the most treasured thing I own. I actually have a lot of Bibles but this one is very special to me because I bring it with me as much as I can in order to look at it whenever I might want to. Is it odd that it happens to have a huge illustration across the pages? Well... that's called Bible Journaling and it's something I have discovered over the past year where you study it in a way that allows you to visually illuminate the understanding (or even questions) you have right there in the place where it so originated.

Bible journaling is something that I'm only just starting. Prior to this I would highlight and annotate and do very quick drawings in the margins in pen for the sole purposes of explication. Bible journaling is something that I've been watching from the "sidelines" as it's been taking the world of social media by storm. (So... though I haven't been a participator and active contributor? I've still been reading blogs and such to not be totally out of "the loop" with things). In recent weeks though, I've decided to jump into Bible journaling myself and I gotta tell you - it's AMAZING and I love it SO Much because it's reinvigorated my understanding of scripture as well as ignited my enthusiasm to partake of The Word in ways that I don't think I have ever experienced in my whole life. This is something that I feel like I have been waiting for and I'm so glad that it's happened that it's now in my life.

So... this is what I'm doing these days and I'm still not sure that I will be sharing it on here the way I have today or that I will be returning to this blogsite any time soon but I just wanted to say "Hi" at least and say that I haven't totally forgotten about this place (where I once spent so much more time). Thanks so much for the patience, understanding, and support for me to have done what I have been able to do and keep doing as I am doing.

Are you an ARTIST teacher?

This series of images documents the ongoing progress/process of a very large in-class demo of oil painting.

Just this past summer, I had the great honor and pleasure to meet one of my blog readers (Hi, K!) in part because they were doing their graduate studies capstone research project on the matter of not just teaching art but being an artist who just as well teaches. The whole idea was so curious and intriguing to me because I never stopped to think about what kind of teacher I am and even seek to be other than just trying to be the best professional art educator myself. 

Still, it got me thinking - have I been an artist teacher? What does it take to be an artist teacher if you aren't one? And, if you aren't an artist teacher, should you seek to be? And if you are an artist teacher, when do you stop being an artist and start being a teacher of art - or are those identities/roles so beautifully braided together that they don't beg to even try to be separated?

When I met with my blog reader, the intent was to be interviewed by them about the whole notion of being an artist teacher but it ended up turning into a very interesting and thought provoking conversation about that plus many other things. At one point they asked me something along the lines of if I wasn't an artist teacher or even an artist, what would I call myself. I sat and thought for a moment and then I declared that I am "curious" and that's what I believe that I am. Even now, months after that interview/conversation, I feel like "curious" is the best way for me to both explain, define, and identify myself. 

Last year, I believe I struck upon something incredibly important that has truly changed the trajectory of what I was trying to do when I first became an art educator five years ago. I realized the importance of process within the creation of art and I also started making a great distinction between the notion of CREATING art vs. making art. I did this not only in my own life but I also stressed this within all that I was teaching my student artists. 

I believe it's because of this that I finally started seeing more original, interesting, thought provoking, intentional and REMARKABLE artwork from my student artist more than I ever had before. It was incredible and the difference between what I did last year with my student artists and years before? You can totally see how much more on a different "level" it was and then continued to be with each next step they took with their learning and project endeavors. The difference between the two was that I made my teaching objective and curriculum a lot more about them (so, student-centered and inquiry-based) and a lot less about me (lecturing, deliberately steering each of them through very narrow paths of techniques for making things rather than creating them).

This year I tried something even more adventurous than what I did last year with an even greater emphasis on the importance of developing and having a creative process in order to be a more intentional artist and designer. While I have readily used in-class demos before, it's been in a way that kind of disconnects me from the process for the most part - meaning, I don't really show them much other than just demonstrating specific techniques. In my own experience as an artist though, I have learned that process isn't just figuring out and refining technique. It's about the perseverance, the critical thinking, deep emotional investment and personal connection with whatever work of art is currently in the works. All of that is even more integral to the creative process than refined technique but if I don't show the students that I go through this? I fail to show them some of the most important parts of the creative process and any finished work of art I might show them that I created seems to just appear vs. it being something that they truly see and understand was a labor of love (if you will). 

