Sugar Skull themed birthday party

There was a birthday party on Sunday for a 10 year old who loved Sugar Skulls.

And when I say love, I mean love.

She had on a t-shirt with a skull, skull earrings, and could not of been more excited about all the lovely handmade and bought decorated skulls her friends brought her.

Her mother even made this cake!

From scratch no less!!

I can't decide what I'm more impressed by, her decorating skills or the fact she didn't use boxed cake mix.

The girls sculpted their skulls and then while the sculptures were baking, enjoyed cake and opened presents. When finished I put out permanent black markers and colored markers for them to begin decorating. 

The girls all made such interesting and unique design choices.  As the party came to an end, I put out some tissue scraps for them to add flowers. 

I think the girls were all quite pleased with themselves at the end of the party.  

 

How cute is this "hippie skull". (I think that is what I heard one of the girls call it.) You can only see a little of it, but she did an amazing "pointillism" feature going down the back of the skull in a variety of color.

Aren't these two skulls darling? How great are the peace signs in the eye sockets?! I love how the artist used the purple on the above skull to highlight the facial features.

Look at all the work on this skull! I'm quite amazed all that got done before the party ended. I love how these girls surprised me with the tissue flowers. I had never thought about using a variety of colors to create the flowers and no student has done that before. I wish I had gotten a good picture of it, but this artist used a variety of colors to build up her flower on top of the head, which is perfect given all the color she has going on in the skull.

What's not to love about these next two skulls? The environmental theme of the first one is quite darling. Trees, hearts, peace signs...all good things the world could use right now.

Love the large sun and the way the artist created the radiating lines to show warmth. Maybe it was the torrential rains we had the day before that inspired the design? I don't know, but I'd love a warm sunshine day around here about now.

I wish I had a moment to find out the story behind the animal the artist placed on her skull. I find it quite intriguing. I do love the color palette of this work and am impressed with the constraint the artist showed in her limited palette when faced with a hundred different marker colors on the table.

I feel quite confident saying the party was a success. I have a wall painted from floor to ceiling in chalkboard paint and at the start of the party, while waiting for all the guest to show up, the kids usually decorate it for the birthday child.  As the birthday girl was waiting for her parents to pack up to leave, she was looking at the wall and exclaimed to her mother, "Mom! Someone wrote you're party was awesome!". This made her so happy.

No doubt each child created awesome artwork.

Happy 10th Birthday Ms. Z!  Thank you for letting me be apart of your special day.

Douglas Coupland inspired family portrait sculptures

Another artist I included in the camps focused on British Columbian artist was Douglas Coupland. I love the fact that he is a great example that the word artist is not just defined by painting pretty pictures. Here is a man who is a writer, an inventor, a collector, a sculptor, printmaker, basically a jack of all trades.

I also knew the students would be familiar with his work even if they didn't know it. What child has not been thrilled by the giant pixel orca..otherwise known by the unofficial name, "lego killer whale" in Vancouver?

Douglas Coupland

We also discussed how he had just finished a large exhibition at the Vancouver Art Gallery that included a giant bust of his head outside the building for people to stick gum on.

Coupland placing gum on his bust

Gum! 

Boy that did get them talking. 

Why? WHY! Would someone want to stick chewed gum on a sculpture?  

I told them that while yes, it was kind of gross that people's chewed gum was on a sculpture, it was also in it's own way quite beautiful when all the colors were put together. 

After we exhausted all the "why", "ewwwww", and "gross" comments brought on by chewed gum, I presented the work by Douglas Coupland we would be focusing on for our inspiration.

The installation he created for Oshawa's Robert McLaughlin Gallery.

Coupland's artist sketch for "Group Portrait 1957"

Coupland's "Group Portrait 1957" installation at Robert McLaughlin Gallery

The project I created was inspired by the above work.  Each child brought a family portrait from home (photocopy was fine)

I then talked to them about how color could represent not only emotion but also people and asked them to come up with a color combination that would represent each of their family members.

