BOO

Sweet! In honor of Halloween, I'm showcasing the artwork my students did over the last few weeks.  Enjoy!

Bones Jones Makes an appearance every year and poses for us.  He's a great model.

Jack's bat from a few years ago - one of my all time favs

And this week we had the Great Halloween Candy Challenge.  Candy is a great motivator.  It's also a really good way to get the kids to see that negative space is just as important as the objects in a painting.

31 of 31 - Pathology

This underpainting was yesterday, day 30.  I used these really cool watercolors that I had in my travel bag.  This scene is the same place, the same path of Pathology #1, but a few days later there weren't many leaves left on the trees.

Just in case you were wondering what brand these are, they're Koh-i-noor.  They are nice and rich and all stack together in a little disk.  Very handy for the plein air kit.

"Pathology #2" 9x9 pastel on Uart500

I may do a few more in this pathology series since they are fun!

31 Days - 28 & 29 - Freebies!

Sometimes work gets in the way.  But when the work is artwork, it still works for some of the 31 in 31.
Since many of the college students working on the curriculum and kids the curriculum is being tested on are from landlocked North Dakota, they really didn't know much at all about boats.  So I made a page the kids can use after they read chapter 2 of Nelson Telson.  So, if you are reading my book with your kids, you can do these activities too.

 Here are a couple of coloring pages.

And this one took me many hours to make, first pen and ink, scan, and then lots of photoshop.

And since  you are kind enough to read my blog, here are a couple more coloring activity pages.

Can you tell which way the wind is blowing, and in which direction the boat is going?

Fill in the compass directions and color your own compass rose.

I'd love it if people would share their coloring pages with me. 

31 Days - Day 26 - Pathology

"Pathology #1" 8.5x8.5 pastel on prepared matte board

If you look at a lot of art, you'll notice that many artists, especially landscape painters, are drawn to certain scenes over others.  Some really dig trees, others mountains, big dramatic skies, ocean waves, etc., and they paint them over and over again. I happen to be a stream and path person.  They draw me in, and make me want to travel them. Paths are inherently enigmatic; they draw the eye to a place beyond the painting, a place where imagination happens. I've painted this path many times.  Here's one I did while teaching a class. Everything was so green I asked my students to choose other colors than the ones they saw.

"Fauve Path" 9x9 paste (sold)

And since we're talking paths, this is one of my all time fav paintings. 

"Path of Least Resistance" 9x12 pastel (sold)

Yikes, I started looking around for path paintings and I have done so many!  Here are a few more.

"Wolf Moon" 11x11 pastel on suede matte board

"Path Overcast" 9x12 pastel on prepared matte board

"October Lane" 12x18 pastel on Kitty Wallis (sold)

There is no end (ha ha) to the possibilities when it comes to painting paths.

Road to Hell - Days 23-25

Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  Here it is Sunday, and I'm 3 days behind.  But I have actually created some stuff, just not the promised Painting-a-Day.  But since I'm in this for the month-long haul, I will make my report before I get too far behind.

Come to find out, kids from North Dakota don't know nearly as much about boats as we coastal peeps.  Lars' class of future science teachers gave me a big list of words and terms from chapter 2 of Nelson Telson, so I'm making a coloring page with a "pictionary" of terms as the word bank (a new term to me), so they can fill in the blanks on the page.  Heck, they didn't know what a dinghy is! Here's what I've done so far:

Looking at this now, I see I need to add a tiller to the sailboat. So, I'll make a list of words with pix and brief explanations (like definitions, but not so dry) and I might even put them into a narrative.  This is a work in progress, but it must suffice for day 23.

For Day 24 I have this photo I took in prep for another little series of square paintings which I will call "Pathology." 

And here is a piece of matte board that I coated with gesso and pumice and tinted with acrylic paint.

It's got kind of a Motherwell feel to it, no? Ha ha. 

I was hoping to get an underpainting but all I got was a sketch.

Does apple cake count as a creation? 

Here's the recipe:

These are approximate measurements. Grease and flour 9x12 pan or two 9-inch rounds 
The cake:
1⁄2-3/4 cup veg or light olive oil 
4 cups roughly diced apples
2 big eggs or 3 small ones
2 t cinnamon
a splash of vanilla (say 2 t)
2 cups flour – I used half and half white and whole wheat 
2 tsp baking soda, a little salt
about 1/2 c of shredded coconut
Mix oil, eggs, sugar, and vanilla in big bowl. Toss in apples.
Mix up the flour and baking soda, and stir in, and then add coconut. Add nuts if you want to.
BAKE at 350 for about 50 mins.
Then I put chopped walnuts on top to bake.
When it comes out, I put a smattering of coconut and walnuts on top. And then put the icing on top when it comes out of the oven.  Sometimes I don't bother.

ICING:
1 cup brown sugar 2/3 stick of butter vanilla
3 TBS milk
boil it up stirring until icing and put on top of the hot cake. 

31 Days - 21 & 22

I snagged this from Facebook, and it really sums up what this 31 in 31 has been about.

This was posted by someone named Rolf Yngve

Here is the underpainting.  I forgot to take the picture before I started on the sky.

 And here's the finished painting.  Quite abstract!  It is Jones River Landing in Kingston, MA.

"Jonesing" 9x12 pastel on Uart 500