Artworks Studio Student Art Show May 2011

The black light Coral Reef....

Stary Night

Art Doll

 Fish

 Owls

Gelatin Printing

Mixed Media Collage Masks 

Zen Tangles

 

Mixed media printmaking with oil and chalk pastels and me. Hope you enjoyed the show! 

Oceans, mermaids and crowns

For someone who is afraid of water and does not know how to swim I sure have a fascination with the ocean. I have only visited ocean three times twice off the coast of New Jersey and once in Italy. I am afraid of swimming pools but not afraid of the ocean. I could watch it for hours. My love of the deep blue is reflected alot in my work. I once created a mermaid out of Plexiglas, wire, copper screen and aluminum that was 7 feet tall.  Those seas shells were bigger than the palm of my hand. Here is is 10 years ago hanging in the window of The Lagniappe . I think someone bought her and took her to Kansas City.  I make "Zombie" fish and frequently use the beach as a theme when teaching drawing to my students. This year I have created a n exhibit for my Student Art Show called the coral reef. All year my students have been creating pieces just for the roof. Origami clams, branch coral and sea stars, sea turtles, jelly fish, sea urchins and tropical fish. Very nice- but then I had to add a twist to it- this exhibit will be viewed under black lights. I have been working on it the past week.

Another project I have been working on are crowns. Love, love, love crowns. I am pretty sure in a former life I was a princess. So here is my mermaid crown using Plexiglas, wire, beads, cheese cloth and RHINESTONES! Pretty cool huh? This one isn't perfect and I need to tweak the bending process some but I am pretty pleased with the results.

sea stars and art shows and things that glow

Laura Fact: I teach art classes in my studio after school to kids in Pre-K through High School. I have 65 students this year and each spring we put on an art show.

And........
It's hard to believe we are almost finished with another school year. Once we get into April it flies past so quickly. In my classes at the studio we have done quite a few projects centered around a coral reef theme. I have always loved the ocean and fish and aquariums and mermaids.....

This year my Student Art Show is going to have a black light coral reef exhibit. It's been fun to plan it with my students and the closer we get to May the more excited they are. My K-2 class on Tuesdays just finished their part of the exhibit.  Using Celluclay each student created a sea star ( star fish to you commoners who have not studied the coral reef). They were also given three sticks. Each student painted their sea stars and sticks with bright patterns in neon colored paint. The next step was to anchor the painted sticks in some plaster of Paris. The painted sticks are branch coral and are a means of displaying the sea stars.

Once the plaster dried the sea stars were hot glued into place ( This was a Laura only job since glue guns are not kid friendly!)  When my students came to class yesterday I had their projects lined up by the white board so they could see the finished project. I had drawn them a picture of what they would look like but reality didn't sink in until they actually SAW them! 

After much oohing and ahhing I asked them if they wanted to "SEE" them like they would be in the Coral Reef Exhibit. So I turned off the lights. Alek and Lincoln were the first ones to shout out.

"HEY! Nothing's happening!" 
"Hmmm....it was working before... oh yes- I forgot my special light."

The looks on their faces were priceless. Big toothless grins...sounds of amazement and lots of questions about how that worked and when is the art show and can we make more stuff and will it glow in the dark if I put it in the bathroom where there aren't any windows and why is your t-shirt glowing and will people be able to see where they are going and how big will the room be and......





...and it was so much fun and made me realize why I love teaching.

Art Show 2011- Exploring the Coral Reef

I spent the past few days of my post holiday R&R thinking about the Spring Art Show. Once we get past the New Year times seems to speed up. Because I have over 60 students this year I have decided to have the Art Show in the Carroll Arts Council/Community Theatre Black Box. All sorts of bare walls just waiting to become a temporary art gallery and I really wanted something that would have that "WOW!" factor.

....after watching "Finding Nemo" for the "eleventeenth" time with my granddaughter Norah - I had a eureka moment! Why Not Create A Coral Reef? Brilliant!

With a little help from my associate, James, we are going to build a black light room in the CAC/CCT's little theater. This has me very excited. I get to combine my love of theatre with art. All of my students will contribute to the Coral Reef. I have one group slated to create some amazing branch coral in fluorescent colors, another group will concentrate on sea urchins while my high school students are down for tropical fish...I have yet to figure out the jelly fish and definitely have a handle on the sea turtles....totally...duude

Actually- at the rate the ideas are flowing right now I thibnk I have more projects than I do students to create them. But, that's OK, because it's better to have too many than not enough and some of them might turn out to be duds.