2012 The Sketchbook Project tour...I'll be part of it!



The guide about the sketchbook tour..play by play!
http://www.arthousecoop.com/projects/sketchbookproject/exhibitions

 I was having a girls night with my art teacher friend, Laurie, and noticed on her side table a sketchbook with her name and a barcode. I came into the kitchen and said, "Hey, what's this?" She then let me in on what the project involved. It's a worldwide sketchbook tour that anyone can participate in! However, only so many participants are allowed I believe so I got my name on one and registered. There is a small fee and you have an option to buy a comemerative t-shirt for this year's tour (which I did because I like the logo and what a great souvenir to remember a special event of history). 

My sketchbook that was assigned to me! I'm in the system!
Now part of history!

Then you pick a theme from the ones available or make up a theme of your own! There are a lot of choices. I picked a somewhat generic one called "This is a sketchbook". Basically you 'use' your sketchbook and decorate it til your heart's content and then send it in before the deadline (January 31, 2012). Then the world tour starts where it stops at differerent art museums or galleries. The sketchbook I make is going to be part of an exhibition in a museum for people to look through! Then when the tour is over, they find their home and become part of a section in the Brooklyn Art Library in Brooklyn, NY.


 

I collaged front and back of my sketchbooks with fliers from bands/concerts, artistic graphic like papers, museum badges, drawings, and quotes about art! They are filled with all kinds of notes, ideas I had at the present time, and plans for future pieces.




BACK of collaged sketchbooks. Don't be afraid of my pistol! I did
a series in college where I feminized and showed how such a cliche, masculine form really
is a delicate, working set of parts that produces a simple result. Yeah, I went a little
deep there. Haha. I collaged using band fliers from concerts in Chicago, museum badges,
and other souvineers of life.



I love working on sketchbooks. They help get your ideas out and keep them flowing. The process ends up being a work of art in itself and a piece of you. Myself and my friend Laurie are going to the Sketchbook Tour stop in Chicago at the Hyde Park Art Gallery. We're going to make an art weekend of it and no worries...I will take pictures at the beginning of May while we're in Chicago so you can see us with our sketchbook at the exhibition! Stay tuned on my progress!!!



My sketchbooks have traveled with me everywhere! I love
how it's basically a record/artistic scrapbook of my journeys and thoughts. I took
this mini sketchbook to the first ever 80/35 Music Festival where some of my favorite
bands played. Here is my wristband, program and paper streamer (shot out of confetti gun and canon) from the Flaming Lips concert!




an inside look of just random drawings, plans, thoughts and souvineers of my artistic expression



Hearst Center sticker where I used to work teaching art camps and work at the gallery, a sticker from the Walker Art Center design created by J. Otto Seibold with a Claes Oldenburg's Spoon Bridge, and plans for a piece of interactive art I created for the Dean's triagle back in college! Everyone loved it.



lucky charms interpretation..just another sketch and how poetry soemtimes inspires me. I write my own inside of my sketchbooks as well.



Chuck Close exhibition in Des Moines!

So I forgot to post this during the summer when I went with my friend art friend Megan. She currently works at STICKS in Des Moines and also taught art for a while. We had heard that one of my very favorite artists, Chuck Close, was going to be having a traveling exhibition at a very small, intimate, gallery in downtown Des Moines. I loved how it was this tiny little nook of an older building, and there was this amazing exhibit of Chuck Close's self portraits showing all of his different mediums ( a little sample of a lot of the different ways he makes his self portraits). To me, the true art lies in the process of how these self portraits are made. It's amazing  how creative the approach is along with how pain-staking it must have been and how patient of man he must be.
 Enjoy a look inside the exhibition through my eyes!

made with paper pulp fibers applied on black paper




19 color woodcut!? Crazy.




look at all the different colors of ink!




47 color hand printed in the ukiyo-e tradition
with 39 blocks




Inside the exhibition in the gallery



5 Little Pumpkins





My kinders (Kindergarten) started off the fall season by reading a very popular ryhming children's book "5 Little Pumpkins". We made our very own 5 little pumpkins! Each student got a dark forest green piece of paper and then drew 5 circles with a white crayon. I encouraged students to make medium sized pumpkins. This way they could easily fill in their pumpkins and have room for a face.





Students were directed to tear orange construction paper into small pieces and fill in their 'pumpkins'. We talked about using 'baby dots' of glue and how to use the 'tap cap' red topped glues (they are amazing and a great investment in saving glue and helping young students not to squirt out too much) and how to use the regular orange topped glue. After filling in the pumpkins, students then would tear small pieces of green and black paper to make the face of the pupmkin and the stem with leaf. We talked about how to keep your pieces glued flat like a pancake so they would dry and not fall off. This is a great assignment for the young ones to work on fine motor skills!



