Registration should now be working

Apparently there was a little glitch in registering, but my sister fixed for me. It should be up and ready to go now. If doesn't work please let me know and leave me a comment. Thanks!

The Gardner Museum news

Here's some art theft news you might find interesting if you are getting excited for our summer art lessons. I'm going to regret not writing more about the Gardner Museum, but I'm short on time today. I wanted to add this link and the video is better than what I would write anyway. :-) http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/03/18/thieves-identified-gardner-museum-theft-rembrandt-and-vermeer-paintings/VmSiOGRgKbRakLJr1wCA3I/story.html

Summer 2013 Art lessons

I finished typing up the schedule and descriptions for this summer's art lessons.  You can view it by clicking on the tab at the top of the page.  I'm hoping soon to get the registration page up, but at least with this you can get it on your calendar.  The theme this time is:
Art:  Stolen, Escaped, Recovered
I have a handful of fun surprises  for this art show ;-)  It should be a lot of fun.  We'll also be doing movies again so start thinking about what you're going to make.  A full description is also on the 2013 tab. 
I'm planning on doing a few of the projects ahead so I can post pictures of what to expect.

Fake or Fortune...

I happened to turn on the tv and find this show a couple of weeks ago. It is an hour long. It goes perfect with this summer's art lessons theme.  I'm working on finalizing my lesson plan and the schedule and hoping to post it soon.

Sneak peak at summer 2013 art lessons!

I am already getting some ideas for next summer.  :-)  I'm pretty super excited about this one so I'm going to give you some hints.
Here's my inspiration:
First, this song:

Then I discovered this book (picture links to Amazon):

Oddly the day I was researching for my theme I've been mulling over in my head for some time there was a huge museum break-in !  Yikes!  I have no alibi.  I was at home; alone; looking up stolen art on Wikipedia.  My husband enjoys teasing me about that one.  It wasn't me, I wasn't doing that kind of research!   ;-) There was another museum heist on Sunday. Crazy. 
I would like to do movies again so if this is sparking your imagination like it is mine, please feel free to get a head start. Same rules as last time:  5 minutes or less, family friendly, must have the theme somehow somewhere included in the movie if even only for a brief moment. This time:

 Art stolen, escaped, or rescued.

This is going to be so much fun!  I'm so super excited :-)

Traveling Through Time by Bicycle- 2000's (today) Steampunk inspired Artist Trading Cards

For the "today" of our time travel journey I chose to do Steampunk and artist trading cards since ATC's are a fairly recent trend.  Steampunk just seems to be the logical choice for a week of time travel, don't you think?  Steampunk is kind of a science fiction history mix; basically taking something modern or from "today" and making it look like it came from the steam engine era.  It's also a literary movement influenced by the works of H.G. Wells.  Artist Trading Cards are baseball card size pieces of art that you can trade with friends.
We put the two together and for the first card we had to draw an invention for a time machine.  Then we drew whatever we wanted on other ones.  I had the students stick to drawing supplies- markers, colored pencils, pastels, charcoal pencils.
You can buy trading card size paper or you can cut  your paper into 21/2" X 31/2".  It's a great way to use scraps of paper you might have (since art paper is not sold the same size as common photo picture frames you might have some occasional trimmings).
You can buy the pocket pages anywhere baseball cards or Pokemon cards or anywhere collector cards are sold.  I found mine at Target in the same section as the cards and puzzles.   This was fun and some kids made enough to fill a whole pocket page.  Sadly, not a whole page of inventions; I loved seeing their ideas for inventions and time machines.
Don't forget you can trade them with your friends!  :-)

Traveling Through Time by Bicycle- 20th Century (1900's) Absract Minimalism

Of course a poster again with a few of my favorite minimalist style art pieces. :-)  This time featuring the artists: David Smith (sculptor), Franz Kline, Ellsworth Kelly, Kenneth Noland, Kasimir Malevich, Matisse, and Kandinsky.  Did you notice Matisse and Kandinsky were also part of the last post?  I think it's great to see how their style changed over the years, becoming more simplified and stylized.
"Modern" art is sometimes difficult for some people to understand- "it doesn't look real" or "I know a 3 year old who could make that" are common statements.  What do you think about it?
Once you have learned to paint something realistically what else is left?  You cannot make it real with paint.  Have you hit a wall?  What can you do?  Sometimes when you have moved forward to an ideal you have to go backwards, start over, and then maybe there is something there you never noticed before. 
Once the camera was invented there really wasn't a need for art to be real.  Artists began exploring what actually made art "art"and what possibilities lay ahead for the future of art.  Just like science during the 20th century was making leaps and bounds so did art.  Art is a reflection of the thinking during a time period. When the world was fascinated with time and space and physics artists were exploring similar ideas or theories and how they might apply visually through art styles like (Marcel Duchamp- Nude descending a Staircase No. 2)  Some artists explored what sound might "look" like (Kandinsky).  When you listen to music with your eyes closed, do you imagine something "real" or shapes or colors or wiggling lines?  When psychology was a popular fascination and breaking through as a science artists explored what that meant for art too- What is in my dreams or the things I don't think about but are somewhere floating in my brain, maybe I can paint that too (think Salvador Dali).  Some artists watched kids paint and thought, "hey that 3 year old's painting is pretty good!  I wish I could still paint like that and wasn't so concerned about the "rules" or what people say art has to be, maybe I will paint like that again."  So many questions and SO many possibilities!

To go from this:

 to this:

 and then to this:

 is actually quite a developmental and intellectual process and can be challenging for some so we took it step by step.  For an artist to draw something realistic it is part of the process to look at something and visually break it down into shapes.  First you need to sketch the very basic shapes and then you would add lines and details.  What if we leave it in this "raw" state instead of adding details and shading?  It looks kind of interesting.  What if we rearrange those shapes?  What if we take some out?  Can it still be called what it originally looked like?  Why or why not? 


Supplies:
Paper
scissors
glue
paper in basic bright colors cut into shapes

This one took a lot of prep on my part.  I had to first break a bicycle down into basic shapes then cut those shapes out of paper and then cut enough for all the students and write down how many of each shape each child would get.

Now that we've done that everyone gets a piece of paper and their allotted number of shapes.
Everyone look at a bicycle- what basic geometric shapes (circle, rectangle, triangle) do you see?  Now using your shapes arrange them into a bicycle.

Now rearrange those shapes any way you'd like on your paper.

Once you get it the way you like it glue it down.

Here's some of the final results (some kids wanted to add more shapes so as long as they stuck with basic colors and shapes I let them):