Collages I made for the baby nursery

Duck Collage #2, 2009

I thought I would post some pictures of collages I made a year ago for my soon to be born baby girl, Daria.  We were trying to think of a theme for the baby's room and I wanted something slightly neutral in case we ever had another kid and it turned out to be a boy.  Or, in case these ultrasounds were wrong and it turned out we were having a boy.  One of my coworkers made a baby quilt with ducks on it.  And so a theme was born!  Another of my coworkers who had a rubber ducky collection gave me some of her ducks and then of course, for the baby shower, we got oodles of duck things.  Ducks, in fact, turned out to be the perfect toy for a 6-10 month old.  Well, she's 10 months old now and still loves them.  She now has a large collection of rubber duckies and boy does she love them!  They are in a tote in our bedroom and whenever we take them out, she can play with them for a long time.  They are the perfect toy to go in the bath tub (of course), carry all over the house, put in your mouth and throw around.  Since the ducks are all different sizes and have different colors and accessories they keep her interested.  I think "duck" will be her first word.

Duck Collage #3, 2009

Duck Collage #1, 2009

Here is a small assortment of her ducks

Really Cool Drawing Site

While reading Mini Matisse's Blog I learned about this really cool online drawing program that allows you to draw with different types of marks:  fur, webbed, squares, ribbon, sketchy and others.  I'm in love with how it looks!  I have an idea to draw using this program, then print them out, add color with paints or colored pencils and then incorporate them into a mixed media collage. The only thing I don't like about it is that it appears once you've made a mistake you can't click "undo".  Clicking "clear" will clear the whole thing.  Maybe I'm not figuring something out right?  The drawing program is called Harmony and here are some examples. 

Cute Artsy Baby Blog

This blog shows pictures of a baby on top of towels arranged in an artful scene.  They are so adorable!!

These pictures are gorgeous, but they make me mad for two reasons.

1.  My baby NEVER slept peacefully like that for the first 3 1/2 months.  Like NEVER.  I would always have to hold her in a sling or sleep with her in order to keep her sleeping.  Even when she fell asleep and we gently transferred her to a crib, nope she would wake up screaming again.  In fact, most of my memories from her the first 3 months are her screaming fitfully in a colicky rage.

2.  Where does this new mom find time to arrange and take pictures like these?  Oh yeah, WHEN HER BABY IS NAPPING PEACEFULLY.  Anyways, can you tell my first 3 months of motherhood were peachy keen?  Ok, I'll stop complaining, because Daria is a relatively easy 10 month old now.  She naps regularly now and sleeps pretty well at night, so I will stop.

Go enjoy those pictures now.

Mila's Daydreams BLOG

Vivid Layers of Paint and Paper

Obey the Impulse Collage

Obey the Impulse, July 2010

 

Clay Camp for Kids-- Week Four-- Clay People

These are my examples above.  I think I'm going to paint them and make an assemblage out of them.

grades K-3 figures

One child's elf figure

I made this little guy and put him in a bowl to support his back.  One of the kids said he looks like he is sitting in a hot tub!  cute!

We made clay people today in Clay Camp! 

Balloon Prettiness

Balloons in Madison, July 2010

Sunflower Prettiness

 

Wagon of Sunflowers, July 2010

This photograph I took at the Farmer's Market in Madison.  This wagon was just sitting there unattended while the owner went to go purchase some more vegetables.  It just is a nice symbol of Madison.

Clay Camp for Kids-- Week Three-- Birds in a Nest

Here are some of the things we have been working on during clay camp for kids. The kids are going into kindergarten-6th grade.

Week 3 I taught the little ones (entering K-3) how to make pinch pots for birds' nests and then how to form a bird. All of our projects will be painted next week. This is a good project for learning how to make pinch pots.

First make a pinch pot with a couple of eggs in it.

 

Next, make a bird from the leftover clay.  You can leave the bird unattached, so you are able to take the bird out of the nest or place it inside.  After the clay is fired and painted, you can gather small twigs and grasses to place in the nest.  These birds were made by lower elementary students.

Drawing Lab for Mixed Media Artists

I purchased Carla Sonheim's drawing book, because I'm always interested in looking at new drawing books or new mixed media art books and this is a combination of both.  She has a lot of drawing exercises on her blog also.  As an art teacher who avidly researches all sorts of art lesson plans, I have seen some of these drawing exercises before, but Carla puts her own unique spin on everything.  I really like how the book is laid out, with plenty of beautiful examples.  This will be a nice addition to my classroom library.  Some other things I like about her techniques are how she blocks in her images with gesso, and then adds watercolor or charcoal or other paints on top.  That was my hesitation with drawing directly on collaged imagery and getting the colors to show through.  Duh!  Gesso!  I should have thought of that. :)  I use gesso already in my paintings/collages so I'm surprised I didn't think to block in my drawings with it.  I actually didn't think that watercolor would work nicely on top of gesso, but it's not too bad!  I like Carla's whimsical creature drawings--- they are delightful.  One of the exercises has to do with making creatures.  Here are two of my creatures.