Category Archives: San Diego

What I learned at NAEA14 part 1

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I just spent four wonderful days at NAEA 14, here in my hometown of San Diego.  I attended a ton of sessions, including a pre-conference tour and a hands-on workshop. Here’s a peek at what I saw and learned.

Friday, March 28: Pre-Conference Tour of Art Program and Murals and Zamorano Fine Arts Academyzamorano mural tour NAEA14 Art teacher/art ed blogger Don Masse led this tour of his public elementary school’s remarkable art program. Zamarano Fine Arts Academy employs five (!) visual art educators for 1400 (!) students from transitional kindergarten-grade 5. The school has a clay program, photography, fashion design, and much more. Don’s 5th graders create an annual ‘legacy’ mural…in addition, we saw many other outdoor artworks, including painted windows. See lots more of Don’s contemporary-art inspired projects at his blog, shite brite zamorano.

 

Monday, March 31 Shadow Puppets workshop with Grace Hulse

I have wanted to teach a shadow puppet unit for years, but never really knew how. Grace Hulse’s workshop was a great intro. Her Baltimore second graders put on a shadow puppet play every year.

We cut black tagboard into interesting animal shapes. Ms. Hulse encouraged us to create openings in the puppets using craft knives and decorative punches. We taped lace doilies or colored vellum over the openings to add interest. We could create articulated limbs with small brads.

We also learned about inexpensive materials to make a small theater.

shadow puppets collageIf you want to learn more, Ms. Hulse highly recommends the book Worlds of Shadow: Teaching with Shadow Puppetry by David and Donna Wiesniewski (Note: you can get a good preview of this book on Amazon).

In addition, Ms. Hulse’s students created an iMovie trailer using photos of shadow puppet illustrations. Check out the Odyssey of Homer trailer on Vimeo.

Lucky you – Ms. Hulse has a public Prezi of her shadow puppet presentation.

More NAEA14 awesomeness coming up soon!

Enjoy!

Video Lesson: Flower Fields in One-Point Perspective

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flower fields in one point perspective

Spring is here. This month the beautiful Flower Fields in Carlsbad, California burst into bloom.

Flower Fields in Carlsbad, CA. Photo sources: bloomingbulbs.com;

Flower Fields in Carlsbad, CA. Photo sources: bloomingbulbs.com;

The fields are filled with colorful ranunculus flowers. Each spring families throughout San Diego trek to the Flower Fields to admire their beauty. This outing is very popular – a show of hands revealed almost all my 5th and 6th graders had visited the Flower Fields.

We drew the flower fields in one-point perspective to create an illusion of depth. We used colored 9″x12″ construction paper, rulers, pencils and erasers and oil pastels. In this 13 minute video, I demonstrate drawing the horizon line, vanishing point, and orthogonals to create the illusion of depth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ7NYjGPY0c

Thanks to Hope Knight at Mrs. Knight’s Smartest Artists for this lesson. For similar lessons using markers check out this post on A Faithful Attempt and this post on Kids Artists.

Enjoy!

Masterpieces from San Diego Youth Art Month Show

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Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending the annual San Diego Youth Art Month (YAM) show. I saw some gorgeous artworks – here are a few that caught my eye.

Elementary school:

Collage:

Playing card collage

Playing card collage, elementary level.

Playing card collage, elementary level.

Corrugated Cardboard portrait collage

Elementary corrugated cardboard portrait.

Elementary corrugated cardboard portrait.

Printmaking:

Clipper ship watercolor and print

Clipper ship watercolor and print from Ocean Air elementary school.

Collagraph printed in rainbow ink

Collagraph print in rainbow ink, from Ocean Air elementary school.

Collagraph print in rainbow ink, from Ocean Air elementary school.

Sculpture

These plaster masks are from our school! Congrats to Camille (1st place elementary 3D), Olive (2nd place), Morgan (3rd place), Caroline and Santiago.

Solana Santa Fe elementary school masks at YAM.

Solana Santa Fe elementary school masks at YAM.

High School

Zentangle elephant

Zentangle Elephant by Alexis Griffith, Guajome Park Academy High School.

Zentangle Elephant by Alexis Griffith, Guajome Park Academy High School.

This is exquisite.  In the art room, this could be adapted as an early finisher activity if you hand out an elephant line drawing as a coloring page.

Dia de Los Muertos cut paper art

Dia de Los Muertos Cut Paper design by Lizeth Garcia, Torrey Pines High School.

Dia de Los Muertos Cut Paper design by Lizeth Garcia, Torrey Pines High School.

This piece is by a former student, now in high school! So glad she is still enjoying art.

Lots more awesomeness on display, including Don Masse’s mud cloth collage and Marz Jr. line drawings.

Thanks to the San Diego Art Institute and the San Diego County Art Education Association for a fabulous YAM show.

Enjoy!

Helen Shirk Silhouette Necklace

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helen shirk pinable

Helen Shirk is a San Diego artist and Professor of Art known for her metalwork and jewelry. I recently had the pleasure of viewing necklaces from Shirk’s Traces series on exhibit at San Diego’s Mingei International Museum. Even better – I got to participate in a Shirk-inspired paper jewelry activity taught by the Museum’s Education Department. The art project is so much fun – I just have to share their lesson!

 

'Crimson Glory' necklace by Helen Shirk, 2011. Steel, oxidized silver and china paint.

‘Crimson Glory’ necklace by Helen Shirk, 2011. Steel, oxidized silver and china paint.

We had two options for our silhouette necklace project: 1) a quick, 30-minute project using paper punches or 2) an hour-long project using real traced leaves. Both options focus on organic shapes and repetition.

Materials for both projects

  • black construction paper
  • card stock
  • glue sticks
  • yarn
  • scissors
  • tape

Project 1: 30-minute Punched Paper Silhouette Necklace

Additional material – paper punches in organic shapes (like these leaf , branch, butterfly, and dove  punches).

We punched paper shapes from black and colored papers, then glued them to a background and added yarn to form a necklace. Click here and here for the lesson plan, written by the excellent Education Department of the Mingei International Museum.

Shirk inspired necklace made with craft punches and card stock.

Shirk-inspired necklace made with craft punches and card stock. Teacher example.

Here is my Shirk inspired design!

Here is my Shirk inspired design!

 

Project 2: Traced Silhouette Necklace

Additional material: natural materials such as leaves, twigs and flowers.

Students make tracings of each onto construction paper, then cut out and arrange into a necklace.  Click here for the Mingei’s curriculum guide including this project.

Hand cut paper necklace inspired by Helen Shirk's jewelry.

Shirk-inspired paper necklace made by tracing leaves onto black and white paper.  Teacher example.

Helen Shirk’s Trace necklaces are on display at the Mingei Museum through January 5, 2014 as part of the Allied Craftsmen Today exhibit. For more examples of Helen Shirk’s jewelry, click here.

I wrote about the Mingei’s Chihuly chandelier – click here to see their fabulous 30-Minute Chihuly Chandelier project.

Special Notice for San Diego Teachers and Parents:

  • Teachers: Do you want to take your class to the Mingei Museum? The Mingei provides free admission for all K-12th grade tours as long as they’re scheduled in advance.
  • Parents: The Mingei is free to San Diego county residents and military the third Tuesday of the month. Monthly Family Sundays offer admission and fun activities for just $5/family. Go to www.mingei.org for more details.

Enjoy!