Thursday, August 13, 2009

Animals Birthday Party

A recent birthday party I did was Animal Adventure with 8 year old girls. I pre-made paper mache masks and had the girls sketch out an idea of what animal they would like to make. Once they had added color to their sketch they were let loose to create their animal mask using a variety of materials. Here are some of my favorites!




Thursday, July 9, 2009

Art In Motion

Today was the final day of my latest class- Art In Motion. In this class we concentrated on three artists, Alexander Calder, Jackson Pollock and Joshua Allen Harris.

The first project the students did was a remake of a Calder mobile. Each student was to choose an animal to simplify down into either organic or geometric shapes. They cut the shapes out of cardboard and painted each a solid color inspired by the animal they chose. They hung their pieces from two hangers in whatever fashion they found best- it did not have to hang to look like the animal they choose- it merely was their source of inspiration and starting point.


The next project was a Pollock inspired painting. After watching a short clip of Pollock painting- each student wrote down specific feelings they were going to express threw their own painting throwing/action painting. We headed outside and the students were let loose to throw, drip, splatter the paint onto their board. I think they turned out great!


Their final project was inpsired by a street artist who is currently working. Joshua Allen Harris creates inflatable creates on the city street grates of New York City. Check out this Youtube video to see what he is all about- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH6xCT2aTSo
The students paired up and created their own inflatable art on the top of fans using garbage bags, shopping bags, packaging tape and permante markers.


Painting Without A Brush- Final Projects

Here are the girls final projects that they worked on the last two days of class.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Painting Without A Brush

Painting without a brush is a new class to the Eagan Art House. It is as just as it sounds- students painting without a brush. At first glance, most assume it is a finger painting class. While this is a good assumption- there is more tools than just our hands that one can paint with. The students in this class have been painting with things such as cotton balls, palette knifes, sticks, toothbrushes, toilet paper tubes and more. Its all about experiementing. There is no particular technique to painting with each of these unique tools- its taking chances in manipulating these tools to find what works best in that moment.

The students spent the first day getting familiar with the paints by painting a color wheel and then doing a small exercise to see how colors affect anothers apperance.
They also had time to just experiement with the tools!
The second day the students did an exercise I did in my drawing class at Stout. Each student grabs a partner and has to draw draw their partner in the time alloted. The tricky part is- the drawer cannot pick up their marker, nor can they look at their paper; hence these portraits turn out very unique. While typically this exercise is used to teach students hand eye coordination and how its more important to look at what you are drawing than your paper- it worked great to create abstract portraits. Here are a few of my favorites...
After they drew one another they drew themeselves from a picture they had brought in. After they drew themselves on their canvas board- they painted their portraits with whatever tools seemed best.

Summer 09


The Eagan Art House summer 09 schedule has begun! My class schedule has started out slow- but good. My goal this summer is to keep you all updated on the classes I am teaching, the projects the students are making, and the inspirations I am finding!

Monday, January 12, 2009