It's been awhile since I've been on my blog. Everything seems to take so much time. Being retired, y ou'd think I had time on my hands, but not so. There is always something to do, someone to talk to , a project to complete, a grandchild to see, always something. Time is wonderful. I"m here to enjoy it, and there have been times that being here was not a certainty.
Sat. was a busy day. As always I taught a couple of children's class. This particular class was working on their portfolois. I give every child their own drawing book, and we go through and pick out things to put in their portfolio, and my husband takes photos of all their paintings, also to go into their portfolios.
The big emphasis this time was "Let's be creative in the way we matt and present our work. I gave each one sissors, glue, colored paper, and paper to matt their work on. Anyone can do the obvious, so we strive to be different, unique, individualistic. If you are matting your pastel apples, try drawing more apples on the paper, use a different color paper next to the apple, cut apples out of paper and glue it around your work, cut out the apples, use a sharpie and draw around the apple, bringing the line on into another drawing...whatever you can think of. How about some leaves with your apples, maybe a small worm working its way out of the apple, MAKE people see it and want to smile. You're telling a story, not just showing a dead apple.
For their portfolio, we use 11x17 colored paper and mount their drawings and photos, then they go into a nice see through sleeve. The sleeve is large enough to fold over and paste down, leaving about 1" creating a nice enclosed space for their work. we put three holes in the sleeve, apply reinforcements to each side of each hole and put it in their portfolio. I've had matt board cut to the correct size, adding 2" around and use rings to hold everything together and that is the "binding" for the portfolio. They love it. Simple, but elegant in their eyes. It's black and we use a gold pen to put their names on it. At any rate, each kiddo had about five to seven drawings to matt, plus several photos, and everyone was trying to out do the next.
The last fifteen minutes of every class is drawing me. Sometimes I wear crazy hats, or wigs, and they love it. I'll tell them to draw me as an angel, which of courses I am, or a devil, or we're doing Picasso's for the next month. I bought a clown costume and had a friend dress up. Only then did I discover that a lot of kids are afraid of clowns! I'll try to get pictures to show you, but right now have none, they just took them all home.
We really get wild when they do a contour drawing of me. That's where they look at me and not their paper. The idea is to train your eye to go around the shape, and your hand to work slowly, putting down what the eye sees. Some of those stinkers have gotten pretty good at it.
Then of courses, it was the same thing all over again in the 4-6 class. These kids are a little older, so a little more opiniated about what they will or will not do. I've got a couple of kids who are really good.
I've been doing this off and own for 40 years. The last five years I have had two graduate from college and are teaching and four out of five students qualified for special art high school. YEA, I love it!
It's been a long day, If my post is full of typing mistakes, please excuse. My left hand is very weak and hard to controll....it does its' own thing with lots of e,r,and s. I've tried to clean it up, but so be it.
Don't forget to go to my Etsy site and see my work. It's under joellenart.
Have a great night.
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