Monday, August 22, 2016

Clay Studio Classes




My very talented friend Mica Habarad of Habarad Creative Photo took some photos of my current clay classes in my home studio. Students have been making some truly outstanding work this summer! Thank you Mica for capturing the creativity on camera! 








Summer Creative Drawing Class Projects


My Creative Drawing Class made some fantastic art this summer! Students in the creative drawing class range in age from 12-16 years old and have all been drawing with me for several classes and some students for several years! This is such a spirited and talented group of young artists and I enjoy coming up with new and challenging projects each week! In June, my dear friend and talented local artist came to my home and gave a talk to my creative drawing class about her painting process. You can find video from the talk on her blog.  Here are some photographs from a few projects that we did over the summer:
Figuring out shapes: Students practiced breaking down objects into shapes and created value charts to use for shading reference. 
Picasso's "Boy with a Pipe" gender flipped  by Josie 
Face Hacks: Students drew the other half of a face of choice, most are paintings by famous artists and several photographs. They turned out so fun!
Van Gogh's "Portrait of a Woman" modernized by hoodie, By Kassia

Van Gogh's "Old Man with Top Hat" and charcoal by Jaxon

Frida Kahlo photograph and pencil By Ruby

Caravaggio's "Boy with a Basket of fruit"also gender flipped  by Lexi

"Bucky Barnes" By Lily


 The summer highlight was a field trip to Heartland Humane Society where students drew cats, dogs, rabbits and birds! They did not want to leave ;)


Saturday, August 20, 2016

Summer Fun in Clay! Garden Art!

Summer Classes at Diana Rose Studio are in full swing and I wanted to share some great projects from the Clay (garden art themed) classes:

Beginning Clay students made mini garden totems that are so fun! 


Clay Lab Students designed, made and installed their very own stepping stones!









Sunday, May 15, 2016

Pit Firing Project


This month clay students got an opportunity to create work for a pit fire- the oldest form of firing pottery dating back to around 30,000BC. We started out by making hollow forms that were burnished ( rubbed with a smooth stone- or kitchen spoons in our case) throughout the stages of dryness until shiny. 
Students burnishing pottery to be pit fired
Pottery was bisqued and students brought a variety of combustibles to wrap around their artwork including: Sawdust/ wood chips, twine, seaweed, potato chips, pork rind chips, moss and leaves, copper and steel mesh dish scrubbers, copper wire, newspaper, leaves/ twigs, etc. Each artwork was wrapped in various combustibles and placed into the pit that had been layered with additional materials. 



Pottery wrapped in various materials

Here is the basic process of a pit fire: To prepare the pit fire, a shallow pit is dug and layered with combustible materials ( I just used my fire pit out back). Pots are placed above the base layer of combustibles and then covered with more combustibles ( saw dust, newspaper, wood chips, manure, etc.). A fire is built on top and let burn until it dies down, then is smothered ( I poured wood chips over it) and allowed to smolder undisturbed until cool. *This is the smoky part (Students were not present during this stage of the process). The smoke swirls around the pots, penetrating into the clay and coloring the surface. Different elements in the combustibles leave different colors on the pots ( carbon= black, copper= pink, salt= yellow). 



This was such a cool project because students were able to participate in much of the process and experiment with different materials to see what colors they produce when burned. The project also gave students a glimpse of traditional pottery techniques and presented them with new challenges. Students will polish their pieces tomorrow with wax to enhance the colors and I will post more photos of the finished pieces then. I am excited to see how they come out!







Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Creative Drawing Class "Figuring out the Figure"


My Creative Drawing Class designed their own characters as part of our "figuring out the figure". I first had them sketch out a catalogue of features and then they fleshed out their figures. As always their drawings are wonderful and creative and I had to share. 





Tuesday, March 15, 2016

March Mosaic Madness!

 I am enjoying a break in between classes and having some much needed studio time! My first project is a mosaic for our kitchen. I made my own butterfly and leaf tiles and much of the river and sky pieces on which I melted marbles and used crystal glazes for some of the effects. I also used flat rocks, river stones, commercial tile pieces, dragons tears, and more. This was my first experience with a real mosaic and not just hand made tiles that all fit together, so it was fun to break up the pieces and arrange them ( and also a little maddening). I used thin set mortar to adhere the tiles onto 1/4" cement backing board that was then fixed to the wall with more thin set and screws. I got grout from Mid Valley Tile in Corvallis. A very fun project for me and I even included some tiles made by my favorite young artists. **Special thanks to my dear friend Avie Meadows for inspiring me with her beautiful mosaic and letting me use some of her tile scraps!