Jr. Spice Trail on a Windy Autumn Day

Thanks for a fun studio - it smells great in here thanks to
our very spicy mosaic explorations. Everyone put a lot of effort into their projects today with great results. Our pumpkins are still drying!

Next week we can decide if we want to paint and/or embellish our frames, or even our pumpkins to see how the colours might come together. And we can talk about how best to show/share our work at our show.
Your group painting looks very windy! (And your swirls stayed!!) Great experimenting and expression. I took it apart with my camera to show you the different bits.

 

 

~Sylvie

Week 3 - Testing and Guessing

http://arttattler.com/archiveoldenburgvanbruggen.html

We had a fun studio this week working on some comic book activities and ideas, then experimenting with found objects and recyclables: glueing, taping, painting and plaster-bandaging (which some of us loved and others did not!!) as we worked on different prototypes and models of devices. Very different and fun results! (some pictures to follow...next time I think).

We can have more tape, some wire and fabric, wood sticks, papier mache and the plaster bandage - as well as more paint - out again next studio as we become inspired by different ways to build our ideas.

Now, I am including this video below because I really like the intro where it shows the artist's hand drawing/animating in stop-motion with sharpies -  and also how it shows the transition of the hand-made to the digital.  This trailer is really interesting because you can see and question the differences between what 'the artist' is doing/drawing/creating at the beginning of this kind of project and what 'the user' actually gets to do and create on the device.
This can be about how an interface can actually be virtual...or maybe, virtually actual :)

Week 2 Cinquain Mash-Up!

We worked on developing our ideas for our devices:

We talked through Form and Function with many examples of "devices" and the how and why of  our interactions with them. And we talked about Real and Virtual.

We looked at work by Claes Oldenburg (Remember: Soft Toilet, 1966):

Jason Hsu and Chris Kline from New York:

 

then compared this piece by Gladys Nilsson:

with one of the pieces in the New York Show in 2009 and came up with several visual elements that were similar: use of complementary colours, analogous colour groupings, bright colours, pattern, verticality, gesture, exaggeration and the fact that both were images of artworks and flat on the paper.

We had a lot of fun making up our own words, then making a 4 word poem with them, playing a bit with thinking outside of form and function. Some of you then made action word cinquains (remember Alice Crapsey!!:) using your made-up words again, while others started sketching ideas in your sketchbooks.

We did some drawing on canvas too(just in case we want to paint next week), going off in many directions: drawing concepts, prototypes and finished devices and their possible functions. We then shared our ideas with the group.

We are looking each week to enrich our own ideas for devices we would build, and to discover what forms they will take both as a design and/or an artwork - let's call them our creations.

We had a lot of conversation around 'modifications' as enhancements or improvements to existing(however fictional) objects -  and that originality in form and function are requirements for your own creations.

Ah! ArtClub

A fun first session. Sorry that some of us were not feeling well after their awesome performances at Cross Country ~We'll catch you up:

We explored riddles, talked about the "I spy books" by Jean Marzollo and wrote a poem inspired by a prompt at Scholastic. Here is our version:

(Untitled ~aabb)

 Some sushi, some cheese, a purple Puffle,

A green penguin, Lillian, who trampolines on a waffle,

A Cyclops, a Pegasus, a Unicorn Crockpot,

A mustachioed red panda, dancing on the spot.

We started to draw different elements from our poem. Characters, ideas and storyboards emerged for: a quick stop motion project, a flip book and a comic book.

We looked at miniature works by photographer Christopher Boffoli and will continue to explore the idea of scale, and digital reality.

And we started the conversation and thinking on designing our own 'electronical' devices, which we will try to create over the coming weeks. We looked at examples of soft-sculpture works by artist Megan Whitmarsh:

And lastly we learned about the possibility of things being TRUE  but not necessarily ONLY TRUE or the WHOLE TRUTH, through a riddle of sorts ~ The Parable of the Blind "Men" and the Elephant(which we changed to 'blind People' and the elephant) and discussed how we can create a bigger picture of things together...then laughed to realize how a bigger picture still has a point of view:

Six blind elephants were discussing what men were like.
After arguing they decided to find one and determine what
it was like by direct experience.
The first blind elephant felt the man and declared -
“Men are flat.”
After all the blind elephants felt the man, they agreed. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

http://ptownmpls.blogspot.ca/2008/05/flat-man-around-bend.html

Geography Awareness Week 2012 (U.S.)

November 11, 2012 - November 17, 2012

Funnest Site: Mission Explore 
Think about posting your own local Missions,
and let us know about them here:
ArtClub Mission Roll

This contest is closed now...but watch for it next year!!

TD Friends of the Environment Foundation
Art Contest for k-8 students.
forms and info here:  http://www.fef.td.com/artcontest/ 

and here for pdf submission form:artcontest form

The contest runs from Sept. 10 - Oct. 5th
All entries must be postmarked no later than:
October 5 at 5:oo p.m., 2012.

Back to school Artclub starts September 25th!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Halton PD Days All-Day Art Making Fun
is available for the following days:
October 5th(Not so Still Life)
November 23rd(Changing Colours) and
February 1st(New Symbols & Odd Shapes)
$48.
  9-4 pm with am/pm extended care available($6)

Email or call Sylvie at 905-639-8545 to register.

Free Programmming software for kids from MIT

http://scratch.mit.edu/

Jr. Mondays

Thank you to everyone for making July such a creative month!!!
Some examples of our work are found in earlier entries and I'll post a few more pictures to share our work here shortly.
Week 1:
We are getting to know eachother, exploring drawing, painting  and basics of  printmaking . We will talk about mobiles, Alexander Calder and Graffiti Art.
(This was fun - we added plasticine to our materials by request and made relief pictures and 3-d creatures as well.)