(Douglas Coupland represented each artist in his work by the colors that were most predominant in their art)

If a student was stumped, I would help them along.

A mother who liked to hike, what colors in the forest could represent her?

A father who is always happy all the time could be represented by what colors?

Once each student had created a circle of color for each family member using chalk pastel on Bristol, I made sure they were set with fixative.

Once set, they cut their circles out with scissors and placed the circles over the faces on their photos. The circles were then connected with toothpicks and glued together.

Once dried, they had a family portrait inspired by Douglas Coupland.

Sugar Skulls and teaching moments

School year classes started at Kudzu in the beginning of October, not that you would know it from the lack of posting on my part.  It was due to a calamity of errors on my part that needed fixing by my better half, husband, who was in Hong Kong the past three weeks for work.

Which seemed to mostly consist of sending my pictures of the protest two blocks from his hotel to turn my head grey, but that's another story.

The Wednesday class began with creating Sugar Skulls out of clay.  I brought out a couple of skulls for them to look at for reference and off they went.  While they were creating their skulls, I told them a bit about the holiday that takes place in Mexico and what a wonderful way it is to remember loved ones who have passed away. 

When they were finished, I pulled out sharpie pens, acrylic paints and glitter glue for them to use to decorate their work.  As time ran out, I had pulled out some crepe paper for them to make flowers to glue on also and promised the girls we put the flowers on at next week's class.

Here is how a couple of skulls looked at the end of class that day.

Although it is a little hard to tell in the above skull, both of these students chose to use glitter glue in the eye sockets.  I thought it looked quite marvelous.

Unfortunately when I came back to the studio the next afternoon to teach, gravity had played a part in their creations and the glue that was once in the sockets, now ran down the face.

7 year old

Unexpected, yes!  Ruined, no!  At least not as far as I was concerned, I thought it turned out quite interesting and I knew this particular student would more than likely LOVE the results.

And when she arrived at class that next week, her response was just as I expected - a huge grin and a exclamation of "cool!"

7 year old

I was not quite as confident in regards to the other little girls' response and she was definitely unsure at first.  I think it helped that her friend was so enthusiastic about the changes, but for her, the skull was suppose to be happy...not sad.   So we talked about all the times people cry "happy tears", which then seemed to make everything OK.  

From my perspective, she wasn't so much as upset that the glue had ran but wrestling with how that interpreted into what she was wanting to convey in her sculpture.  Once she realized that people do in fact sometimes cry when they are extremely happy, she had no problems with gravity getting involved in the fun.

8 year old

Their other friend who also used the glitter glue a little less enthusiastically had no problems with gravity and so we took a minute to talk about why the glue ran on some and not others.  Without help, they all surmised  the glue had been applied to thickly. 

And so through the process, they learned.  I'm sure they will come back to this moment in the future when applying paint, glue, or other materials and remember the time when they applied things to thickly and they ran down the work over time. I believe even the student who did not have issues with running glue will also file the results away to utilize at a later date.

Most importantly, they learned to embrace the unexpected.  One of those great life lessons we all need when navigating through this world because as all adults know, you have a plan and then sometimes life has another plan. 

A lesson these students passed with flying colors while creating their sugar skulls.

math and art

The last project I have to show from Sculpture Week at North Vancouver Community Arts Council is deconstructed books.

I did this during the school year at Kudzu Studio and it is a project I find the kids really enjoy and they tend to get lost in the production of the sculpture.

I especially like it because it is chock full of math and a great lesson in symmetry.

Bonus is that it is a very cheap project to put together.  All you need is a damaged book that is looking to be revitalized in a new and beautiful way, scissors, and a glue stick.  You can add a hole punch and speciality scissors with different designs if you have it, but it is totally unnecessary.

all good things

8 year old

I brought in some old Shakespearean paperback textbooks of different plays and picture books for the students to pick from for their project.

