City of Santa Monica Youth Office
Magnificent creations. So inspiring and moving, and such a great group. So supportive of each other, devoted to their creative and artistic expressions, and imaginative ideas and use of materials.Of Polka Dots and Butterflies: Inspired by Yayoi Kusama
In what I am calling my “Girl Power” after-school artmaking class (“Making Art Inspired By Great Artists!), my group of seven power artmakers are hard at work creating polka-dotted butterfly books inspired by Japanese Artist Yayoi Kusama!
First up was to learn the correct pronouncement of Kusama’s name…not familiar to the girrrls. Next they created accordion-fold book spines, added the front and back covers, and finally, butterfly wings to the center fold of the spine
Then it was off to the races to add colorful polka dots to their books, in honor of Kusama’s interest (obsession with?) circles, polka-dots, and their endlessness and thus the expression of infinity the circular shape affords, at least in Kusama’s book (!)
Adding also flowers, butterflies (stickers), ribbons to honor May Day and even using a butterfly shaped hole puncher, the girrrls wowed with their use of materials, their creativity, and imagination to create unique, whimsical, beautiful and stunningly singular works. Just like Yayoi Kusama does with her materials, creativity and imagination!
What a marvelous group. Brava!
Spines folded, covers and wings attached, let the adornment begin!
Weaving ribbons through the holes.
Can there be any more polka dots?!?
Using the butterfly hole puncher.
Deft use of the polka dot (and other) stickers, which she is adding white texture to (overlaying the original orange color polka dot color on the wings) , which she took out or replaced later, to have just the plain orange polka dots. Just amazing!
Girl Power! Making Surrealistic Landscapes Inspired by Salvador Dali
In what I am calling my “Girl Power” after-school artmaking class (“Making Art Inspired By Great Artists!), my group of seven power artmakers are hard at work creating surrealist landscapes inspired by artist Salvador Dali.
They learned about the concepts of horizon , vanishing points, perspective and scale ad used them to establish and landscape then develop it into a personal, surrealistic world. It was fascinating to watch. For our next class, they will be adding images from magazines to complete their works and add another layer of surrealism to them and learning about the artform of collage in the process!
What a marvelous group. Brava!
Intensity, care, creativity, connection, learning, what else is there?
Girl Power! Making Self-Portraits Inspired By Frida Kahlo
My “Making Art Inspired By Great Artists” students all girls aged 7-10, were inspired by artist Frida Kahlo to create their own self-portraits, and I was inspired by their magnificent works!
They learned how to draw a face in proportion working only in pencil, no color, then added color, still using pencil to retain the delicacy of their line work. Finally they added detailed, designed and imagined backgrounds inspired by Kahlo’s use of Magical Realism. They had the fun embellishing black matboard frames which fit around their drawings with an array of paper and gem stickers, attaching them, and seeing how the frames brought together each piece.
Their process, creativity and learning was a joy to behold!
Behold: Girl Portrait Power!
Picasso-Inspired Shape Shifting
In our “Making Art Inspired by Great Artists” CREST Enrichment class,
Students in grades TK- 5th are inspired by Pablo Picasso…learning about Cubism, creating and exploring shapes through line, color and collage, and creating their own Picasso-inspired portraits!
For a different take and to enhance their experience of color relationships and expression, we used black paper as a background!
Students drew their portraits, used colored pencils and crayons to identify and add shapes, and finally cut and added more shapes out of colored paper, taking care not to obscure what they had already done!
Adding a crown
Using a loose line to add color
Abstract and Representational takes on the project
“Hear Me Roar…”
Framing…adding a border
Self-portrait?
Strong, clear shapes
Creativity abounds with these kindergarteners through fifth-graders.
Each created their own vision through the project, as they will continue to do through their lives.
The Work of Our Hands: Hand Building with Clay 4
Hand Building with Clay class at Will Rogers School with the CREST Enrichment program has been a joy to teach.
Students learned pinch, coil and slab techniques, creating functional and fanciful items, and enjoying plenty of time to create their own personal visions after completing each class project.
After learning slab (flattening) technique, students created masks from slabs shaped over newspaper armatures/supports.
Both the Kindergarten and grades 1-5 classes let their inventiveness loose!
Employing the heart shape in different ways when class fell on February 14th!
Combining use of coils with use of slab technique.
Cutting out and incising (etching lines and texture into the clay) yields expressive results.
This young maker used a pencil to twist these star shapes into his mask. Big smile!
Cut out eyes, added teeth incising texture and puncturing the clay’s surface to create small round shapes enhance this piece.
This very talented young artist wanted to create Harry Potter in clay…
She succeeded. Her use of acrylic paint pulled the whole piece together into a stunner.
BRAVO to All Our Students!