Transylvania project

I introduced the Transylvania project today. We watched a documentary about the many faces of Dracula and then switched gears to a video about Transylvanian folk dancing. "How do we make sense of this place?" I asked. We have images of horror and darkness on the one hand, and colorful swirling skirts on the other. I had a bunch of library books checked out on the table for students to look at. The books were full of photographs -- fields and sheep, markets with cheese, children in folkloric dress. One student mentioned a disproportionate number of old people and babushkas. There were a number of photographs of the gypsy population, and mountain dwellings with sod roofs. One student (named Sylvia) noted that the root word sylvania means a land of many trees. I let them sketch and make figures out of clay as we listened to music from the region. Next week we will begin to make stop action movies about our Transylvanian musings.

animal crests

Linnea and Gillian both finished their coat of arms projects this week. They focused on animal symbolism -- which for both young artists is very much in keeping with what they find important and meaningful. I was really happy with their efforts. The flaming tail of Linnea's horse and the scorching sun over Gillian's lion are especially powerful.

I join the game

I have joined the epic battle. Almost all I could do last weekend was draw my troops. My team is Wenslydale, and we are a rag tag group of British orphans forced to fight with knitting needles and such by the wicked queen mother of our orphanage -- queen Wisteria. Some of our brigade has been turned to bugs by her powers. We drink tea and eat crumpets to sustain ourselves. We are blessed with good cheese. We have a few hound scouts and some falcons. Our healing powers are based on leeches and fresh blood. Go team Wenslydale! Our next battle is this Sunday at twelve hundred hours.

coats of arms

At the last art club we looked at some books about heraldry and discussed the concept of a family crest. We began creating coat of arms designs on graph paper. I encouraged them to think in terms of symbolism and geometric order. I have several rolls of gold leafed wall paper that is quite thick, like a stiff canvas, (they were discovered in a dumptster behind a local wall paper store I frequent) anyway, the golden canvas is perfect for the crest ground. I advised students to use masking tape for the boundary distinctions in their crest designs. Then we started to paint. When the paint was dry we peeled off the masking tape and had really nice backgrounds with perfect line and clarity. During the next art club we will go back into the project with a second layer of detail painting.

This is the first time I have turned my basement into a painting studio. I threw down big drop cloths and let the students work on the ground. We had to be careful not to walk on one anothers art, but overall it went okay. I want to allow the students to get messier and work bigger at times, which just can't happen in my kitchen. I'm too afraid of paint everywhere. When the weather is nice I can let them paint outside, but this winter I have to keep cleaning out my basement and carving out a mess room. I was surpirsed how candid the students were about the chaos. One student saw a mouse trap in the corner. Another asked why it was so dusty. Quite a few were looking out for centipedes. I need a few more bright lights, certainly, and a good scrub down, and less junk -- but most of the junk is for future art projects, and you just never know when the gold leafed wall paper will come in handy.

life drawing session

I like to start class with life drawing -- quick one minute poses that focus students attention and stimulate their minds to the particulars of describing visual information. Life drawing can be very hard and frustrating. I try to create a non-judgemental attitude towards the work. These drawings are process excercises. The more comfortable students get with an attitude of experimentation throughout these beginning excercises, the better the entire class will be. Also, having the whole class come together and draw the same thing (the model) creates a solidarity within the group that I like. The first time we did life drawing some of the students were very hard on themselves. Now they can laugh at their difficulties and start over with the next pose. Keeping the poses moving and changing helps to create a dynamic environment, increases concentration skills, and limits frustration. Students are more open to trying new things during the rest of art club if we start with twenty minutes of life drawing.

life drawing

Art Club regrouped yesterday and we started the session with life drawing excercises. Students posed for each other and did quick thirty second and one minute poses. The models had trouble holding still and quite a bit of goofiness ensued when picking poses, but overall a great time was had by all.

epic battle game

My sons Henry and Jimmy are really interested in epic battle games. They play card games like Magic the Gathering, board games like Settlers of Catan, and computer games like Age of Mythology. I think many kids are so inclined. I must admit that I have not been super supportive of these inclinations in the past, but recently I have been totally won over and inspired. Let me explain.

Last year Henry began drawing battle guys and giving them powers (number ratings). The drawings progressed and became more detailed. He introduced Jimmy to the activity. They told stories. They learned to role play entire battles. They drew fences and castles and balistas and guys on horseback with arrows. Later they drew food sources, charms, and monsters. The whole story progression is so detailed and complex that it is hard to absorb it all as an adult. I think the experience of trying to understand children's stories is often humbling and demands a different sort of attention and patience. My friend Heidi took the time to really sit down and engage with my boys and soon after she began to draw her own army forces. Last week the three sat down to demonstrate a full epic battle using their drawings and stories. The game took two days and several hours to complete and contained some of the best drawings my sons (and my friend Heidi) have ever made.

I loved the whole thing and I want to introduce the idea of game making to the art club this year. I think we will have to be careful with our glorification of carnage and battle, and also watch our silliness while role playing, but overall I have never seen this type of drawing commitment before with my kids. Henry and Jimmy have been making drawings for over a year now and they have won over an adult. Heidi now stays up late nights drawing her army to show Henry in the morning. Both my husband and myself want to find a late night or two so we can start creating our troops soon. I think there is an epic battle in our future.

miniature hats

The miniaturists were invited to Hats-O-Fancy, the studio of local hat maker Renee Roeder, to make small hats and bags. We molded black buckram for the hats and let them dry tied over bottle tops. Buckram is a stiff material which can be purchased in most fabric stores. The starched material becomes maleable when wet and then stiffens again when it dries which takes about ten or fifteen minutes. We decorated our little hats with silk ribbons and flowers. The hat bags were folded and glued around wood blocks and labeled with mini Hat's-O-Fancy stamps.

flip books

Yes. Flip books are fun and easy to make. All young artists should give them a try. Henry made an excellent example based on his Flabacco series of characters. You guessed it. By the last page Flabacco has chopped off a demon head.


Flip books are good for teaching visual narrative. Have students think of a surprising visual scenario that conveys movement. Tell them to draw the final image. Encourage them to use a simple cartoon based drawing style. Have them draw fifty supporting images that precede their first drawing. Students will be surprised how quickly they can get through the process, especially when each image is just changed a micro bit.

Some details: Try to be as exact as you can when cutting the pages because the flipping will be better if you have all the same proportions. Use paper that you can see through (we used computer paper) and draw your image on top of the previous image so you can change each frame of your book proportionally. Draw images with a Sharpie style marker so the lines jump right off the page. Remember to leave room for the staples. The images in the flip book will be on the outside half of the page and the inside part of the page will be blank. The fatter the book the better the flip.