Finally got the stem and leaf (on the right) done the other day! Now to keep myself from going back and messing it up.

I have been working on a giant oil painting of a Hoa Quynh flower for weeks and going on months at this point. To say that it's been slow going would be an understatement and this is as much because I can't spend a ton of class time on it because I am constantly circulating and interacting directly with the student artists and their artwork as much as I have been just avoiding painting as I am wont to do even in my home studio. I am committed to pushing the painting through to the end though and even though the students have now finished their oil paintings, I refuse to give up on finishing mine because there is still so much process to share with them for them to learn of that I know will help them in their own journey to find and use their unique artist voices.

It's that time again :: Set Design :: Little Women - Fall 2013

Don't forget to enter the "Giving YOU the good stuff" (from Prang) fine-line marker giveaway by this coming Thursday, October 31st, at midnight HERE in the comments section. This isn't sponsored by Prang and is something that I just wanted to do because I like the Prang products so much after using them.

Remember: You don't have to tweet anything or follow me on any social networking conduits. 

Just answer the question in the blog posting HERE in the corresponding comments section and I will pick a winner randomly and announce it on Friday, November 1st! Good luck to you in winning it the prize!

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One of my major responsibilities annually is handling the artistic direction of some of the major

dramatic performance productions at my school. While this used to just entail set painting and dressing and prop creation and making, it's also become an even bigger task because I sometimes even draw up set plans for the faculty directors/producers/set building crews as informed by multiple meetings and "visions" that any involved might have for the finished show. This is what the aforementioned looks like...

Mini Masterpiece prepping with Artist Trading Cards :: Interactive Art History

This is my third year of doing the ever popular Mini Masterpiece project with the Art History students and this year I decided to add something into the creative process of it by having the students do some trial runs with artist trading cards (ATC). Do you do ATC at all with your students?

In all honesty, I have wanted to get in on the ATC "game" for quite a while and I even have quite an inventory to do it - I ordered different supports in ATC size at the beginning of the year - but I haven't been able to get it and keep it going. I blame the ridiculous schedule I keep at any given time with working full-time, graduate studies (also full-time), married and family life, and everything else in between.

(Next year, my goal is to definitely get ATC creation and exchanges going here within the school's art community and then eventually have it connect with another school/art community. I think it would be a great for a student leader to spearhead and so it's on my goal list to make happen in that way. Anyway...)

I have all of these ATC but I haven't used them this year so far. Last week there was a major school-wide field trip that happened though with the Science department and I was left with only half of my students in almost every class! It was the perfect time to break out some ATC for the students to do some creative processing and exploration. I found it especially useful with the interactive art history students since they are prepping for doing the Mini Masterpiece project and the ATC are just the right size to get them to start thinking about scale in order for them to do more successful works of art when they get their final materials.

I put my hand in this shot so you can get a better understanding of how small they are! 

The students used the Portfolio brand Oil Pastels that we are such a huge fan of and they all turned out some pretty amazing ATC that many of them took with them in order to be able to give to their friends and/or hang in their lockers.

I have never done ATC before but I feel like it really worked as a nice stepping stones for art history students to feel a little more prepared and confident for when it comes time for them to put paint to canvas.

The ROYGBIV Project :: Pulling it All Together :: Pt. 3 of 5

A view of the sun and some clouds without embellishments

The sculpting/fabrication process for this project went surprisingly quick despite how much work needed to be done. Before we got started I predicted that the clouds and the sun group would progress faster than the rainbow group and I was indeed right.

Every day I would have a brief discussion at the start of the class and give them feedback and also insight about how and why things were going as they were during the sculpting process both from my own observations as well as from the perspective of me being the "expert consultant" or the mentor to all of them. I would also remind them of the timeline that we were attempting to keep to and I would offer them suggestions about what could be done in order to either speed things up of the whole process OR attend to issues that might be arising. They also had the opportunity to ask me questions or present concerns about the overall scope of things and I was able to address things in some reasonably timely ways.

