My first Artist Trading Cards

I participated in my first ever swap this month. It is an Artist Trading Card (ATC) one. The theme is "Sexy Valentine". I was having to hard a time with that, so I chose to look up the word Love in the thesaurus and used words that mean the same as Love. For those not familiar with ATC's, they are the same size as a playing deck of cards. I sanded my playing cards so that I could glue paper onto them. I then used pictures, trims, and embellishments on each card. We had certain things that we had to use. This week I mailed my cards to our hostess in California. Once she receives all the cards, she will sort them out so that each participant has a card from everyone and then mail them back to us. The cards will then go into an accordion style book. We each include extra trim and embellishments to trim out our books. It will be fun to see how everyone else does their cards.

Egg Series: Pencil

In our Red 2 art class we are starting an Egg series. We will be drawing 3 eggs over the next few weeks using different mediums. Today we used pencil to draw the eggs. In the next week or two we will be using charcoal, pastel oil chalks, watercolors, etc. It should be interesting to see how everyone looks at this project differently.

Drawing Units

In our Red 2 class we are starting to work with drawing and color. The picture of the ribbon was to teach the kids three ways to make an object look up close and at a distance. They used size: the larger the closer, Color: the darker the further away, and Shading: the intensity changes hew as the object moves away. The students used oil pastel chalks on this project. This was my first time using them, and I am going to try a couple of other projects with the chalks. I liked the way you can blend the colors together. We are also starting some nature sketches. Our high school is across the street from the city zoo, and we will be journeying there in the weeks to come to draw nature. This quick sketch had to include a tree, rocks, and tall grasses.

Candace's Grandkids

This is a drawing I did for my friend, Candace. She has this great picture of her grandchildren. I was really attracted to the play of light and shadow on her grandson's face. I have titled this one "Grandma's Treasure".

Modern Mona Lisas

In our Black 2 Art class we have been studying the Mona Lisa and all the questions behind her. Who was the model? Is she smiling or not? Where is she now? We then went on line and researched Modern Mona Lisa's. Everyone printed out a picture to draw. The above is a copy of a drawing by the Artist Susan White that I found on Art. com. I changed a few things, but mostly it is just like her Mona. I have titled mine "Bona Lisa". I have to admit that I chose this image because the students were shocked that an "old lady" like me would draw something like this. I like to shake up their ideas on what 40 something artists like for subject matter.

Drawing using shading

In my Red 2 art class we are starting work on a
drawing unit. The students are learning the different ways that they can use to shade their project in order to create depth. This week we worked with blending. I tend to use both a blending stump and just my plain old finger. Here is a piece that I have titled "Daddy's Shoes". I drew this one over a two day time period. We will be working with hatching and cross hatching next week I think.

Dragons

One of my friends asked me to draw a castle and dragon for her a couple of years ago. I just got around to it this month. Bad Celia. Then, one of the girls that sits next to me in art class asked me to draw a dragon for her also. So I drew the dragon with her name "Lahua" for her. This is my first attempt at drawing dragons. I may have to try one for my son who is into them.

January Challenge 2006

In one of the altered book groups I belong to; they have a January challenge going on. The first day you picked 3-4 numbers. Then next day you received a list that matched a color to all the numbers. My colors are: Raw Seinna, Lemon Yellow, and Purssian Blue. I had just seen an advertisment for the movie "Memoirs of a Geisha". I thought it would be perfect for me. I did the watercolor painting first using the lemon yellow for her face. The Purssian blue in her eyes and as highlights added to her hair. And used the Raw Seinna as her lips and shadowing. I then embelleshed it with Fun Fiber Yarn and buttons. I had so much fun playing with this one.