First they have to find the middle of the book, which means they have to count the pages in total if it is a picture book. For books like the Shakespeare plays I brought in, the kids have to locate the last page number and then add any additional pages not numbered to come up with the total pages. 

Once they know the total pages of the book,  they have to divide this number in half to find the middle of the book. (which with this age group I helped with the division, thank you iPhone App!)

Lotsa math!!

Once they have the middle of the book open, the only rule is that whatever you do to one side, you have to do to the other side also. 

Hello lesson in symmetry!

From there it is an exercise in pattern and numbers.  Paper folding, paper cutting, paper tearing, paper building....well you get the idea.  The sky is the limit and open to wherever their imagination decides to go!

so fun

6 year old

You want the students to fold away from the binding when doing this project.  And they have to make sure they bring the edge of the paper into the binding before folding for it to stay in place well.

They can cut pages in half to curl or fold and even pull them out to cut, curl and add back into the project for height.

Again, whatever happens to one side though must happen to the other.

7 year old

As you can see, a couple of students were inspired to add even more of their own personal touch to the work by using markers to color pages, adding origami, and making cut outs.

Like I said, the sky is the limit.

I love the beauty of these finished projects and I still have a bundle of books that were destined to be thrown away waiting to be brought back to life in a new way.  Next time I want to try this project as a mobile.  I can't wait!!!

Happy 5th Birthday to Miss E!!!

Today there were eight children at the studio to celebrate a fifth birthday.

It was a ladybug theme.  You should of seen the cupcakes the mother made for the party!!  so cute.

After a couple of discussions with the mom, it was decided that the project would be a ladybug sculpture.

birthday girl!

I had some beautiful stones in the studio that my oldest child, who knows how much I love collecting the cast offs of others, brought home from her retail job when they were changing out the store decor. I thought they would make a great base for a ladybug to take a rest.

So we started off building a ladybug out of Fimo clay. The kids had the opportunity to make a form out of aluminum foil, which all but one did, and then I told them to cover it completely in clay so it would be "top secret" what was underneath.

One little boy literally would not tell his mom what was inside his ladybug when she picked him up!  He loved having a "top secret" from her.

Once they had it covered, I asked them to roll it between their hands "like a meatball" to smooth it all out.   Then with a bit more clay, they made their wings and added them to the body.  Then they made another meatball and placed it on as the head.

kindergartener

Now it was time to add the spots.  I gave them a few options.  They could use a toothpick to poke holes, the eraser on a pencil to make indented circles, or add small clay "dots".  I don't think anyone took me up on the dots but we had a variety of toothpick and eraser holes.

first grader  

I had cut some wire before they arrived and each child had the opportunity to add legs and antennas.

All added the antennas, but only some added the legs.  

Ladybug sculptures complete. phew.

While those were baking, I handed each child a palette with blue and yellow acrylic paint.  I'm a big believer in teaching children to mix their own colors.  I think it is a skill that will serve them well as they grow.  They all knew blue and yellow made green, but I wanted to show them how they could make different colors of green just by changing the ratio of the two primary colors.

kindergartener

I even delved into a bit of optical blending, showing them they could make lines of just pure yellow or pure blue and still end up with something that the eye would read as green.

I then asked each of them to mix two different colors of green.  One blue green and one yellow green and all of them were very successful with this task.

kindergartner

And with sound effects just for fun, I even suggested they add whisk of color to look like blades of grass.

Once that was all done, it was time for snacks and cupcakes.  Boy did the kids have a good time "sucking the heads" off the ladybugs.  