The second most exciting thing for them to do was to take each of their different elements to the next stage beyond just the foundational sculpting phase. The sun group needed to do some careful cutting work and then paint their object before embellishing it...

And the clouds group had to use a glue mixture to adhere the cotton batting and fiberfill to the cloud forms in order for them to look more realistic and have real texture...

The rainbow group? They plugged away wrapping more and more balloons in glue covered string while they also took breaks to spray paint what they had already made and dried completely...

One of the greatest challenges for me apart from managing some expected challenges betwixt and between them (and I will be address this in tomorrow's installment) was the fact that all of the fumes from the glue mixtures and spray paints being used were not fun to contend with in the studio classroom that I have which was never intended to be the studio art classroom that it is today. After about a week of me doing the best I could to air out the classroom just by propping open the door and then having all of the fumes waft out into the hallway, the building maintenance finally gave me my own window key!!!

The coveted GOLDEN key to the windows!!!

I am on pretty decent terms with the building maintenance team/management AND custodial staff because my path crosses with them in so many endeavors I might have but they like me enough because while I can present challenges to them, I am also one of the folks who can take care of their own messes and I frequently do so in such a way that I don't create a huge amount of extra work for them to do. For this endeavor? They finally just slipped me a window key and told me to be responsible with it - meaning, don't go opening everyone else's windows who might be asking for such a thing and also only use it in the art room when absolutely necessary!

Tomorrow I will share with you some hiccups and snafus of this whole endeavor chock full of some serious teachable moments before Friday when I will share with you all the final view/unveiling of everything as it is all installed in the art gallery.

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This installation art study was student-centered and collaboratively designed and constructed (across two classes). It utilized paper sculpting and papier mache, string wrapping, spray painting and brush painting, fiber application in order to create a sun, clouds, and rainbow display suspended from the ceiling of the student art gallery hallway. It was originally presented in a week long series that showed the planning and creative processing, the beginning part of the sculpting/working stage, the point just about when everything was done being sculpted, and then some notes about when things went awry and how those things were dealt with. The final view of it can be found HERE. This project was meant to be a re-imagining of The Ombre Experience project idea.

The ROYGBIV Project :: Making it happen :: Pt. 2 of 5

This stage was the absolute messiest of all of the stages but it also was the one that the students really enjoyed because it allowed them to really explore and experiment with the creative process and truly give life to the ideas that they were tasked with. Here is a little of what each of the groups were attempting to work with...

Sun group

Idea was pretty close to THIS idea that I had originally shown them

• Wanted to paper mache in order to sculpt a single extra-large spherical structure
• Needed an exercise/yoga ball for their form
• Wanted to pull in some texture by adhering muffin/cupcake paper cups to the outside of the structure after it was completely sculpted
• Wanted to use lighting in order to illuminate the structure from the inside out

Clouds group

Idea derived from THIS I found and showed them during the lesson intro

•  Required them to do paper mache to sculpt multiple different but similar structures
• Needed lots of balloons for the form of each structure
• Required cotton batting/stuffing for the texture of the clouds
• Wanted to do at least seven clouds in order to fill out the gallery hallway space

Rainbow group

Idea was inspired by THIS that I found and showed them during the lesson intro

• Required them to use watered down glue mixture to soak string so that it could adhere to individual forms
• Needed lots of balloons for what would be over 100 individual forms suspended from the ceiling
• Required paint in Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet

We spent at least a week and a half total of class time doing just the fabrication/sculpting of all of the different elements of the total installation. It was definitely messy and that's not something that all of the students were keen on but with lots of encouragement and redirection from me that this was a GROUP effort and we needed to be unified in order for it to really be successful, it became a rare thing for any of them to sit and be idle for too long. Most all of the students wanted to play an active role because they fully understood that the effort we had to put forth was major and collective. They truly started understanding that if one person didn't invest themselves, the whole of the project would ultimately suffer.

