Diva Challenge #117

Weekly Challenge #117: "New Official Tangle: Schway"

Schway was a lot of fun, though I bit off more than I can chew with this tangle.  First, go look at the Diva's site and see how all the little arrows happen.  It's pretty cool.  The original plan was to fill in more arrows, but this week has been ridiculously spring-like and lovely out.  After the cool/cold and wet going on so long, we just couldn't be inside much this week.  A hike in the Arboretum with the boys during Bean's art class, a LONG park day on Tuesday, a run over to a close park after piano lessons.  Yesterday and today are gray and rainy and I spent most of yesterday coping with the fact that playing outside means chores get neglected inside.

I will probably continue to fiddle and fill arrows over time, but, even so, it's kind of fun with just a few filled in.

Bean Warhol (October 2012)

Here I was being such a good girl documenting Miss Bean's art class when--ooo, shiny.  Or maybe it was a squirrel.  Anyhoo...back to art.  October was Pop Artist Andy Warhol.

Quick, what's the first thing you think of when I say Andy Warhol?

Of course: Campbell's Soup Cans!  Tomato Soup to be exact.


Another project combined something that Warhol used as subject matter with a favorite Warhol technique:

In this case, the prints weren't screen prints, but instead, they used a stylus to draw their picture in a foam meat tray which they then used as a stamp with bright colors, finishing up with painting over the drawing lines in different bright colors.  So, they still captured the "mass produced" reproduction idea that Warhol used, even without the fuss of setting up screen prints.

Considering that October had five Mondays, I have a strong suspicion that at least one project didn't find its way to Bean's art portfolio.  I know that the bananas took more than a single session, but I'm not sure that these two works took up five sessions.  'Tis a mystery.

Bean Van Gogh (September 2012)

Miss Bean's classes started in September with Vincent Van Gogh.  I knew the art she made in this class was going to knock my socks off from the first thing they brought home, Starry Night:

Yes, I admit, I may be biased, but this was the best one in the class.  Miss Bean wasn't even the oldest in the class at that time (it was much bigger in September than it is now).

Next up is Sunflowers:  

Since Van Gogh painted lots and lots of sunflowers, this isn't a copy of any particular picture.  Instead, the teacher brought in a vase of sunflowers that she put in the middle of the table and they all painted it.  It was fun seeing all the different paintings, each from a different perspective depending on where around the table each kid was!

And a still life (with a bonus sunflower, of course):

I think this may have been a warm up before the Sunflowers still life.  Also, this one might need to be rotated 90° counterclockwise.  Bean couldn't remember for sure, but this was her best guess.

And finally, a self-portrait:

Neither Bean nor I are 100% sure this one belongs in the Van Gogh stack, but she vaguely remembered that they talked about colors being connected to mood. With my limited art history background, that brought Van Gogh's self portraits to mind and seemed to fit better than the other possibilities.  Note to self:  I really need to stay on top of these things and make notes right away, don't I?

Diva's Weekly Challenge #116

This week's challenge is called "Blind Sighted" and challenges us to use a blind string...just what it sounds like.  Put the pencil on a border, close eyes, and draw a string.  Once of the advantages of using my little sketchbook instead of a regular tile is that it was pretty obvious when I just about to run into the spiral binding or when I went lurching over the edge of the cliff page.  I tried to experiment with a little more white space than I usually have, but I felt like it still needed something:

So I tried tangling the stems of the Zingers:

I think it was my inability to draw parallel lines for the stems that was bugging me, but I kind of like the tangled stems, so we'll go with that.  Since I tend to get bogged down looking at a blank frame, the blind string made that part a little easier, so a fun challenge!  Thanks, Diva!

Artist Girl

Bean has been the resident artist for a long time now (this picture still cracks me up).  This year, she has been taking a homeschool art class at the Monroe Street Arts Center up in Madison.  In the class, they focus on one artist each month.  They learn a little art history, see some famous examples of their art, and do art projects either copying famous pictures or doing their own take in the style of the artist.  It will come as a surprise to no one who has me the girl that she ADORES the class!  Her only complaint was that some of her classmates were more interested in talking to each other than making art and were disturbing her.  My vivid imagination is imagining the top picture from the link above.  Since the first of the year, the class size has gotten smaller and she is better able to concentrate, and even when the class was bigger, I don't think the noise was a make-or-break deal.

Anyway, today the sun was out for a change (no clouds, rain, or snow for a change), so I finally got all of her class art projects hauled out into the sun to take pictures.  Over the next week or two, I'm planning on posting her pictures by month, so watch this space.

