Pinch Pot

The earth without art is just "eh".

During my second year of college I enrolled in a ceramics 101 course. While enrolled in this course I learned the proper techniques of making a pinch pot. The first step is to start out will a ball of clay and then push your thumb into the surface of the ball to create a hole (not going all the way through). Once the hole is created you pinch the clay with your thumb on the inside with hand supporting the pinching on the outside. You continue the pinching until the walls of the pot has achieved the desired thickness. For this particular clay I simply had to wait for the clay to dry rather than heating the clay in a kiln . Once dried I painted my pot using watercolor paints, acrylic paint, and tempera paint. Although this is not my best work with clay I enjoy the opportunity to use a different variety of clay that is more "kid friendly" and can one day be incorporated into my future classroom.
Pinch Pot Tutorial

Milk Jug Mask

A milk jug is a jug for holding and pouring milk, usually intended for use on the table.

Over the years I have learned how to look at simple items like a jug for holding and pouring milk in new ways. Although my brain wasn't the mastermind behind the plan, I have grown to develop my recycle art abilities. I was instructed to cut the milk jug in anyway I saw fit to create the shape of my mask. The next step was to cover the mask in the best tape for a mask...masking tape. Once completely covered with tape, I then rubbed brown shoe polish to cover the tape and give the true African mask look. The final step was giving my mask some small details to bring it all together, these details included the paint dots and the funky hair do.  
Milk Jug Mask Tutorial

Wire Sculpture + Tutorial

                                      Tutorial

I was instructed to create a project around the theme of circus act. I choose to create a wire sculpture that represented a girl doing a ribbon act. 

Supplies Needed

• Gloves (optional but expect blisters)
• Needle nose pliers
• Wire cutters
• Wire
• Ribbon

I started by creating the arms and legs of my figure. I twisted the wire using the needle nose pliers in a tight spiral. 

Next I began to create the body of the figure. I used a similar process of creating the legs of my figure although this time bigger spirals. It was important for my spirals to be as circular as possible to create the look of a body. I then used smaller pieces of wire to connect the body parts together. 

Once all the body parts were attached I simply had to tie the ribbon on a leg and an arm. This wire sculpture hangs from the ceiling by the ribbon.

Practicum

"Teaching is the act of sharing the knowledge we have been given by others with hope that someday in some way, it again will be passed on". -Unknown

Eight-Expanding

Mathematics is not about numbers, equations, computations, or algorithms, it is about understanding. -William Paul Thurston 

My brain loves numbers even though the rest of me usually doesn't feel the same. I have always been great at math but never really enjoyed it. Integrating math and art was the goal of this project. We were assigned groups for this particular project and given a transparent paper, list of equations, and a piece of graph paper. We were instructed to graph each of the equation on our transparent pages. Once the lines were completed we combined them together to create our interpretation of a two sided skyline. 

Gesture and Contour Drawings

Free flowing means moving in a continuous, steady stream.

It was important for all of my lines to be free flowing. This drawing included swift long movements using a piece of red charcoal and an obvious flip flop for reference. The reason for gesture drawings are create the basic shape of an object in anticipation for creating a drawing with more details and fine lines. 

Weaving

A magic carpet is defined as a legendary rug or carpet capable of transporting one who stood on it to any place desired.

To create this weave I used a variety of different materials including yarn, twine, fabric, rope, and fibers. I enjoyed making this project other than the teasing that was included by my husband stating I was making a "mini rug". This "mini rug" was another project that tested my need for patterns and organization. I had no plan for the order of the various materials yet, still enjoyed the outcome. 

Batik

Batik is a method of producing colored designs on textiles by dyeing them, having first applied wax to the parts to be left undyed.

My mom says I am a 20 year old grandma and she just might be right. For my "grandma projects" I have used various types of fabrics with various types of patterns on them. For this assignment I was given the opportunity to make my own pattern. To execute this project I was given a cotton square and a bottle of paste. I drew on the square with this paste and waited for it to dry before painting the fabric to dye it. Once the paint dried and I flaked off all the dried paste I simply washed the fabric and bam. I have decided I don't mind if I am called a 20 year old grandma. 