Two groups needed newspaper for papier mache so they banded together to create triangles - because that's the best shape for seamless and smooth coverage - in order to prep the paper.

The sun group gets started on the first of many layers!

The clouds group also got to work but they had an easier time than the sun because there were multiple cloud clusters to work on.

The rainbow group had perhaps the most challenging of all of the elements of the installation to work on both because of the sheer number of items that needed to be sculpted - they were shooting for about 100 total to fill the space we have - and because working with string coated in glue mixture? Well... it's just way messier than papier mache. Surprising that anything could be that way compared to papier mache but it was true! Also, wrapping and layering the string had to be done a little more strategically (read: it was less forgiving than papier mache) so there was a bit of a learning curve for everyone in the sun group.

The sun group discovered it required at least two people to coat the string and then wrap a balloon with the glue coated string. They tried to have at least two stations of this going at once.

One of the balloons that they did as a "prototype" to figure out if it would work, how long it would take to dry, etc.

One of the major challenges from this stage (as with almost every project endeavor I do) is dealing with how to store things when they are in the WiP (work-in-progress) phase. I share the studio art classroom with a part-time faculty member and while it might sometimes seem like I have a pretty cushy set-up (based on what I share on the blog) the room I share with the other teacher is about 2/3 the size of what I know most art classrooms are that are not shared. This always creates problems when it comes to storing supplies or student works on top of the fact that I know my colleague is not usually thrilled with some of my zany endeavors. (They are much more neat and tidy than I am.)

For this project I solved some of the project by storing some of the bags of balloons behind this huge canvas that another student has been trying to work on when they can...

Far from ideal but making the best of what I have is all I can do

Tomorrow I will show you the next phase of the project when we were getting to the stage of finishing up the sculpting and fabrication of the different elements and starting to install it all in the student gallery hallway.

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This installation art study was student-centered and collaboratively designed and constructed (across two classes). It utilized paper sculpting and papier mache, string wrapping, spray painting and brush painting, fiber application in order to create a sun, clouds, and rainbow display suspended from the ceiling of the student art gallery hallway. It was originally presented in a week long series that showed the planning and creative processing, the beginning part of the sculpting/working stage, the point just about when everything was done being sculpted, and then some notes about when things went awry and how those things were dealt with. The final view of it can be found HERE. This project was meant to be a re-imagining of The Ombre Experience project idea.

The ROYGBIV Project :: Kicking it off :: Pt. 1 of 5

 Last year one of the big winners of all of project endeavors was The Ombre Exprience that sought to allow my student artists to study installation art. It was a lot of work but it was very well received not only by the blog audience I serve but also the school community as well! People couldn't say enough about it and the success inspired me to make an installation art study a regular thing that I would do at least every Spring with the 3D Design class. The big challenge for me would be to do something that was just enough of the same thing to start a tradition but just different enough that it would offer something unexpected as well.

This year I think I really managed to do what I set out to do by focusing on the idea of hanging a rainbow of some sort in the student gallery hallway but rather than me coming up with all of the ways it would be done, I decided to make the project completely student centered and have them come up with how it would all play itself out. The only stipulation I made was that (unlike last year) there had to be representations not only of a rainbow but also the clouds and a sun.

In order to help them be inspired and have ideas start to take root, I showed them examples of installation art and otherwise "outside the box" art via youtube...

And then I conducted class discussions and friendly debate about what was most important in order to accomplish what we were setting out to accomplish and then each of the students spent a day or so coming up with individual proposals about what we could possibly do - either for the whole she-bang or for specific elements like focusing on the sun and clouds. Students were not allowed to put their names on their proposals - that were drawings with brief narrations and explanations - and I presented them using a document camera and projector to the two different classes that were doing this jointly for everyone to vote anonymously with post-it notes that I simply collected and adhered directly to the paper proposals. The ideas with the most ideas automatically became the actual inspiration of what we would end up doing with the three elements of the total installation.

