week 14

Hello CGMS families and friends. We are back after a lovely winter break and the studio is already buzzing with activity.We added alot of found objects, ribbons, string, googly eyes, poms and more to our central supply shelves and students are busily creating some three dimensional pieces.Painting remains an evocative activity for every student and the liquid water colors add so much vibrancy to the stark winter landscape.We have placed the water soluable oil pastels on a small table with 150lb water color paper, for independent work. The effects of this wonderful media in combination with liquid water color, is breathtaking.We have added a dramatic play area to the studio with some scarves and lengths of fabric. We have already seen: house play, the three little bears, super heros, mermaids, pricesses and more.
The block building area remains a point of interest and we have added a clipboard, paper and black pens for the students to record their creations.

What fun! We are excited to begin papermaking next week and continue our studio explorations.

week 13

The studio was a hive of activity this week. The students are excited by the many holiday preperations that are swirling around with cooking projects and gifts exchange. The students enjoyed exploring the water soluble oil pastels introduced last week in combination with liquid water colors. There were several other activities as well, including: adding the last details to our second fall mural, several fall compositions, drawings and block building.

The daily drawings continue to provide a peaceful transition from class to studio and a welcome respite from the often busy feelings surrounding the season.

Happy holidays to all of you and have a lovely winter break. We look forward to seeing you in the new year.

What a busy week! With winter break fast approaching the school is buzzing with activity, cookie baking, gingerbread houses, wreaths made of cranberries and popcorn and more. Amidst the hustle and bustle we celebrated our new murals with a special unveiling celebration for the artists...our students and Tony Ortega. Kathryn made some incredible sugar cookies with the afternoon class, employing colors inspired by the murals! The students shared their culinary treats with Tony during a wonderful, song-filled assembly.In the studio we continued many of our existing activities and added a few more. Some of the older students began exploring a new medium, water-soluble oil pastels. We talked about composition and introduced the process of blending. The students are eager to keep experimenting.
I introduced charcoal this week and we had a fun conversation about its origins. Some students announced that charcoal was used to fuel trains, others thought in was inside chimneys and others expressed more fantastical ideas of its origins. We talked about the many tools we get from nature and how charcoal is left over from a fire, pressed and formed for us to draw with. This led to some eager, messy explorations. The student pictured here spent twenty minutes meticulously transforming a white sheet of paper into coal black (with intermittent hand washing).
Watercolor has an increasing appeal. We are exploring wax resists with white oil crayons and liquid watercolor on the easel and there are large cake watercolors set out on a work table with pencils for continued exploration and expression.

We have added a large block building area to the studio, which has been received with enthusiasm and lots of collaborative structures and demolitions.

Next week is shortened due to Winter-break. We plan to continue many of the same activities for indepth exploration.

week 12- scale

Every day in the studio I am surprised by the artistry and innovation of the children I serve. I typically invite students to begin a visit to the studio with a daily drawing. I will occasionally offer a provocation like, "Think of something that happened this morning and how you would like to draw a story about it". It is a nice way to transition from the classroom environment and it is a great conversation starter. This student began with a drawing of "Me kicking my brother". His drawing was beautiful with clean lines and strong shapes. When asked how he felt about kicking his brother, he smiled and said, "good". He seemed to be really interested in his drawing. I asked if he might be interested in making a larger one. He eagerly agreed.He took a black pen and drew the same image but larger on another sheet of paper. Still interested, he eyed the laminates for the projector. He stood up and brought back a tray with clear laminates, a dry erase marker and a cloth. He began to draw the picture again.Next, he placed his drawing on the light projector, asked for another sheet of paper and transferred the image again in larger scale.
When complete, he smiled and said, "I like my brother", obviously at ease. It is inspiring to see how the many languages of art can help each of us process our emotions and the events of a day, in a rich and fulfilling way.

week 11- Grandparent's Day

We have a wonderful tradition at Children's Garden of celebrating grandparent's on a special day devoted especially to a visit from them. The children were excitedly preparing for this visit all last week, making pumpkin pies in anticipation. Once the grandparents arrived students busily showed off their favorite works and classroom activities. Many of them trickled into the studio throughout the day. We had a simple activity prepared for creating a gratitude tree. This tray features the prepared the materials: cut tags of hole punched paper, black pens, colored pens and pencils. Next, families were invited to choose a tag and write or draw something that fills them with gratitude or joy. When that was finished they fastened their gratitude tags to a bare branch, waiting to be colorfully adorned.

Some families continued to explore the studio further, trying out some familiar activities, here grandma and grandson are composing on mat board with natural materials.