Week 2:
We are making marionettes with papier mache and/or clay, drawing & painting, and assemblage - creating our own puppet show in the afternoon. We will be looking at examples of Giant Puppets from Royal De Luxe in France. 
(This was a fun day. We sculpted and then constructed, played, then repaired(!), then painted, then constructed, then played, and then painted some more – we like to paint.  We will assemble our last bits next week when they are dry.)

Week 3:
We will think about music, air and wind, creating art and some artful instruments that we can look at and try to play.  We will look at Cubist Art works by Georges Braque and Picasso. In the afternoon we are creating kites to fly, using simple collage and other paper arts techniques, and see examples of Children’s Day creations from Japan.
(We had another fun and exciting day of artmaking.  In the morning we enjoyed painting to jazz music as we played musical canvasses.  Some amazing work was created and then disappeared as it was replaced by more work by others. Brushes, dabbing, dotting, swirling, picture making and wiping away were explored. We could  stop when we needed to and when someone decided to do that, all of our final spots for painting were decided. We had fun with constructing our musical collages too, and making our drums, drumsticks and blowers and discovering creative ways to play our instruments. Our afternoon was busy with active games, and our paper crafting as we designed, cut, painted, taped, glued, stapled, decorated and assembled our windsocks. Great work.)

Week 4:
We are creating work from found recycling objects. We will collage and assemble recycled materials to make relief/mosaic patterns in natural or animal form. We are learning how to use the glue gun and plan and layout a design in colour from found materials. We will be looking at the art of Michelle Stitzlein. ***
(We worked with clay(Thank you Ms.N!), shell tiles and stones this morning creating some patterns, faces, waterfalls and small inukshuks as we explored clay and mosaic techniques.  We played 'What time is it Mrs. Wolf', 'Octopus' and 'Night Guard', then went inside to create designs and embellish our masks and/or heavy paper with our drawings, coloured paper bits, jewels and beads. They are lovely. In the afternoon we painted our faces. We then learned about the flat and round sides of things, and which glues(hot, white or stick!) work best for which materials, as we had fun making our recycled relief collages.

*****(We are collecting milk carton lids, frozen concentrate lids, plastic juice and gatorade lids, jam jar and pickle jar lids - and anything circular that is safe to handle and found in the recycle bin.)

Sylvie

Animations from Wednesdays in July

The Stink


The Feasting


Squishy Fishy


Some of our Inspiration:: : Stop motion animation. Claymation, Faces - By Guldies

Marionettes from ArtClub Mondays Week 2

We worked on our Marionettes last Monday with some fun results:

 

 This is our messy and productive work station.

And here are some clay heads we designed and worked on over our styrofoam armatures. Making sure to create holes for later construction and to help support our work whenever it needed to dry.

 

We had some problems when we made our self-hardening clay too thin(which I had suggested to do to try to keep things light!).  We learned thicker is better, and heavy is just fine, for puppet heads ...and that the cracking was a neat effect and glue was a great fix.  We used acrylic paint to paint our clay.

Duck is drying.

 

 

Mr. E. is being assembled with extra paper tubes for sleeves and trousers.

 

Our friends were assembled. More details on this to follow. 

 

Our wings flap and we walk along with animation. We decided to only do arms for these three to keep it simple for little people to operate.

Royal de Luxe Giant Marionette Mastery

The Royal de Luxe giant marionette theatre company performs all over the world!

Tuesday Drawing: Hyper-realism versus Happy Accidents

We learned more about how to work with our cameras in practical ways, setting up and shooting a still-life with a tripod, downloading our images, sorting through the ones we like, re-framing(cropping)if we wanted to, and then printing. 

http://steelwhitetable.org/2005/03/08/rodin-and-mary-pratt

We looked at images of Mary Pratt's work, and examples of hyper real painting, and talked about how and where photography would be useful and necessary to create these images. Light changes over time so reflections and then colour changes too. And in the case of our lazy-Susan still life, point of view changes too.

We also talked about how we were not going for hyper real images in our drawing and painting today. We created interesting compositions while considering our photograph. This meant that we worked our drawing,from the photo as our reference, while looking at our still life materials for a lot of the information for both our drawing and our painting.

While drawing, we decided to work with watercolour paint and paper, and we explored some techniques using our paper as the lightest colour. We found challenges in our work, discovered what a 'happy accident' might really mean, and made some great decisions using our paints.

Summer 2012 Week 1

We've had a good start to summer artmaking.  On Tuesday we  looked at drawing without looking at our drawings, learned about our cameras by using them, and started drawing from life and our own original photographs.

On Wednesday we developed fun concepts - like Omnivore,Radish Fish and Skunk Blast, created really great characters and objects in plastecine, started our storyboards and painted our backdrops for our claymation cartoons.

It's great having more time than an afterschool session to work on something in ArtClub - We have time to develop our ideas and explore our processes, and to actually get things done.

Next Tuesday and Wednesday I'll share some examples of work by other artists for reference now that our work has started. And... this is a link to the slightly scary claymation animation we looked at  -which prompted a great discussion on the different qualities of feelings that music can evoke. There are a lot of great links and info to be found at Princeton Online's Incredible Art Department

More pictures to follow. Will try to share our claymation process for future reference.

Summer is coming!!! ArtClub summer starts Tuesday July 3rd.