I took my camera to Artastic today, and I thought I'd share some stuff with you. Maybe you're tired of hearing about my Artastic class, but it makes me really excited so I'm going to share anyway...


Today we drew Christmas nutcrackers, and they turned out really great. The kids really amaze me with these kind of projects, because I showed them step by step how to draw a nutcracker and they still all look really unique...



I had a bunch of boys in my class today, which is cool because its usually all girls...


And here are some torn paper Poinsettias the kids did last week. I don't know how much they really look like Poinsettias, but I thought they still turned out pretty nicely...


That's all for now. Cevin and I are going to out of town for the holidays, so I won't be able to teach Artastic for two weeks so that's a little sad. BUT when I get back we are having an art show! It's going to be at at the 509, which is just down the street from the Boys and Girls Club and I am really excited!! If you are from around here...maybe you can stop by and check it out. And if you aren't from around here...but you love me a lot...maybe you could still stop on by. I think it'll be worth it. :)

Here is a rough animation test Cevin just did with the new hippo puppet...

Hippo Puppet Test from Cevin Thornbrugh on Vimeo.

I have some thrilling news! Cevin and I finished our first hippo puppet for our senior project! He's full or error and will definitely not be used in our final production, but we've been working on him for a few weeks so it's cool to see him complete.

Check this guy out....


Look how happy he's making everyone...



Here is a snapshot of the mold we used to make him. Maybe it'll help you understand the process a little bit. We sculpted him our of clay originally and then used that clay sculpt to make this mold. Then we used this mold to make a foam puppet. Presto!

Well I accidentally left my camera in Hamilton after Thanksgiving, so I don't have anything of mine to post. But I thought I'd share this video with you. After watching it I hope you'll support this cause as much as I do.



Vote Chris Christmas Rodriguez to replace Santa this year.

First of all, sorry for my severe lack of updates. It's been a busy semester!

I promise to have some photos of stuff from mine and Cevin's senior project soon, but for now here is small update on my Artastic class...

I started a new thing called "Featured Artist" at Artastic and it is going over pretty well. Each week one kid is chosen to be featured for something they did in class the week before. Their art is hung on the door and they get to wear a construction paper crown during class! Here is the Featured Artist from a couple weeks ago...


And here are a couple photos the kids working and their finished projects. Last week we did cut paper collages with watercolor pencils. They turned out pretty cool...


Today we did Fauve style self portraits and they turned out awesome! I will try to post photos of them soon.

Hope everyone is enjoying Thanksgiving week!

Last week at Artastic we made self portrait mosaics from magazines and construction paper. It was a pretty time consuming project and most of the kids didn't get it done. But the ones that did get finished turned out pretty cool...

This week we had a Where the Wild Things Are theme. On Monday the kids designed their own wild things and paint them with washable paints. They really liked using the paints, and their wild things turned out pretty cool...

On Wednesday, they had parent/teacher conferences so I only had one kid. We were going to make wild things out of clay. Instead she made an elephant, which actually I guess is a wild thing.  I think I will do clay again on Monday...

I recently started teaching the Artastic class at the Boys and Girls Club. I really really like it, and I thought I'd share some of the stuff we've been doing there with you.

Last week we talked about warm and cool colors. The first project we did was a self portrait called "Wild Side/Calm Side." The idea was to draw themselves split in half, making one side of themselves really crazy and the other side relatively calm. Then they had to color their wild sides in warm colors and their calm sides in cool colors. Most of the kids took their drawings home, but I put a few up on the wall...

The one below is mine. It's too bad I don't have a photo of Cevin's Wild Side/Calm Side. He is really proud of it. He's been enjoying doing the projects with me when I prepare for class.

After Wild Side/Calm Side we did a project called Warm Hands. I got these templates online of concentric circles and diamonds and had the kids trace their hands on them. Then they had to paint the inside of their hands with warm colors and the outsides with complementary cool colors. This was a good one because we reinforced warms and cools and talked about complementary colors and practiced with water colors. I think they turned out pretty nice...

Today we did collages. I had the kids choose a color and then find images in magazines that were all shades and tints of that color. Here's some of the kids working...

Here are mine and Cevin's collages. Cevin chose blue and I chose red. I thought this was a fun project and I think the kids enjoyed it too. On Wednesday I think we are going to do mosaics.

So that's it so far! I got the ideas for these projects from ArtProjectsForKids.org and I am planning on doing a few more from that site too. It's really cool. Also I will be posting the Artastic projects here weekly hopefully so stay tuned!