well, that's a relief:

The Arteest

You scored higher than 99% on Art Savvy

You really know your stuff! You understand that Expressionist paintings are not arbitrary, but rather use color and brush stroke intentionally to elicit feeling. You can almost always tell the difference between works from this movement and the spontaneous art of a child.

sometimes i find little gifts

this one was drawn on the back of one of my student's drawings.

 

 

 

New Orleans is not okay.

while switching to the new, horrible, beta version of blogger that won't let me post any pictures, always so hepful to the artist, i found this post stuck in the draft pile. i don't know why it didn't get out there a year ago when it was first intended but it's still just as viable as it was then. and now new orleans, what's left of it, has just laughed loudly at what the rest of the country counts as corruption by re-electing an ethically challenged representative and you gotta be thinking it's the giant fuck you to the whole caboodle. "ethically challenged?" they say. "I know ethically challenged, and $90k it ain't." so. here it is. still.


Hundreds of thousands of its people remain displaced, their homes uninhabitable; vast swaths of the city remain empty and lifeless, with no utilities or public services; businesses remain shuttered, their owners unsure when customers will return.

The city has put on a brave front, preparing for Mardi Gras and conventions to jump-start its tourism-driven economy. But when will its people come home?
Since Katrina hit on August 29, 2005, the city has struggled for answers about how to restore, rebuild and repopulate its devastated residential neighborhoods and commercial zones. The reality is that New Orleans residents will not truly begin the long recovery process until they feel adequately protected from the next deadly hurricane.


One Voice for New Orleans is a grassroots campaign to educate Americans and rally them around legislative efforts to protect and restore New Orleans.

New Orleans is one of the most historic, vibrant and culturally rich cities in America, but today the city needs your help to thrive once again.

If you care about the city or its residents, tell congress that you want to protect the city from future storms.

It is time for Washington to address the deadliest civil engineering failure in this country's history-one that has cost more than 1,000 lives, has destroyed 250,000 homes and has fractured thousands of families now spread across 48 states.

The levee breaches that allowed Katrina to wash over New Orleans were caused by an act of negligence - not an act of nature - the failure to properly construct and maintain the region's flood protection system.

Right now the federal government is considering funding for a fortified levee system built to withstand strong storms and protect the city from future flooding.

Without your help, New Orleans may die. We need your help NOW.

* Forward this email to your colleagues, friends and family - especially those outside of Louisiana so that they can learn about the plight of New Orleans.
* Email your state's Congressional leaders to tell them that New Orleans matters to you.

We aren't looking for handouts, just a helping hand. Together we can save a great American city.

Thank you,
One Voice for New Orleans
OVNO.org
If your are unable to click on the links in this message, please go to OVNO.org and click on the "Take Action" link to automatically email your reprsentative.

fall, 2006

project 1: third, fourth (and fifth, at one school) learned how artists use symbols to make art. we learned how we might draw the statue of liberty in a step by step manner that hit the salient points, and then used that knowledge to put her in a work of our own. the only two rules for the latter were that the whole picture plane be activated and that I could tell she was The Lady; other than that, anything goes (and it went!)

first and second grades learned about symbols by drawing uncle sam, or in the case of first grade, just his hat, and then designing a background that activates the whole picture plane. (some upper level statues of liberty there in the distance, too.)

project 2 of our nine week session: third grade made native american "deerskin" paintings by using pictograph symbols for a border pattern that spelled out a "title" for their stories ("men hunt deer," "rainbow spring blossom," etc.) and then illustrating the stories in the center with a depiction. the "skins" were crumpled and treated with wax paper and crayon.

first grade made a sailboat collage using construction paper and cutting and tearing technique.

second grade made more 3-d poinsettias that i could have imagined, to decorate their holiday concert in big swaths of stage curtains.

and fourth grade is contiuing the drawing lessons with individual animals, the first and easiest being a duckling. we did this one on the board together; individually they are observing step by step shape analyses and then refining their lines on the last page. they do three sketches and then a final; we will be making individual books of their final drawings for them to keep, after the first of the year.

my samples of the mid-term second grade tree project, which i put together with 3-d holiday flowers to introduce 2d to 3d for the second graders. they howled so much about all the twisting ("it's hard!") that i cut the decorating short, read them shel silverstein's the giving tree (line drawings!)and had them just cut out apples to paste on in one session. (the extra decorations here were just things i had on my desk...)

koko

first grade has shorter projects (for shorter people.) here's a portrait of koko slipped in to round out some time for them. (he's mounted under my samples of forthcoming second grade holiday flowers.)

sunrise