Once voting was done, I presented the final selections to the two classes and then I had them sign-up for the three different ideas/inspirations offering them both the pros and cons presented by each idea. I challenged them to not pick portions of the project where they would be working alongside their friends and I also told them to not let the difficulty that might be presented to dissuade them from working on the element of the project that they really wanted. They all did a great job at divvying themselves up and I was very pleased with not having to make that decision for them. I wanted there to be some real ownership of the creative decisions and actions they were making and taking and doing things this way established it from the get-go.

Good ol' fashioned sign-up sheets! Nothing beats doing it like this.

After the subdivisions of teams were established in BOTH classes that met during two totally different times of the day, I took each class to the school's computer lab for them to do research about materials and supplies that would help facilitate the ideas established with the class voting process. I invested a total of about $75 for the project of my own money and gave each subdivision (rainbow, sun, clouds) $25 to stretch as they needed. I had things like paper mache powder and newspapers and some raw materials already in the art room inventory but felt that a $25 cap was reasonable for them to be both challenged to use wisely and also get what was needed in order to bring life to the idea overall. Each class had about one class period in the computer lab and then they collaborated and coordinated their ideas for a "shopping list" for me at the local Wal-mart for me to get what was needed.

Another part of the process was letting them have some time in the actual space were the installation would be hung. Basically, they got to have a site visit so they could take real measurements and have a better visual understanding of taking the idea of paper and placing it in a physical space. It was helpful for them and "mini field trips" are always a welcome change from staying in the studio classroom.

The planning stage was capped off with me having full confidence in them because they provided me with pretty comprehensive plans WITH supplies lists that also included pricing information in order for me to ensure that I wouldn't end up spending more than I told them I was willing to. I told them to think of me as being a client of theirs who had a zany idea that I wanted to make happen but no manpower or know-how to be able to do it. They were really able to imagine this scenario and treat with some real-world type interaction and appropriate reaction for what needed to be done.

 

Tomorrow I will show you what happened when we actually got our hands on the materials and start bring life to the ideas that they came up with and were working towards.

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This installation art study was student-centered and collaboratively designed and constructed (across two classes). It utilized paper sculpting and papier mache, string wrapping, spray painting and brush painting, fiber application in order to create a sun, clouds, and rainbow display suspended from the ceiling of the student art gallery hallway. It was originally presented in a week long series that showed the planning and creative processing, the beginning part of the sculpting/working stage, the point just about when everything was done being sculpted, and then some notes about when things went awry and how those things were dealt with. The final view of it can be found HERE. This project was meant to be a re-imagining of The Ombre Experience project idea.

Behind the Music(al) :: Hairspray :: Promo posters

The promo posters has turned out pretty well, don't you think?

So I previously shared with you all what the general graphic design would be for the annual musical production would look like at least in its working stages and I am happy to report that it was approved - not only by the directors and producers of the production - but also by the governing organization of musicals (who provide us with the materials for the musical) themselves! One of my colleagues who also does graphic design and handles a major amount of the performance arts goings-about here took the core design that I was able to pull together and the above is the official poster for the production! Hurrah!!! One more thing down!!!

The graduated color and the pink and white writing work well for it I think and the general design (colors, layout, etc.) is also going to inform both the ticket design - this year is the first one we are doing a vertical design for the ticket - as well as the roadside banner that will be staked out at the school's entrance gates.

I will try and share the ticket designs when I finally get to see them as well as the roadside banner and then also the tweaked t-shirt design when it is finally printed and shipped in next week sometime. Until then? I am working over this coming long weekend on the actual set of the production. There is a TON to be painted, detailed, and still constructed yet. An art teacher's work is just never done! (Good thing I love my job so much and I would do all of this anyway. *wink*)

WiPs: Cartoons-in-the-round | 3D Design

Allow me for the lack of presence on the blog lately in the way of student artwork. I give you some works-in-progress from the 3D Design class. It's their last project of the semester!!!