Batik Tutorial

Georgia O’Keefe Flowers

"When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for the moment" 

- Georgia O'Keefe

While employed at a flower nursery, I worked daily a midst rows and rows of zinnias. These colorful flowersbecame a familiar sight and I always admired their beauty. However, my attempts to recreate these beautiful flowers through conventional artistic methods proved to be a difficult task. For this project, I decided to base my drawing on the key characteristics, which in my opinion, make the zinnia a uniquely beautiful flower. I hoped by focusing on a few characteristics, the project would finally come to life as I saw it in my mind. The first characteristic I focused on was that zinnia's are often covered in butterflies. I found this ironic because I also had butterflies as I started this daunting  task of creating this flower. The second characteristic is the more blooms you snip from zinnias, the more blooms they produce. I created draft after draft until I finally produced a beautiful realistic looking bloom. The third and final characteristic is a zinnia will live until the first frost. I also had to stick around for the long hall until I completed the watercolor project.  My interpretation of a Georgia O'Keefe flower was one of the most labor intensive and frustrating, but I guess those are the things we go though to bloom.
Georgia O'Keefe Flowers Tutorial

Chinese Brush Painting

Unity occurs when all of the elements of a piece combine to make a balanced, harmonious, complete whole.

For this blog post I have included a picture of the kit I used to create my Chinese brush painting. If you notice the kit included a grinding stone, ink stick, brushes, and other various tools. This project was more about the process to create the brush painting rather than the end product. I grinded my own ink as well as practiced 3 specific strokes over and over before putting them together to create strands of bamboo. The second painting (one containing the Chinese symbols) was more therapeutic, although I used the same kit and process of creating ink it was creating my own rhythm and stokes on the paper. The symbols on the left paper include the words eternity (large) and unity (small right corner). 

Chinese Brush Painting Tutorial

Color Assignment

Music and Emotion are a branch of music psychology with numerous areas of study including the nature of emotional reactions to music, how characteristics of the listener may determine which emotions are felt, and which components of a musical composition or performance may elicit certain reactions.

I played percussion for 6 years, yet during this project I was subjected to the worst music/ noises I have ever heard.  For the first painting (blue paper) I was to listen to these noises and paint using simply black and white paint. The goal was to paint my emotions as well as use the black and white to create different values. Value is defined as the relative lightness or darkness of a color. The next page (orange) I was subjected to more noise and created a painting using one shape, and mixing black and white with various colors to create different values. Although this may have been my least favorite project I enjoyed a different way to approach learning value. 

Internal Texture

Processed cheese-flavored snack puffs; official name Chee-tos

For this particular assignment I used a variety of different techniques as well as ate a variety of different foods. Would you believe that these triangles represented a Cheeto, Sweedish Fish, smoothie, oatmeal cookie, apple, and a Dorito? I will let you decide where each of the food items belonged. 
Internal Texture Tutorial

Australian Aboriginal Art

Stippling is the creation of a pattern simulating varying degrees of solidity or shading by using small dots.

This particular project was one of my favorites. I found creating a pattern including thousands of dots using the end of a pencil eraser to be therapeutic. This aboriginal artwork was intended to describe my  journey. It doesn't represent my life journey just simply my journey to get out of bed in the morning (this can be a battle all on its own).  I enjoy the little details in my artwork as well as life. The greatest detail in this piece starts at the beginning; it includes my alarm going off and my husband telling me he loves me. This is not only one of the greatest detail in this piece, but one of the greatest little details of my journey. 
Australian Aboriginal Art Tutorial

 

Alien Names

Beauty is defined as a combination of qualities, such as shape, color, or form, that pleases the aesthetic senses, especially the sight.

Create beautiful aliens was the requirement. As depicted in the definition above it doesn't say that blonde hair and blue eyes are the only items that create beauty (although a certain dictator would argue with that assessment). What I believed were qualities of a beautiful alien were up to me. Through the use of various colored paper, googly eyes, beads, pipe cleaners, and fuzzy yarn I created aliens that I thought were pleasing to the aesthetic senses. A secret to the beauty in this piece was the aliens bodies were made up of the names of my husband and myself. This reminds me to look to myself to find my own true beauty. 
Alien Names Tutorial

Non-objective Square

The artwork does not represent or depict a person, place or thing in the natural world.

The goal of our non-objective squares was to create a line going from one corner to another. I achieved this goal in "round about way". For those that know me also know that I am a wee bit OCD. This caused a problem for me when creating a page including free flowing lines with no pre-written plan. When it came down to the color choice I left it to my cousin Alivia, this decision again forcing myself to not have a pre-determined plan. I enjoyed the progression of the green from the bottom to the top of the page. Although I didn't enjoy the process of this particular piece, I found the end product visually appealing. On a side note I dedicate this piece to my Grandpa Devey and declare it finally ready to be framed. 
Non-objective Square Tutorial