Winter into Spring 2012 Mixed Media Classes
Six-Week Sessions
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January 9 - February 27, 2012
Where in the World?
Destination: architectural sites and wonders.
Update your passport and pack your bags! Don't forget your 'round-the-world tickets.
The tour might include a jaunt across the Golden Gate Bridge and the sparkling Bay or a ride on the Airporter to SFO to catch an overnight east bound flight. Locate the Big Apple's Empire State Building or view the glistening White House from the Mall. Artists making the Grand Tour may gaze at the infamous Tower from London Bridge, explore an ancient Highland castle, regard the Eiffel Tower or tip toward the Leaning Tower. An imaginary trek to exotic lands might entail hopping a steam train to view the Taj Mahal or catching a camel train to greet the Great Sphinx and to clamber around the neighboring Great Pyramid. No doubt, there will be enough imagination for a side trip to the elaborate Forbidden City, before catching a high-speed train to the dock, meeting a sailing ship (or, a hot-air balloon!) and successfully landing back in California ... and home, to the most wonderful architectural wonder of all.
Combining an array of media, each artist will create a tableau, a large three-dimensional picture postcard, documenting an actual or imagined trip taken to somewhere in the world. Central to the tableau will be a hand-built and glazed ceramic structure of the artist's choice, for example, a skyscraper, a mansion, a castle or an ancient construction. Completing the scene will be a surrounding three-dimensional paper-sculpted and painted environment complete with fellow ceramic and Fimo travelers and local inhabitants. Three-dimensional pop-ups and pop-outs will depict local fauna and flora as well as the tools and machines of commerce as imagined by each artist.
It shall be a well-remembered adventure.
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Feburary 28 - April 21, 2012
Spring Sproings into the Picture
Plant a seed. Water it, and let it grow … into a garden, of course, and all of its related constituents. No doubt, a variety of surprising and unusual gardens will germinate from fertile imaginations.
- To enhance the exploration of any garden, a variety of ceramic coil baskets will be created, perfect for collecting buds, berries and, no doubt, a few bugs.
- Produced on quality d'Arches paper, a series of watercolor paintings will metamorphose via a variety of conventional and not so conventional media including artist quality concentrated pigments, India ink, watercolor crayons, pencils and pastels. Techniques will include wet into wet, wet into dry, veil painting, negative line/shape resist, collage, and objet trouvé
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April 19 - June 6, 2011
Mabel, Mabel, Set the Table
Mabel, Mabel, set the table … don't forget the:
- Brightly glazed slab-constructed ceramic cups, mugs, and containers complimented by slump bowls, saucers, and plates.
- A generous menu of favorites for breakfast, lunch, dinner or for tea party snacks. Foodstuffs will be for thought, only, since all will be constructed out of clay.
- Printed or stamped placemats and napkins, a must to complete any artistically respectable table.
- Appropriate mealtime attire: tie-dyed t-shirts, sundresses or hats, of course.
It shall be a veritable feast for the eyes.
Three to eight children meet once a week for a six-week series of classes. Whereas most groups convene in the afternoons after school, "late bird" preschoolers and kindergarteners can begin their school-day happenings with art. Home-schooled students have the option of joining a pre-scheduled group or of arranging their own days and time frames. View the schedule and fees.
Each session features an all-encompassing theme (described above), a point of departure from which the creative work evolves. With five sessions offered throughout the school year, dedicated artists have the opportunity of addressing distinctively different themes via myriad materials. Other than clay, which is employed for the first two weeks, no medium is revisited.
During the session, each child keeps a sketchbook, a unique visual diary meant to record spontaneous drawings, experiments with two-dimensional media and directed design 'games' which lead imaginations into the ideas at hand. The resultant artwork is distinctly and uniquely that of each artist.
At the end of every session, an entire body of artwork is accomplished, complete and ready to take for display in the family home gallery.