It was a beautiful day sharing our school with the families who support it.

weeks 9 and 10- A visit from Tony

Tony Ortega spent five days, spread over the past two weeks, working with our students on two beautiful murals that will soon adorn the walls of our school. His technique with the children is lovely to watch. The children have truly painted the murals themselves, with Tony acting as a guide. The effect is amazing but perhaps even more lovely is the feeling of ownership that each child displays after having worked on the murals. As they pass the paintings, they pause and point out the areas they painted, with enthusiastic pride.

Here's a quick review of the process:

Tony began by introducing himself to the students during morning circle time and answering a few of the children's questions.

Next, we invited students, two at a time to begin working with us in the studio. Tony invited each child to the paint mixing table and measured a few paints into a recycled plastic container, each time asking the child to "guess" what color might emerge. The student than used used a wooden tongue depressor to thoroughly mix the new color.With a thorougly mixed container of paint the student was ready to paint on the mural. We began by filling the various outlined shapes with blocks of color, often complimentary or secondary shades, to form the base of the painting (so faces were green and hair was purple). After the base coat of color was in place, we began using a dry brush painting technique to overlay a second layer of paint while maintaining some of the original color.Finally, students used pointillism techniques to add small dots and dashes of color to the painting.Then Tony finished the murals by adding black outlines and overlaying the whole piece with a UV retardent varnish. The entire process was an amazing experience for students and staff alike. Thank you so much to Tony Ortega for sharing his talent with us in a unique and inspiring way AND thanks to our families without whose support this wouldn't have been possible.

Please come by after Thanksgiving break to see the new murals installed.

week 8 - Tree Project- Angelina

PRE-PROJECT

How the tree project emerged.

While in the studio exploring leaves three weeks ago, a conversation emerged with three students from the morning Ward-Hobbs classroom. The students involved were Laurel (L) age 4, Amelia (A)age 5 and Joseph (J) age 5. The conversation proceeded as follows:

Angelina Have you noticed any changes happening in our trees outside?

J The leaves are changing colors. The leaves are dying because they are turning so hard and the rain is making them change colors.

L The leaves were a little bit changing purple. I saw some purple leaves on the ground and on the tree. I saw a leaf changing rainbow: orange, pink, purple and green. I saw leaves change turquoise. I think they’re all gonna fall to the ground. Can we make a tree of leaves? It would look like a real tree. We could glue leaves on it, then we need to make a big circle of brown paper.

A Yeah! We could make it out of brown paper.

J Real trees have wood.

L Can you get some wood Angelina?

Angelina Yes, but what kind of wood do you want?

L A branch, we could hang it from the ceiling!

J So it is standing up like a tree. We have to make the sky higher, cuz the sky is air.

A Water makes air.

L Really hot water makes air.

A Yeah!

Angelina What kind of leaves would you like to hang from your tree?

L These leaves! (points to the ones on the table)

Angelina Okay. These may change by the time we make our tree. (I show her an old leaf and how it is brittle)

L We don’t want breaking leaves.

Angelina Would you like to hang some of your drawn leaves on the tree?

(Amelia, Laurel and Joseph all say “NO!”)

(I told them about a technique where leaves are preserved in wax so they maintain their color and remain intact.)

L Do you have wax?

Angelina No but I can get some.

J YEAH! Then we will make our tree.

A With leaves falling down.

L Can we do it today?

Angelina We will have to wait for another day.

L Okay but you get wax and a branch

Angelina And you can start looking for leaves.

PROJECT PREPERATIONS

My sons and I went hiking and found an interesting branch near a creek bed above Morrison. I brought it into the studio and asked Laurel, Amelia and Joseph if it would work. They all agreed that it would. Next, I tried out laminating the leaves and found they retained their color well, while the veins and texture remained evident. I asked the three students involved if we could use laminated leaves rather than waxed leaves and they agreed that we could. I selected an open studio day and we made an appointment to meet.

POST PROJECT

Angelina What did you notice while making the tree project?

L I saw rainbow leaves!

J The colored leaves

L We glued them on with honey glue, (deep intake of breath) it looks like those big yellow trees (points at a cottonwood tree outside). Maybe they’re made with honey glue too!

A Yeah! Maybe we could make a tree outside now. We would do it just like this (pointing to the tree).

Angelina How do you think the leaves outside stay on the tree?

L They’re connected to the branches without any glue, they hold onto the tree branches.

A Their arms are really tired and that’s how they fall off.

L They let go like this and lay on a bed.

A Yeah, like an acorn bed.

L But flat like this (slaps her hands together).

A A smooshed acorn bed with mud.

Angelina How will they look differently in the winter?

L Maybe they will turn white.

A In winter we could throw snow on the tree.

J The trees are gray in winter.

Angelina Is there anything else you would like to say about our tree project?

L We hanged it up by string.

A But real trees spread up and POP! Spreading leaves, spreading trees! Growing!

J And I think we should bring more leaves in and stick them on the tree one we made.