PRIME time with lots of gesso being brushed about (pun definitely intended)

Yesterday and today the 3D class spent time attending to their cartoon sculptures done in the round out of boneware clay. They took about a two weeks of class time drafting up their ideas and then doing the actual sculpting right before we broke for Christmas and NY vacation.

The two weeks that we were out  left just enough time for the pieces to air-dry and set beautifully though some of them did suffer from some hairline fractures and natural separation of different pieces that weren't attached with the blending technique that I pushed them to use. (Hate to be the one to have to say "Told you so" but I absolutely did!!" A combination of gorilla glue, Alene's craft tacky glue, and some plaster tape helped to attend to any of the major issues of the drying out process (in a super cold studio classroom at that!) and it wasn't long until everybody was applying 2-3 good even coats of gesso for them to paint and detail in time for the end of next week when the end of class happens. (Cannot believe the end of classes is coming! Hate this time of year because of this. I ALWAYS hate having to say goodbye to the student artists every time it's time to do so.)

One of the pieces on the mend with some quick setting plaster tape. It was the best I could come up with to fix the very MAJOR crack that resulted from the drying process. This one even had an armature in it. *shrug*

Finding Nemo's Pearl the octopus!! Pretty much every day some one in class would take a turn and say her  infamous phrase, "Awww you guys made me iiiiink!"

A gecko/chameleon from I don't know which animated movie BUT the piece is BEAUTIFULLY sculpted and I know the student artist will do just as beautiful of a job painting and detailing it. Can't wait to see it finished!

One of my faves from this round of student work. It's a minion from Despicable Me!!!! This one also had us quoting Despicable Me at least every other day. It's been so much fun doing this project for everybody!!

There were also two Mike Wazowski's from Monsters Inc. and the dragon from How to train your dragon. There was one Mickey Mouse and one Cookie Monster and then (2?) from Dora the Explorer and one more from Finding Nemo (I think it was Dorie). I can't remember some of the others of the bunch but they are all pretty fun and I will certainly share them finished here on the blog when they are done.

I had no idea painting and creation could be like this.

This 40x40 canvas has been hanging around my house waiting to be marked up for quite some time. I haven't had the time to do anything with it though (when I bought it) I had some inspiration for it and even though it was quite some coin to buy it, I knew I was supposed to do it. (I did manage to save some money though with a 40% discount coupon from Michael's and my teacher's discount.) 

When my students came over to my house to have a painting/art party for my one student's 18th birthday celebration, it seemed like a good idea to finally do something with and to this giant blank canvas. My original goal was to paint this instagram snap of the sunrise taken one morning right outside my house weeks ago...

Amazing, no? Instagram is such a guilty pleasure of mine. 

I was debating between the above and another sort of similar picture but my husband convinced me that the above was a much better inspiration to draw from. (The other one I was considering is pictured HERE in this blog posting.)

Anyway, I blocked out my painting with the Portfolio brand oil pastels I love so much and talk so much about...

  

And then I went in on top of that with an open palette of colors in Gamblin brand oil paints that I bought (also way too long ago and have been sitting waiting for me to open up) paired with Liquin and natural Turpenoid.

I worked on it probably less than three hours when I finally stopped/quit for lunch and I was content enough with it. It wasn't stressing me out at least. I took my students and my daughter to lunch for a VN feast of Pho Tai, Goi Cuon, Ca Kho To, Sung Sa Hat Lua, Banh Mi, and a Vietnamese style birthday cake. We ended up being out and about for most of the day and I didn't get home until right before dinner time. This is where I stopped before the lunch break...

When I came home, I contemplated not working on it but then ended up stepping back into putting more color down because my daughter was happily playing by herself and I wanted to get some more layers of paint built so that I could work wet on wet if I wanted to.  

Then right before my husband arrived home from work, I had a moment where I just thought this to myself...  

