In The Paint

Our second day of March Break Art Camp was our clay day. We created clay busts using newspaper to create the shapes of shoulders and head. From there we covered the newspaper and the dowel that was holding it up with clay. Then we added on the facial features and hair.

The kids could create whatever they wanted as long as it had two eyes, two ears, one nose, and one mouth. Here are their works in progress:

I just finished a week of teaching art to a group of children ages 8 to 12 years old. We covered a lot of ground in just five days which included painting, printmaking, and sculpture. The kids all did some great work.
One activity which took a full day for most of the kids to complete was an abstract acrylic painting. The kids got a piece of 7″ x 7″ watercolour paper and created a collage using magazines. They were instructed to look for textures and to make different piles for different colours. When they had the different piles, they then intuitively chose pieces that they thought would work well together and composed a design.
Once their collages were finished, we then drew the design onto canvas that was one ft. squared. We talked about colour theory and my assistant and I worked with the kids individually on colour mixing. Here’s an example of one of the finished pieces:

artwork by a 9 year old student

This is my most recent listing in my etsy shop.  I’ve been going through old photos of mine  looking for landscapes to paint.  This one is from northern Israel.

I’m waiting for the weather to turn nicer here so I can do some plein air painting.

River in Maine

My DH and I spent our honeymoon driving through New England and the Maritime provinces.  We enjoyed most of the scenery from the car because it rained the entire time.  This painting was created from one of the photos I took when we got out of the car and into the rain to admire the view.  This area was where we saw the most fall colours in the US during the trip and the rain brought out all the greens and reds and oranges.  This painting is available at my etsy shop!

I recently did a batik (an Indonesian wax-resist technique) workshop with two groups of women from Na’amat, a Jewish women’s organization. We made matza covers that will be used during a women’s seder which will be held on International Women’s Day. The evening will include traditional Passover treats, discussions about the holiday, and three speakers discussing the theme The Journey of Women from Slavery to Freedom.

During a traditional seder (ritual Passover feast) we cover the matza (unleavened bread) until it is time to say the prayer and eat a piece.
We created the matza covers using fabric, fabric dye, and beeswax.
The women did a great job with these matza covers and I can’t wait to see them on the tables.

Here are some pictures from the workshop.

beeswax on electric frying pan

painting with wax

Painting with fabric dye

Now we just have to iron off the wax!