Art Camp!

I've been working on creating a better over-all personal brand for myself as I venture forth on my quest to grow my career, and part of what is required to create this "personal" brand is getting all my ducks in a row. This means writing more, making art and documenting art more consistently, and so on. In my last post, I shared a poem and a demo I did for an upcoming art day camp I am teaching at the library. Here are two more demo pieces that will serve as examples for the kids when I explain the projects we will make!

This piece is a relief print (foam and easy carving tools) which was drawn over with india ink drawing pens. Then cut paper pieces and tissue paper were used for the textured flowers. Finally, a few pieces of fabric cut in organic shapes were scattered about to create a fuller garden feel. I think I will have the kids use chalk pastels instead of crayons to create an impressionistic background over top of the print and inked portions!

This is from a project I found on the creative blog At Second Street -- here's the post with this project. I subscribe to loads of arts and crafts blogs, my reader is stuffed full of amazing projects to try! I am so excited to see what the kids come up with this August.

Stenciling and Solitude

Here's a sample of a stenciling project I did today - I created a stencil from freezer paper, then painted textile paint over it, peeled it off, and created this! It's just a little demo to make sure I understood how the project works. I intend to teach this as part of Art Camp this summer at the library! I also think it's possibly one of the most fun things I've done in ages, and thus, will be buying myself a whole set of textile paint to add to my artmaking supplies.

Lately I've done more writing than artmaking (though I did finish a few drawings and started an embroidery piece this weekend), so I thought that perhaps I'd begin to share some of my poetry here too. Why not? My life does not fit neatly into categories, thus I will not attempt to categorize. Hopefully it still makes for interesting reading.

Tuesday

I love solitude in the sunshine

Or under a blanket of rain

Breathing in gray fog and hot steam

Sucking java on ice through a striped straw

My crisp shadow creates art beneath me

My world keeps me company, speaking to me

Over ceiling speakers and pedestrian laughter

Horns honking and human irritation,

Soaring out of SUVs and two-door hybrids

Employees sass and harass

Sweeping their minimum-wage drama

Up with the remnants of my neighbor's lunch

Tuesday is a good day for reggae and indie rock

And I love to be alone.