"You know what? How about you just let go of your expectations a little bit and do what you are going to do because this is the first time you are back at the easel. The Lord will surely do a mighty work in you and with you and ON THIS PAINTING if you just let yourself loose a little bit. Paint what you feel and how you are inspired and not what you (think) you know. Let both divine inspiration  and the paint itself speak to you and then you do your best to respond with your brush to start a conversation (of sorts) so that your canvas/painting is saying something more than showing something."

And wouldn't you know it as soon as I had the above conversation with myself, I yielded something amazing that you can see a little bit of below. How gracious and provident is God. Man oh man. I had no idea I could or would ever paint like this. I know I am entering an entirely new phase as both a visual artist and a painter. I feel so incredibly blessed.  I have wanted to paint like this for as long as I have known paintings - both just admiring them as much as trying to paint myself.  

Tomorrow, I will share the finished piece with you. Yes. A finished oil painting on a 40x40 canvas was finished in less than a day by me - the painter who (in the past) has taken up to 10 months to finish one piece that is half that size.

At the home studio with my (from work) art students

Yesterday I told you a little bit about how I decided to take my first day off/day of leisure (in I don't know how long) and invited to of my senior art students to my home studio to celebrate one of their birthdays with a day of painting and then a feast of Vietnamese food. I don't have pictures of the trip to get VN food but here are some pictures of what my students painted! I will share pictures of what I worked on in my next posting.

This student painter is the (now) 18 year old birthday girl and she is actually nationally ranked rock climber in her non-student and non-artist time. Her place of grace is definitely in the mountains and scaling ridiculous rocky terrain so she opted to work on a 16x20 canvas knife painting with acrylics to make an inspired piece of some rocky mountain ranges. She blocked out her painting in Portfolio-brand pastels and then she painted over it all.

She is quite accomplished and gifted in painting even though she is not currently an art student because her advanced placement course schedule does not permit any. She does serve as the school's peer-elected visual arts senior prefect. 

This student artist opted to do two smaller canvases and the one below is the second one she did. She was very inspired by the colors of autumn and her previous small one was in the whole rainbow spectrum. Her plan with her pieces was to take both small pieces home and develop them further into mixed-media works of art using tissue paper and ink on top of the painted layers.

This student is also an advanced art student but her gifting is more in drawing so she is in the year-long intensive drawing course. She is especially good with "zen doodling" and anything that is geometric and graphic. 

Because no occasion can pass (by me) without me giving something handmade. I did an inspired Sharpie-ed mug design (and then baked it) of a design I originally saw on either Pinterest or Etsy. (Can't remember where but this is my way of saying this is not an original design idea.)

The birthday girl and I always joke about how to be a TRUE hipster so she is wearing a disco necklace (a silly costume prop from Party City) and holding the mug so you can see Lionel Richie on the front of her (green) tea mug. Below you can see the back of the mug that reads, "Hello. Is it Tea you're looking for?"

This image collage was made with the iPhone app called PicStitch. (I think)

In tomorrow's posting, I will show you what I worked on while my art students were working on their things.

Because I can't hold a paintbrush and cameras as the same time

Oil painting truly feeds my soul.

So, last Friday I took my first real day off in I don't know how long.  Strangely enough, it just happened to fall on the 18th birthday of one of my art students who I have a very close relationship with.

For weeks, this student (and her best friend) have been talking and planning for the birthday and trying to come up with something really amazing and exciting to do. Some time along the way the offered me an invitation to be a part of all of what would be happening. I was hesitant to take them up on the offer for a myriad of reasons: I wasn't even sure I would really have the day free to spend with them... I wasn't sure I would really want to do whatever they ended up doing... If I did have the day off, (I was convinced) it would be better spent catching up on my non-teaching work and edit wedding and portrait shoots that I've just recently done in my (now defunct) professional photography career.

