Arts Guild – Page 8 – Blackbird and Company

Posted on April 11, 2011 by BBCo

Lost Wax: Connecting the Dots

Evelyn is a high school graduate. I closed the book on her transcript over a year ago. Recently she taught me how to connect the dots:

Ever since my mom introduced me to pysanky egg making many years ago, I have been hooked. When Easter rolls around I have my friends over to create these brilliantly dyed eggs. Every year I get better and better and learn more helpful techniques. This year I was so obsessed with making eggs I would stay up ‘till midnight painstakingly scratching on eggs with a wooden kiska.

Ukrainian egg making teaches patience. It’s a quiet, slow, endeavor but all the hard work and patience pays off. My favorite part of the process is when, after hours of work, I finally get to melt off the black wax with a candle and reveal the masterpiece!

A few years ago we suffered a pysanky egg tragedy: Years worth of eggs had been left on the kitchen table while we were out to dinner one night. We returned to a floor covered in smashed eggshells. Our dog Jack had smelled the eggs and jumped onto a chair to get to the top of the table. He crushed them all.

My mom cried. She’s never gotten over the loss. I, on the other hand, just wanted to punt Jack down the staircase.

Slowly we have begun to build up our pysanky egg collection…

I remember being on a Patricia Polacco roll one spring. After reading Rechenka’s Eggs to our group I heard Sara say, “We can do that.”

The next thing I know we are blowing the insides out of eggs and teaching our primary aged children the art of batik. I find it interesting that the Ukrainian word “pysanky” comes from the verb “pysaty” which means to write. So picture teaching a group of 12 or so under ten-year-olds to write with wax on eggshells! Did I mention that there is fire involved in this activity? Yes, that’s right, fire.

Here’s the deal: children are capable. Was this activity chaotic? You bet. But not once did it cross our minds that this group of children was too young to engage in a sophisticated craft. We rarely purchased construction paper! Looking back those young children proved that focus is not the issue. Children possess an incredible store of focus power, but we deny them opportunity to demonstrate their prowess when we hand them coloring books.

The art of pysanky teaches patience, true. When pure white shells, a tiny surface of potential, are painstakingly decorated individuality emerges. As a teacher who’s a poet, I see a metaphor emerging.

– Kim

Posted on April 7, 2011 by BBCo

Perloo the Bold

When my youngest son, Søren, and his literature circle buddies began reading Perloo the Bold, by AVI his imagination was captured. Perloo, the protagonist, is a peaceful, fairly introverted scholar much like my son. I think they hit it off from the get go.

So in this story, Perloo has been chosen to succeed Jolaine as leader of the furry underground creatures called Montmers. When Jolaine dies and her evil son seizes control of the burrow, Perloo must step up to the plate.

During the second week of thinking deeply about the story, my quiet, unassuming son slipped under the loft where we keep our overflow art supplies and came into the study arms loaded with a box of assorted Fimo clay. He got to work conquering his idea.

When I asked him about the project he told me he was making a claymation film of Perloo the Bold. Søren spent many hours cleverly crafting characters and posing them in one position, then another using his camera to capture the motion.

Midway in his movie making he set the project aside, went back to the art cabinet, this time for paper and colored pencils and began work on a set of original proverbs complete with ornately illuminated letters.

With this task complete, Søren resumed progress on his little film. When the filming was complete, he enlisted his older brother, Taylor to compose original music for his piece. He was so proud when Taylor was done and his movie was complete. When I made one last suggestion, that Søren make a title slide, he knew just what to do, “I will make the title fade in, Perloo… the Bold. Yes, that’s it.” In a matter of seconds the slide was complete. Most fascinating of all, at least to me, was the strategic placement of the slide that was seemingly intuitive. He did not put the slide up front, but a couple frames into the movie to line up with a significant change in the rhythm of the music. Fantastic!

Søren’s creative response to this book not only demonstrates his deep understanding, but that his critical creative thinking skills are alive and well.

Sometimes it is the quiet, unassuming creatures that save the kingdom. Pondering this possibility, no doubt, inspired my son.

– Kim

Posted on April 4, 2011 by BBCo

It Begins with Red, Yellow, and Blue

We teach our children that letters have sounds, that sounds combine to form words, that words combine to form sentences, that sentences grouped in just the right way form the stories we all know and love. We teach our children to read and write.

Last week it hit me as I was helping my students mix color wheels. I was teaching color literacy, an equally important academic (and life) skill.

Color is scientific. Color can be harmonious or not harmonious. People who understand this can use this knowledge to their advantage—artists, painters, designers, people just trying to get dressed in the morning.

We teach color because we see in color.

We teach color because human beings feel color.

Color affects us so profoundly.

Why wouldn't we teach our children about color?

– Sara

Posted on March 31, 2011 by BBCo

Spring Into Poetry

This time in the school year can be particularly difficult—a sort of doldrums. Everyone has been working hard for many months and summer still feels quite a ways off. You're starting to feel the pressure of all that you haven't accomplished…or wanted to. Standardized testing may be looming. The weather around Southern California becomes a confusing mix of sweater days and t-shirt days and at least for me, the urge to purge kicks in strong with garage sale season right around the corner.

With April being National Poetry Month, why not infuse your last weeks of school with a focus on the wonder of words. Poetry is at the same time economical and extravagant. It has the power to unlock a child's voice and encourage writing skills in ways that prose and essay writing simply cannot. My own daughter has a stunning gift for poetry that would never have been unearthed had we not delved into reading and writing poems at a young age. Don't be intimidated, jump in, be creative and have fun. Try to incorporate a little something into everyday.

• Revisit past four&twenty posts for some ideas. A personal favorite uses chocolate bars as inspiration for writing poems about place and taste!

• Participate in Poem In Your Pocket Day on April 14. I love the idea of having a poem on hand to sponatneously share with family and friends throughout the day.

• Great Poems to Teach lists important poems, some with audio readings. Poetry 180 also has a compiled list of poems geared towards high school students—one for every day of the school year. Both are helpful for getting to know famous poets and various forms.

• Start a book club with friends using our poetry-focused, litertaure discovery guides. Younger students can explore animal poetry with our Douglas Florian guide while Love That Dog and Locomotion both tell profound stories through the use of verse.

• Use technology to share poetry with the world! Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, PowerPoint, Flickr, iMovie, digital cameras….the possibilities are endless.

• Here are some really creative ideas for word play from The Crafty Crow. Click through to Austin Kleon's inventive newspaper blackout poems. What a great exercise in eliminating words to find the poem that was hiding there all along.

• Embark on our Exploring Poetry unit. Read about it here from a blogger-mom who did!

• For a creative lesson idea, read The Poetry of Words recently written by Kim for Heart of the Matter.

• Plant a PoeTree.

Most of all, enjoy learning, exploring, discovering, and creating with words!

– Tracey

Posted on March 17, 2011 by BBCo — 1 Comment

Researching Famous Women

Did you know that March is Women's History Month?

I stumbled upon one of my prized possessions the other day, paper and pencil in hand, a writer looking for creative inspiration. As I unfolded the mass of faded-yellow legal pad and saw Sara’s profuse notes staring back at me, I felt the smile stretch from ear to ear and was taken back to the summer of 1997. Who needs a time machine?

Detail of Amelia Earhart project – pen, watercolor, corrugated cardboard, oil pastels

For the coming school year our desire was to continue to provide opportunities for directed year-long research. The intrinsic reward of this type of activity is that children discover over time to value work that is not instantaneous. Beyond that, the objective is to develop the muscle necessary for independent discovery, which will have a direct connection to critical thinking. But there’s always a twist.

Back in time, Sara and I are in my kitchen. Where else? Chattering away we are brainstorming. We want to inspire our young girls (then first and third graders) to follow the thread of perseverance to its logical conclusion. What if they engage in research of famous women from history who will model the skill? What if we use great picture books and incorporate sophisticated art materials? Yes! And of course it will be great fun! And, think about it, I mean, we will be exploring literature, and this is history too, right? Ah, the glory of cross-curricular activities!

So, with a baby on my hip stirring up dinner in a pot on the stove, I imagined with Sara, her legal pad in hand chock full of bibliographic lists of famous women biographies she had researched to get our girls started, we constructed a series of research questions that the girls would use to guide them in their research and developed a presentation format. We decided that, for each book read, our girls would write a report and craft a creative project depicting the famous woman.

Detail from Amelia and Eleanor Go For a Ride by Pam Munoz Ryan

Looking back, the trick to this kind of research is to be prepared. Because we had a plan, we were able to sit with our girls, take turns reading aloud with them, and guide them as they developed the skill gathering just the right tidbits about the famous woman’s life to include in their simple research paper. We had time to help them explore art materials such as paint and canvas, chalk pastels, and textiles. We were able to encourage them as they endeavored to craft a creative project that would not only celebrate each famous woman, but also would propel them into the process of seeing a creative work from the start to the finish line.

Set as a two hour per week activity, generally speaking, we read and wrote about one book per week unless the book was long, in which case this leg of the activity could take a couple weeks or more (the “there is no hurry” truth applies here), and we completed the artistic activity in two or three weeks. From there, it’s all, well, history.

Only looking back do I see the great pay-off, our girls, all grown now, Hannah is 21 and Evelyn is 19, are women that turn heads not only because they are lovely, but because they are busy following the thread of perseverance to its logical conclusion and are consequently girls who dare to dream.

– Kim

Detail of Faith Ringgold project – fabric wall hanging

Spread from Dinner at Aunt Connie's House by Faith Ringgold

Detail of Eleanor Roosevelt project – acrylic on canvas

Eleanor by Barbara Cooney

Detail of Wilma Rudolf project – colored pencil, pen, acrylic, collage

Posted on March 1, 2011 by BBCo

Idea Share: Art Trays

Our new catagory, Idea Share will be just that…a place to share ideas that we love. Quick little posts about quick little ideas that will make teaching and learning a little easier or little more special.

The styrofoam and paperboard trays that are used to package many meats and vegetables from the grocery store are resuable as palettes for paint and glue, or catch-alls for small craft materials during project time.

Posted on February 17, 2011 by BBCo

The Truth About the Color of a Tomato

We live in a colorful world.

It all begins with a never ending profusion of nuclear explosions in our sun. Eight minutes later all that radiation arrives at the earth in the form of electo-magnetic waves. Outside we are engulfed by white light. Thanks to Mr. Newton, who bent light with a prism—red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet—we understand that all colors are physically contained in white light. Inside the eye, a curious thing is happening.

So, what color is this tomato?

No, it's really not red, it's black.

If you were holding this tomato in the palm of your hand in a dark cave, it would be black.

Everything on earth is made of atoms which are full of invisible energy. If the energy contained in white light is compatible with the energy of an object, that energy is absorbed by the object. Energy that is not compatible is bounced off the object.

Color.

This tomato is absorbing, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet energy.

The pupil then allows just the right amount of light into the eye to detect precise color. Rods and cones on the retina of the eye pick up the signal and decode the electromagnetic waves via the optic nerve in a mysterious spot at the back of the brain.

And voila, the tomato is red!

– Sara

Posted on January 24, 2011 by BBCo

Happy Habits

I was alone with my youngest son on a blustery Wednesday. All was cozy until I notice the symptoms of boredom surfacing. Honestly, I was hoping that imagination would entertain Søren, that I could tackle my never-ending stacks of work, but soon realized this was selfish, an instance of my taking his creativity and contemplative nature for granted.

