April
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After School Classes
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April 〰️ After School Classes 〰️
Private Art Classs
Contact me if you would like to schedule a Private Art Session for your child, a group of children, or parent & child. Availability on certain Friday and Saturday mornings.
Check out some of our recent classes
A stack of postcards
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Today, we moved to the music and added some lively coordination exercises—movement to keep warm after running between the car and the studio, and listening. It’s easy to just hear music, but to truly listen to it and follow the rhythm takes more concentration. The students were challenged to pay attention and practice their memory.
We also created a set of watercolor postcards using our new magical forest watercolor palettes and practiced patience to decide whether the work was done or not. Sometimes we think it’s finished, but then we come back to it and realize it needs an extra color or a finishing dot. Today, we worked on that process, and each student had 4 pieces of paper to work on. At this age, they’re usually done and they’re done, but today, some of them started adding extra details after they thought they were finished, which added another layer to their work.
Finally, we wrapped the postcards in origami paper and added a sticker that says “Magic Mail.” I wonder who will be receiving these beautiful postcards!
The Ways of Water
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As the year begins with flames in the West, we think of water here in the East. Everyone in class shared their concerns about the fires in California, so we focused our creativity today on transforming dry scenes into scenes of water. I love what everyone came up with and how they found sources of water and made them flow.
We worked with images from old books from my childhood that I collected during my visit to Chile. My son helped me sort through the pages, and together we selected images that would inspire the students.
In class, we discussed the many layers of a collage and the importance of working delicately—considering the composition and interaction of the elements and what connects them instead of simply overlapping images on the same plane
Decks of Cards
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We made a deck of cards two years ago with the older kids, and today’s was an incredible exercise once again. They all chose their own concepts, whether it was many animals, just their family members, or a mix of both. They ended by selecting a string for each deck of cards, exploring their different styles, and complimenting each other’s work. We discussed how, as we grow, we become capable of drawing with more detail and how there will always be the next challenge that may make us feel like we can’t draw it, but eventually, we will.
A Burst of Color
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Today was special. We had a wonderful class visit from textile designer Sherri Dhongia of Longhouse Reserve, who delighted us with color and shared some of the timeless textiles that she created in the past . She truly made an impression, coming in like a burst of color to play and collaborate. The students arrived to find the floor covered with tapestry fringes and samples of all kinds. The girls had the chance to see what a ‘color study’ looks like and worked on their own pieces using a variety of fabrics, fringes, burlap, vegan leather, and oil pastels. As a final touch, some students used a #worrydoll from Guatemala, which Sherri kindly brought for them, as part of their piece. Thank you Sherri for bringing so much love and joy to our Wednesday class.
Hanging Sculptures
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Hanging #sculptures with mesh, copper leaf, wire, thread, fabric, string, clay, found objects and absolute imagination. How can we work with elements that are not meant to work together such as mesh and fabric, clay and string? I offer an idea and their imagination delivers. My dream job is to provide the environment and facilitate what they need to give form to their visualization
Transfers
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What a delightful group of girls in the Wednesday class! During a conversation about what we do in class, as they were welcoming a new friend to the group, one child said, “We are kind to each other, we imagine, we don’t copy.” I replied, “Today, we are going to copy—but not each other’s work, rather using transfer paper.” The joy they felt when transferring a shape that would otherwise have been difficult for them was unexplainable. They loved going through books, finding images they liked, and bringing them to life. Gradually, other materials were added, such as ink and black labels, on which they wrote: “This is friendship,” “This is peaceful,” “This is peace,” and “I love this.”
Block printed Leaves
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Wow I can’t get enough of these unicorns playing with leaves and color as an extension from their own fingers! We meditated holding hands in a circle and they were too fidgety to stay in silence so we just tried humming like bees. Then we took a walk in nature to find different leaves and had fun learning how to print them on paper using block printing ink. They decorated the paper into these magical colorful pieces.
Self Portraits
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I have the most adorable group of boys on Thursdays. They care about art and are lucky to have parents who prioritize that space for them even though they also play so many sports. I get to see them surf at the beach, play soccer, and they really excel at it but they also enjoy creating and expressing how they feel. Today I asked them to tell me what are the things that they like about themselves. Of course they like being good at what they are good at! It didn’t come so easy at first but after a little practice they started sharing and going deeper, from “I like that I like to do art” to “I like that I can create”; from negative to positive from “I like that I am unorganized” to “ I like that I am creative” and from “I like that he is not mean” to “ I like that he is kind”. When asked to say what they liked about their friends, the ideas were flying, it was a lot easier and they also realized that. These paintings are to be continued next week: a self portrait in color and a self portrait in words
We Need a Village
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Everyone has loved this project so much that we will have to continue building and adding infrastructure until we create an entire village and move into it!
Pocket Door
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Did anyone say a pocket door to another world?! That’s a world in a tin box, a hiding spot for your secret coins, the entrance to cloud world, gateway to diamond world, a door to a magic world, and the portal to cookie world
Puppets
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Wednesday class puppets continued today culminating with a little performance based on a class poem. I’ve been obsessed with a poem about mice written by a third grader in the 60’s that inspired the kids to create their own collaborative poem using a similar structure. They performed the poem out loud using their puppets and Greta made a bananas background using markers and twine.
Continue the pattern
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Today I was amazed by the kids response to this exercise. The youngest group of 4 to 7 year olds were able to continue the pattern of one piece of fabric onto the paper. They imagined that I needed to make a dress but my piece of fabric was so small that perhaps they could help me by continuing the pattern. They did this by choosing their fabric among many options, cutting it or asking me to cut it in a particular shape and then gluing it onto the paper. At the beginning the idea of copying the pattern instead of copying an object was strange for some but they slowly understood the idea and we worked on using a system that was right for each individually. This was an exercise of finding the right colors, mixing them and placing them in the right place. Some of them worked extending the pattern from the edge of the fabric into the paper, while others worked by adding different layers of color.