Yes, one little boy gleefully told all of us, "I sucked the head right off!"  

fun, fun, fun

Once the tummies were full and sugar was running at full steam through the blood streams of eight little partygoers, it was time to paint the now baked ladybugs.

first grader

  

It is always interesting to me to watch the kids begin to understand that they need to turn a sculpture up, down and all around to paint.  Their first instinct is just to paint what they see and they will let me know they are "done" and then when I ask them if they checked all sides and the bottom you can see the lightbulb go off.

ah! not done.

second grader

Once they were done painting, the birthday girl opened her presents and my oldest and I frantically dried all the ladybugs with a blowdryer as old as me, then hot glued the ladybugs down onto the painted stones.  The kids were able to bend the legs and antennas however they wanted and I think they came out cute as a bug.

yea, I went there, the world of the double entendre.

kindergartner

I love all the different perspectives created from the exact same directions and instruction.  The choices each and everyone of the kids make are so very charming and make for fantastic work that is all their own.

As unique as each and every one of them.

On another note, fall classes are now up on the website at Kudzustudio.com.  If the times and dates don't work, please send me a note and we can work something out since it is still early.

Until then, a very happy, happy 5th birthday Miss E!!  Thanks for letting me be a part of your special day.

one more look at the birthday girl

H.E.double toothpicks froze over

I did paper mache.

As a parent of three almost grown children, I hate paper mache.  It's a mess which is why I was quite happy for it to be a project my kids did when I WASN'T around.

Unfortunately it is now time to pay the piper.

I am the art teacher.

Not the parent.

And it is my penance to now do the messy paper mache project with the kids because like me, I'm sure their parents want them to experience the joys of flour, water, and newspaper away from the house too.

And so we embarked on trophy heads made out of paper mache.

Me kicking and screaming, the kids just screaming, "yea!!! paper mache!"

cat,7 year old

They made their forms out of wadded up newspaper covered in masking tape and then we tore strips of plain newsprint and delved into the world that is messy, gooey flour paste.

And it wasn't that bad.

aricorn, 6 year old

Maybe my kids were exceptionally messy back in the day, but it wasn't as horrible as I remembered.

I was worried about them wanting to put too many layers of paste and paper on the sculpture, but they were in fact pretty much done once they had the second layer.

raccoon, 7 year old

And I was glad I had not done the project too large or I don't think it would of held their attention to the end, but then that might of had something to do with the fact that it was near a hundred degrees outside and we were all sweltering.

Ironic since paper mache is my own personal h.e.double toothpicks....

The plus side is that in heat as hot as Hades everything dried very quickly!!

They were very excited about painting the work and they all came out very cute.

bird, 8 year old

Once the paint was dried, I added a gloss varnish to protect the artwork and now they are ready to hang on the students' bedroom walls.

H.E.double toothpicks hath frozen over.  I have done a paper mache project and lived to tell the tale.

Holton Rower inspired sculptures

So I have been dying to try a Holton Rower project ever since I have discovered his work.  His pour paintings are so engaging and when finished and hanging on the wall very beautiful.  There is just something so calming about watching the paint interact with each new pour put on the base.

Sculpture Week at North Vancouver Community Arts Council seemed like the perfect place to finally give a Holton Rower inspired project a whirl.

I had been holding on to some wood scraps and so put some gesso on the different pieces and took them into the studio.  Using wood glue, I had the kids place the pieces how they desired after we talked about how we would use gravity to paint the work.

Needless to say, this project was very popular.

The kids LOVED pouring paint on the work.

LOVED!!!

I think they would of done this for hours if I would of let them but then we would of had paint dripping down the sculpture to the table to the floor!  At first it was all about the pouring but once there were several layers on they were fascinated by what the paint was doing with each and every pour.

I had originally asked them to pick three to five colors to work with but as you can see that suggestion went out the window in their excitement.

I am so pleased with this project from beginning to end and the kids were too.

They took four days to dry in very warm temperatures.  I put a high gloss varnish on top once they were completely dry so that they would look like wet paint.  I had hoped to put a hanger on the back so the parents would put them on the walls, as I think this is the best way to display them, but just ran out of time.

There was a bit of cracking but nothing that I feel takes away from the work.  I certainly didn't have any paint falling off and I think it adds to the charm of the piece.

So without further ado....