So I pulled out a book of abstract expressionist paintings and turned pages for a while. I listened carefully for long while to Søren’s observations about color, mood, and story. This led to an idea. I asked Søren if he wanted to draw something like these artists? I already knew the answer. I was so happy to pull out my dusty box of printing materials, happy to walk Søren through the process of making a relief block print.

I’ve tried linoleum with young children with little success because the medium demands a significant degree of fine motor control. Nowadays making a relief block print is much easier because the carving is done on a material more like a plastic eraser. So I got my son started, hovering close by to direct him as needed through all the stages of the process. Søren worked happily for three hours straight drawing, carving, inking, printing… even cleaning up!

I could have coxed my son toward independent play, but I read a book on the treadmill about happiness that reminded me, “Most people do not regularly ask, ‘Will this make happier?’ before engaging in some action. Rather, they do what they do because it feels good at the moment.”

I want my artistic Søren to have the ability to make choices that will make him deeply happy. Right now my job as his mother, his mentor, is to help him fill his toolbox with possibility.

– Kim

» Here's a great video tutorial on how to make your own block prints.

» For an incredibly inspiring look into the life and work of an amazing artist who creates hand-carved stamps visit Geninne's Art Blog.

» For a beginner's approach to printmaking with younger ones visit this post about using scratch foam.

Have fun!

Posted on December 5, 2010 by BBCo

Rings Around the Rosy

Paper chains…oh how I love thee! Let me count the ways…

1. Easy enough for the whole family to help make.

2. Uses up random paper scraps that you feel guilty about just throwing away.

3. Every tool needed was found in junk drawer: paper, scissors, stapler, tape.

4. Instant gratification…my chain was done in under an hour.

5. An ecclectic and colorful way to decorate for Christmas.

6. I feel young when I am making them.

7. Looking at them makes me happy.

– Tracey

Posted on November 27, 2010September 6, 2020 by BBCo

Industrial Animation

Back in the summer of 2003, I took my children to Modigliani & the Artists of Montparnasse at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Sketchbook and pencil in hand, I patted each of them on the back and set them free to explore the works as they saw fit. I love observing the creative process. I felt fortunate to wander with them among works that we have admired from afar in books and on the web.

The exhibition, a collection of works by Modigliani, his friends, and contemporaries, might have been better titled “Conversations from Montparnasse” because the collection was a reunion of works developed long ago in a bohemian Paris neighborhood. I was excited to see how my children would join the conversation.

My oldest son Taylor was nine. He had been studying piano for a bit more than a year, but seemed at the time more interested in visual art. Three works captured his imagination at this exhibit: Dancer, Second Version by Sonia Delauney 1916, Black Hair (Young Seated Girl With Brown Hair), Modigliani, and The City, Fernand Leger 1919. These are the works he decided to study. I watched him study and sketch the first two carefully. When he came to the third, Leger’s painting, he simply stood there, soaking the image into his imagination.

Later that day I heard Taylor plunking away on the piano, but didn’t give it much thought until this past spring when he won a competition for an original piano composition and had to write program notes:

Industrial Animation, a composition for piano by Taylor Bredberg

The story behind this piece began seven years ago after visiting an exhibit, Modigliani and the Art of Montparnasse and after watching a set of short films called Masters of Russian Animation. Here I learned to appreciate industrial beauty and fell in love with the dissonance of Russian music that inspired the main melody. The next part of the journey is very dull considering that the melody sat dormant until recently. In a moment of composer’s block I began to sift through some of my older sketches and came upon the melody. It was unrefined but still had something to it, so I took to it and started working. Prokofiev and Shostakovich, being two of my favorite composers, heavily influenced its mood and shape. Soon enough, along with four brand new melodies, the work is finished, an Industrial Animation at last.

Industrial Animation

Da Vinci’s sketchbooks come to mind, page after page teaming with elaborate ideas, “Art is never finished only abandoned.” All those years ago when we visited the LACMA exhibit Taylor was simply encouraged to abandon some of his ideas into a little sketch book.

Guess it was worth the trip to the local art museum.

– Kim