Still Creating Amidst shutdowns

It has been extremely emotionally and economically detrimental to close down businesses and schools for 9 months here in California. I personally am hibernating like a bear financially in order to conserve my resources. I am thankful that a few small tutor groups have been going on to provide joy in my life and a trickle of income, as unemployment is not the way I want to stay afloat. I love seeing the excitement from my young students as they express themselves artistically in my private art classes. Art helps provides them with a creative release from the stresses of this extended quarantine.

During this time I had the opportunity to take a workshop to grow in my own Intuitive Expressive art skills. It was fun to let loose try painting with joyful strokes, new techniques letting paint drip down on the canvas, stamp into the paint, paint with my fingers, or spray more water on the canvas to see fluidity and spontaneous changes in the paint process.

This exercise was done in a course of several days, allowing the paint to dry in between otherwise opposite colors of the color wheel turn to mud or grey. It was great to have no idea in mind on what I was painting and let it just flow from pure fun and enjoyment of the medium. At one point though I really thought my piece was hopeless, everything was in a state of chaos and too busy with all kinds of lines and colors everywhere. . . very much like the state of our country - as if it could not get any worse!!!

The instructor encouraged me to go on and that I would like it. Could it turn out into something beautiful? Internally I thought I can not make any sense out of all this. I would need to let it rest and speak to me. Well nothing really spoke to me so I decided to add something that speaks fun to me- a sea turtle. Somehow as I placed this familiar and enjoyable object into the piece covering an area that I clearly did not like, something changed. I added some blue and greens to outline the shape. This helped coax the turtle out of the busy background so I could recognize it better. Then my turtle needed another friend so I added a seahorse went into another area that was too distracting. . . pretty soon these happy memories of underwater diving made my heart sing being under the sea again!

Once in my happy place, I was able to add bits of color and details to bring more attention to these whimsical sea creatures. Applying a light wash to the background also helped in bringing the seahorse and sea turtle forward. My energy and mood changed and soon this was turning into a piece of art that I am quite excited with.

My other painting was done having hinderances broken and taping into that playful creative side!

If you are interested in trying this creative approach, contact me at Michelle@Art-N-You.com.

Learning Masterfully!

This summer these students took their art to the Next Level!  And they fell in love with their paintings!  They already knew how to draw, so they went on to tackle the beast of mixing colors.  We first began the course by creating a color wheel so they could see how colors were made.  Then, really observing their animal, they had to decide where to place the shades first.  By understanding your darkest darks on your object you can gauge the lights and mediums.  Once that is in place, the artist looks at the highlight areas: areas where the sun is hitting their object.  We first started with a still life so by using simple shapes we could understand darks do not have to be black!  After that exercise,  we moved on to animals of their choices.  Here are their results. . . they were pleasantly surprised even if they felt it might be too hard.  SECRET: To tackle the fur and the palm tree fronds we used a special brush so you don't have to paint every hair or leaf.

Listening to my students for ideas

I was quite surprised after my summer Fashion Design class when students told me how much they enjoyed learning to sew.  They wanted to have more sewing classes, so I took them up on that and this Fall I offered a sewing class that was FULL and had a WAITLIST!  Here are some of the projects we worked on.  I am looking forward to sharing my sewing skills with another group of girls soon!  

These girls had no prior sewing skills and learned how to operate their own machine, practice how to control the pressure, follow a line, and make a bobbin.  We redesigned a T-shirt and then we made emoji pillows.  We started some snakes from old socks but we will need another class to complete them, if they did not finish them on their own. 

If you are interested in a sewing class for your daughter call me at 805 443-1555 for the next available class.  Students must have their own sewing machines.

Cartooning, is this Art?

Parents are always wondering if their child drawing cartoons is really learning any skills? YES! When your child is drawing and copying what they see, even if it is an anime or another cartoon, they are focusing on their drawing skills. For many young children, drawing something realistic is intimidating and they are afraid of failure. Drawing cartoons puts an animal into a correct perspective, yet they can be silly which takes the edge off of it having to be perfect. So much of their schoolwork revolves around them performing or testing well and this gets translated into a need for "perfectionism" for many young children. And who wants to fail?

I have found that the students in my after-school cartooning classes at St. Mary Magdalen's School love to draw and have fun with drawing many of their favorite characters from current movies, such as "Jungle Book", "Finding Dory", and "The Secret Life of Pets".  They are learning how to draw expressions, a variety of animals, create a story, and will gain confidence to draw beyond the "stick figure".

My Newest Art Form - Videos

I was quite happy to see that my art skills have been useful in editing and creating these two videos of two recent dive trips I took to Belize, Central America and here at the Channel Islands. I needed to work with the music, learning how to film with a GoPro, edit, and then compose a video. I selected a piece of music but then I realized that the original pictures did not coincide with the lyrics, so those photos got scrapped and I worked with the song and edited accordingly. My first trip was to The Great Blue Hole in Belize where I enjoyed warm-water diving with wonderful, colorful fish and sea turtles! My second video consists of what is local to me in Ventura County of the California coast. Enjoy without the weights, wetsuit, or water!

2015 Summer Camps at Camarillo Art Center

Not only do art camps expose students to art in general, they also allow the students to hone their artistic talent: whether it be in drawing, architecture, fashion design, painting, or fantasy art.

Lorrie Milton taught an Animal Adventure class where they drew a variety of animals, Ashley Goodman-Konzmann taught a small group how to paint and see value in their work, and I taught Fashion Design and Fantasy art.  Next week we will cover a variety of media including sculpting.

Each day, these art students learned how to draw fantasy art and then they chose how they wanted to complete their pieces. Students were able to choose between watercolors, markers, colored pencils, art Stix, or chalk pastels. Andrea, the youngest, brought in glitter and it added a sparkle to our unicorns! Never would have thought of that! I love their creative touches — loved this week! ☺