A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Fiber Arts

Lately I've been dabbling in fiber arts,. In the past I've done a lot with embroidery, as you can see here and here. But recently I added to my skills with painting on fabric. I have done two items that were given as gifts. One was a tie for a family member on my husbands side. I painted a seascape on a yellow tie. The other was a table runner for my aunt, in which I used, batik, dyeing fabric, painting on fabric and embroidery to complete the final piece.

First I used a flour paste to create a batik design on my fabric. Although it worked out well, I would not recommend this method, it was very messy!

After applying the paste and letting it dry, I then sprayed a watered-down dye  mixture onto the fabric and let it drive completely over night.

After it was dry, I washed it thoroughly, which took forever! I was very happy with the resulting design!

The last steps were to paint the design on to the body of the table runner. I used acrylic paint to do this. Then I embroidered some white designs around the painted portion and all along the border. As a finishing touch, I added tassels!

At Home with the Artist: DIY Gallery Wall

So I have been waiting to spiff up our office for a long time. It's hard because it's really more of a working room. We use it a ton and there's always stuff laying out or projects or paintings being done. It's hard to style as a result. I have always known I wanted to do a big gallery wall on the wall farthest from the door. It was on my list to do this summer. I had to wait to complete it until last week since the large painting I wanted to hang up was still being displayed at a show. Here is my before picture of the wall:

First step, I laid everything out on the floor in front of the wall and rearranged it several times until I got the configuration I wanted. All the pieces were made by me, except the picture collage in the middle, which my brother made for me and there are a couple of photographs, one from online (it was a free printable) and one a student gave me.

After I had it all laid out more or less where I wanted it, I start hanging and moving and hanging and adjusting... etc...

Hung up the largest painting first!

And then I just kept hanging, moving to the left...

And here's the final product. I love the way it makes the room seem more cozy and really add some personality to that wall. 

What's Going on in the Classroom: Computer Graphics Project

As promised, here is the post showing off the computer graphic skills of my students! Since this is an intro course to most of the mediums we teach at higher levels, we did a very simple project, but the kids still had so much fun with it and really used their imagination. Their assignment was to draw or paint an image that they then incorporated into a digital image that the found online (royalty free of course!) They used Adobe Photoshop to complete this assignment. Their goal was to combine their drawing with the found image as inconspicuously as possible. I have to say, even the ones that weren't very inconspicuous were still pretty cool! Check out a sampling of their work:

What's Going on in the Classroom: Social Issues-Group Paintings

Hello all! I know it's been a bit and that's my fault. I have no excuse other than the end of the year causes me to be lazy. Okay, okay I know it's not technically the end of the year, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel now, especially since our annual art show is over. Everything builds to that show and now that it's over, it feels like we're going down hill!

So in the art room, we just finished a Computer Graphics project, which I will post examples of in  a day or two. However, we are finishing out the quarter strong with a group painting! Students were put into groups of five or six people and given the task of composing an image based on a social issue. Their goal was to bring awareness to something happening in the world today that they felt strongly about. After choosing their topic, they brainstormed ideas and images that they could use. Every student had to be involved in the drawing and painting of the large image. Check out their work so far!

And as a side note, look at the fun little portrait I found while cleaning up. Someone painted it on a palette. So creative!

What's Going on in the Classroom- Mixed Media Paintings

Have I mentioned that I love our painting unit? Not only are students sitting quietly and working hard, but they are producing some amazing images! After creating a watercolor composition, we moved into mixed media pieces. For this piece I limited the subject matter a little bit. Each student had to incorporate hand into their mixed media composition. That hand had to be interacting with an object or item. So it was somewhat limited, but the object or item and how the hand interacts with it is up to the student to decide. We spent some time taking our own reference pictures of hands with objects and then we practiced how to draw a hand. I made up a little worksheet to get them started, it looks something like this...

After this basic intro to figure drawing, we talked about how to draw the different hand positions that each student wanted to use. This was mostly done individually between myself and each student. The steps after this were to draw the hand and object lightly with pencil on illustration board and then do light watercolor washes of basic colors to fill in the image. Then student could the choose to use oil pastels, chalk pastels, and/or colored pencils to had shading (depth) and details to their image. Here is what we have so far... we're spending the rest of the week on it as well so these aren't quite done yet.

Practice drawings and sketching out the final image

Finally starting to do some painting!

A Peak Inside My Portfolio: Animal Paintings

Just a quick peak into what I've been working on over Christmas break. I finished this a week or two ago, but couldn't post it until I had given the present to my brother.  Usually every year, I paint him a picture of some animal. You can see past years here and here. He's a wildlife rehabilitation specialist and vet tech so he loves those animals! Here is my latest painting for him: