This series of two Sunday afternoons is for anyone who wants to -- artfully -- explore and encourage their dreams, or learn to help others do this. Whether you are an experienced artist, new to art, a therapist, or someone interested in letting your creativity blossom, you are going to love this dream illustration series.
It's that time of year when I wrap up my kids summer art classes and start our women's creativity and art sessions.
We've had such huge interest in the adult classes that I decided to offer them twice a month instead of just once monthly. So, on the first and second Sunday of each month, starting September 11, you have a fabulous opportunity to stretch your creative muscles in a small (6 student) class that's guaranteed to knock your socks off and inspire you.
This year our Sunday Art Sesh classes are in short series or two, three or four. Please sign up for all of the classes in a series to get the most out of your time. For example, the self portrait series is very in-depth (and transformative) and if you miss one, you'll miss a big chunk of the experience. Read on for the whole schedule ...
To start off our 2016/2017 season of Sunday afternoon art sessions, I am offering a 3-part series to explore the art of the self portrait with different media. We'll use a DSLR camera, Iphone camera and processing on both the Iphones and a laptop computer. We will also make dry-point-etching self portraits and make a series of monoprint etchings on a tabletop press.
You may remember high school or junior high art classes when you were assigned to draw your self portrait. How did you feel about the drawing you made? Mine never really looked like me, and at the time (way back in dinosaur days) that was the message we got from our art teacher - that our self portraits were supposed to be as accurate a likeness as we could make them. If I still had that selfie, I'd show you! BIG Sigh...
This series of Sunday afternoons is for anyone who wants to explore their own sense of self and how you might express the different aspects of *you.* Whether you are an artist, are just getting started making art, or are interested in letting your creativity blossom, I know you are going to love this self-portrait series.
Self portraits are a form of creative, artistic expression that dates back to the first mud-paintings on cave walls, and from classical painters and sculptors to contemporary artists. Most artists don’t create self portraits to sell. But it is an incredibly useful way to practice the arts of introspection, observance, self-knowledge and self-expression. For kids ages 9 to 13, introspection isn’t something they admit to doing regularly. I expected my students to be challenged, maybe uncomfortable, certainly pushed outside their comfort zones. They did some beautiful expressive work and I am sooo proud of them. Two students who could not attend today’s sesh will do this same project in one on ones with me later.
Watch for announcements and invitations to the 2nd Annual Young Voices exhibit opening November 8th where you will be able to see their artwork in person and meet the artists.
Today in our Kds Creativity Sesh we learned about self portraits and created two types of portraits.
First we watched a slideshow/collection of self portraits by artists both well known and unknown, including some by other students. Then we looked at some of the more unusual or creative self portraits and talked about why artists make self portraits and what they might be trying to express about themselves.
I gave my students an assignment to take lots of photos of themselves ( using a digital remote and an iPad on a stand) with the end result of 8 different emotional portraits. They chose their favorites to work with.
Next, the kids used either Photoshop or a mobile app to distill the color portraits to a black and white, posterized, sketch-ized or comic-ized image. We printed those on Bristol paper, glued them to very large sketch Bristol and they added paint and papers to create self portraits.
The students used some of the remaining expressive self-portrait photos to learn about enhancing the emotion of an image by the way one chooses to process the photo. Some of their photographic results are above.
Also, please check out some of their mixed-media self portraits below and let them know through comments, how you respond to their endeavors. Thank you!
Some of the photo-enhanced selfies:
Here we are again getting ready for another First Friday in downtown Helena. For almost two years now, all of us downtown locally owned businesses have been staying open and offering fun events every First Friday of the month. In the beginning, few people ventured downtown to browse the businesses that were open later in the evening, mostly because they didn’t know about it. Now that word has spread about this fun evening activity, we have more and more people coming to the gallery and I’m sure, stopping by the other businesses.
I’m going to do an art demonstration in my studio (in the back of the gallery) for anyone interested in seeing one of the printmaking processes I used in the current exhibit, One-Off. In addition to the demo, we’ll have cookies and punch — and of course, you can come see the fabulous artwork in the gallery after your working hours.
We invite you to an opening reception of our upcoming exhibit, “Young Voices” on the evening of Oct. 30th, at 1+1=1 Gallery. Please come support these young artists, ages 9 to 13, in their first group exhibit in Helena.
Our popular Girls Art Nights ran for a year and a half on the third Thursday evening of each month. The sessions always filled up and turned out to be lots of fun for everyone. Women in our monthly classes have an inexpensive opportunity to make creative art projects, learn to trust their inner artist voices, play with each other, enjoy great potluck finger food, beverages and all the art supplies they needed to complete an artwork or two or three in a few hours.
Flub-ups, Oops and Leftovers Make Cool Collages
Sometimes one of my paintings or drawings just isn’t up to snuff… But that’s okay. It’s chill. I don’t worry and — I definitely don’t toss it! That’s like gold in the hands of a collage artist (that would be you, or your kiddo, in this fun class.)
I’m pretty excited to venture into doing my own classes for kids. I’m starting this year with once a week classes for 9 to 13 year olds. Next year, I will probably branch out to younger and older kids, especially if we have a gallery manager who can take over some of the work. [grin]
Energy movement, expression of form, creation of meaningful, new forms. Invented tools. Unique paint brushes. Drawing with found objects and natural materials. Creative. Expressive. Fun. Outside-the-box!