The other fun part about the class is the other things it has led to outside the class.  She and I have been hauling artist biographies and stories and picture out from the library.  We read three out of four volumes of a nice kid-level art history series (the fourth volume isn't in our library system, or more precisely, is but the only copy is lost) and watched an older PBS art history series (Art of the Western World).  Currently, we have segued off the beaten path to read about illustrators.  Along with the monstrous pile of books we have been hauling home from the library each week, one was Talking With Artists, which, for each of fourteen artists, gives a short biography and then has each artist's answers to eight questions that are commonly asked when folks like these talk to students or do a reading.  In addition to reading from the book we have also put holds on several books by each illustrator, so we read and look at pictures after we read about one of the illustrators.  We are currently a couple of illustrators in to the second volume and I just discovered a third volume.  I guess we'd better get reading!

The sad thing?  First, we have already read down the pile by at least a dozen books since the beginning of the week.  Second, this stack doesn't even finish off the second book. It's a good thing the librarians like us, or they would be hating us with all the holds we have been picking up!  We'll whittle down this pile a bit before putting holds on books by the last few illustrators in Volume Two.

Anyhoo, more pictures, less blabbing in the next several posts as I get Miss Bean's masterpieces posted.

Happy Earth Day

"Spring" Break

Alternate title: Denial Runs Deep
Although we don't give a fig for the school calendar most of the time, we have really noticed Spring Break this year. For one, we are having a week with no art class, no fencing, no piano lessons, and no tumbling. Further, Spring weather has been unusually conspicuous in its absence. At a certain point all you can do is throw up your hands and say "To heck with it." So, we did, and went to the park.

Yes, there is still (significant) snow on the ground. Yes, the temps topped out on the 40's. Yes, she's wearing short sleeves.

Yes, my choice of footwear may not have been the most appropriate.

Yes, we had a great time.

Yes, it was just what we needed. There was even a rumor going around to the effect of an eyewitness sighting of my sense of humor. Imagine that.

And still more crystals

Our sudden interest in crystals turned out to be extremely timely, as last Saturday was the Friends of the Geology Museum's Winter Workshop. The topic was "Bubbles of gas in lava that solidified as they cooled and then are gradually filled by the crystallization of impurities in ground water seeping through." If that's too complicated for you, you can go with the museum's title: Geodes.

We learned how geodes form (see bubbles, lava, and impurities, above), saw pictures of geodes big enough to be a bathtub (but the sharp edges of the crystals would be ever so unpleasant on the backsides, so not recommended), learned that completely filled in geodes are agates, learned that beautiful purple geodes can be found in both South America and Africa from a place where they split apart from when they were part of the super-continent Pangaea, and were informed that when illustrating the part of of a talk about unearthing geodes in Chihuahua, Mexico, an Internet search for images almost uniformly yields small canines.

The highlight of the whole thing was cracking geodes:

And a bonus picture of Beeb rockin' the safety glasses (and badly needing a haircut).




Aren't they pretty?

The clear, sparkly stuff in the one on the right (belonging, appropriately princess-like Bean) is quartz. Four quartz make a gallon doncha know. The one on the left is Beeb's and has layers of chalcedony (the milky, bumpy stuff) over quartz. The one in the middle is mine and has a wonderful combination of chalcedony bumps and worms and sparkly quartz. Bug squirreled his away into his lair long before the photo shoot, so you'll have to take my word for it that it was equally cool.

Here's a close-up of mine:

The grand finally was getting to see these Trancas geodes under short-wave ultraviolet, which made them fluoresce green!

More Crystals!

Our rock candy ended up in the win column. Mom learned a few things to make the process go more smoothly next time and the kids got a tasty examples of crystals to admire.

I'm a bit behind the times as these pictures were taken several days before Valentine's Day. We have even been continuing the crystally fun...more on that soon!

En Garde!

Bug and Bean both joined a local fencing club just after the first of the year.  Bug adored it from day one, practicing advances and retreats and lunges as he moves around the house.  Bean was a bit more skeptical.  She is at the young end of the club and things weren’t falling in place as easily for her as they were for Bug, who is both older and more agile.  But we have been sticking to it and keeping on and last week they were rewarded with getting equipment to use and getting to fence in their first bouts. 

  

Both of them were very nervous about being shish-kebabbed and half convinced that they were going to die from stab wounds, so I was curious to see how it would go.  Their opponents were a brother and sister pair that were the next newest of the newbies. They fought valiantly:

Miss Bean was a bit tentative (which isn’t exactly a huge surprise for those who know her personality), but nevertheless managed to back her opponent almost to his end of the strip twice, but still lost three touches to zero.

Bug jumped right in (which is also not a big surprise to those who know him) and scored two touches before his opponent got her bearings and ended up beating him three to two.

I remembered to get a picture of Bug shaking his opponents hand after the match:

I will admit a bit of trepidation after the matches as some of us are not known for being gracious losers and were very nervous about the whole thing to start with, but, after I checked for stab wounds that might leak when drinking water, I was very pleased with the verdict:  Huge smiles, sparkling eyes, and unanimous declarations of “That was SO awesome!”