Alien Space Ship Letters...3..2..1..BLAST OFF!

I read a fun book about goofy looking aliens called "The Aliens Are Coming!" to 1st grade. It was rhyming and fun and it really touched on the visual characteristics that made each alien unique. The book was silly and kept talking about how these kooky aliens were on their way to earth to take over but then they change their minds because they see how scary HUMANS LOOK!

On the last page it reveals what the aliens saw..."YOU!" ande there's a mirror on the picture of the periscope so when I showed it to the kids they all could see themselves! Super funny.

I showed 1st graders procedure on how to make an easy bubble letter..because we're turning our letter into A SPACESHIP!!! It should be the first letter of their name. I showed how to first draw with pencil to make their letter very large. Then with a white oil pastel or white  Crayola CONSTRUCTION PAPER CRAYON I showed how to go around the pencil letter without tracing it-leaving space on each side of the pencil letter. Then erase the pencil lines in the middle..TA DAH!--Bubble Letter.  



I made hand outs that show step by step how to make circular windows, a spaceship "hatch" how to make aliens and how to make planets. I had a table we called the "space station" where students used a special technique  with oil pastels to make the planets. We used circle stencils to color inside with a colored oil pastel. We also used white crayon to make dots for white stars in outterspace.

While holding it in place still, we use a lighter color oil pastel on one side, then while still holding stencil in place, use your finger as a bending tool to smooth the color around and around inside the stencil. Then lift up on the stencil to reveal a beautiful mixed sphere.  Didn't these turn out great! I LOVE Crayola Construction Paper Crayons! They pop on black paper. Our principal Mrs. Seney even stopped in to join in on the fun and make her own. She had never seen this type of crayon before. Wow-wee!

Chicago Art Institute

Here's another art trip where my friend Natalie and I reunited. We both went to college together for Art Education and missed each other dearly after student teaching. Natalie's student teaching took her to Arizona where mine stayed in Iowa. We made a pact that we would meet up in Chicago for Labor Day weekend 2010 and go on an art adventure! Our first major stop after meeting at O'Hare airport was the Art Institute Chicago where, being the art history dorks we were (I mean hello, we teach art history but darn it, we're still fun!) took humorous pictures with all the famous works/artists that we teach! It's like a reinactment of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Brace yourself, we get goofy:) Here's the pics!

Sushi directly across the street from Millenium Park sculpture garden

Millenium Park view from sushi

outside the art CIA

famous Renoir impressionist

Natalie with a famous Renoir circus girls & peaches

Renoir's signature!

Make a Joseph Cornell box! We're in the children's area...we still like to have fun!

Gustave Caillbotte "Paris Street, Rainy Day". I have this on my
umbrella!

 

Seurat's "Sunday afternoon on La Grande Jatte". This whole painting is full of different
layers of dots of paint

wow, check out all the micro min dots

giving Van Gogh a smooch

Van Gogh's Bedroom. 1 of three studies in the world of his bedroom

Natalie with Toulouse-Lautrec

Monet's Haystacks!

One of Monet's Waterlily studies

Paul Gauguin

Edward Hopper's' Nighthawks'

Alexander Calder mobile in the lobby

Jasper Johns- this gave me a great lesson plan with
fork prints with kinders learning about primary colors!

Grant Wood's "American Gothic"

Georgia O'Keefe

Georgia O'Keefe

More Georgia

Mary Cassatt

Degas' pastel drawings of dancers-striking a ballet pose

upclose with a pastel drawing of Degas

beautiful pastel Degas

Degas Dancers

Henri Moore sculpture

Natalie with Van Gogh's blue period "Man and Guitar"

Piet Mondrian

Picasso!

Surrealism with Rene` Margritte

Salvador Dali...he's a weirdo but so cool!

"Walking Man"

This story is hilarious. So I read in my Scholastic ART magazine
that this giant eye sculpture was in Chicago when we would arrive.
The thing is HUGE...yet Natalie and I could not find it ANYWHERE.
We kept asking people and they were like, oh and didn't know about that...we're thinking okay..um, it's huge.
FInally found it and rejoiced by taking silly pics.

Natalie with the giant Eye sculpture

Oh yes, subway adventures!

and finally Yes..THE BEAN sculpture in Millenium Park by Anish Kapore

This is my favorite pic of the trip art teachers admiring art:)

The Bean! Polished steel sculpture made to reflect the cityscape in a 360 radius! Smart!

We found Alexander Calder's famous sculpture downtown near our hotel !:)