(Note: None of my reasons had to do with the fact that my school would "frown upon" or even officially disapprove of me spending time with my students in a more personal/beyond school type of thing. This is because my school strongly encourages and fosters an environment for relationships to both develop and exist that go much more in the way of discipleship than just being traditional teacher-student relationships. There are (of course) lines that can't and should never be crossed but for the most part? It's not unusual for teachers and students at my school to forge relationships with the kids that stretch far beyond the classroom and sometimes very much into our own personal time and space. My school is a school COMMUNITY and the community part is strongly emphasized.)

As I said last week, I have needed to make some changes and have a break from so many of the things that I have been doing with and of my life. I have been seriously dissecting it and seeing it for what it all is. The thing that I have come to is that I need to stop defining myself with what I do/can do and also by what I have. Why? Because all of those things easily negate who I am - a follower of Christ and His teachings - on any given day of the week. It's easy for me to say that I am a disciple of Christ but it's a lot harder to actually BE on. Why? Because that means that I have to put myself and all of my needs, wants, and deepest desires aside (and, let's face it) as far away from myself as possible. This is hard for me because I am so hard-headed and also easily distracted - which constantly draws my gaze, attention, and energy from whatever God is calling me to do. If I let Him though? He will scrape me clean and make me new so that I can be ready for whatever He wants me to do.

My very dirty oil painting palette that took me FIVE rounds of scraping in cleaning until it was acceptable to use. 

All of that being said, I have (obviously) felt convicted and struggled with the things I know He has called me to do with my life. I have had a very difficult time believing the fact that "If He brings you to it, He will bring you through it." (Irony of ironies, I preach this all the time.) I also have a hard time both hearing and BELIEVING the fact that the Lord surely knows me better than any other in the world and existence and so the yearnings and begging I have in my heart exist because HE put them there in the first place and if I get out of His way, He will indeed provide abundantly to not only quiet my heart's desires but also satisfy and nourish it so that it grows and thrives and exists solely for Him.

My brushes, lined up and ready to go like little soldiers.

I prefer Gamblin-brand oil paints and I will save up for them just so I have them alone for  my oil painting endeavors. 

So, all of this is my roundabout way of saying that last Friday I really REALLY took a well-needed and definitely used (to its fullest) day off. I invited my two beloved students to my home studio and (alongside my bouncy four-year old daughter) we had the grandest time painting together followed by a feast of Vietnamese cuisine (I am adopted and my dad is Vietnamese so I grew up with it) in the next state over!!!

To be continued...

The crucible of painting for The Crucible

Yesterday was my first day back to school after two days of cancellations for Hurricane Sandy and I ended up having to ditch out on almost all of my classes because of set painting for The Crucible.

(-__-)

Well... I didn't really ditch out on all of them, some of them I were drafted to join me in the endless pursuit of dry brushing every surface to make it look like distressed wood grain. Also, my department head covered some of my classes (like study hall) and I took some of her students in addition to some of the ones I had and drafted them into painting as well.

TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

The official shirts for this production are so choice. Praise the Lord for a marketing and design team that shares the same vision as I do by doing things stylistically in a minimalist fashion and VERY WELL at that. 

As it turns out, we have sort have been doing what we've been doing wrong and after much contemplation, I am going to try and turn this set building ship on a dime and lighten up the wall panels so they look more like the three separate vertical planes (on each side) that we wanted them to be to begin with. It just makes more sense that way!

I was sitting back in the sound booth and it just occurred to me that it should be done but rather than being the killjoy and telling the students, "OK... we are going to have to do at least two more... MAYBE three... more rounds of dry brushing to light the value on some specific sections."

Before I made them all do it, I took a picture with my phone and then burned and dodged it in photoshop to have an actual example of what we were going to be doing when we changed it all up. I say: Work SMARTER not HARDER!! 

This might be the most frustrating and rewarding set design and painting I've done so far. It was conceptualized to be as original as possible - though the two faculty directors/producers did cull and give me inspiration images to (literally) draw the set designs from. The craziness that was Hurricane Sandy has definitely set us all back a little but Lord-willing we will make this all happen and it WILL be AWESOME.