papier mache

who needs papier mache, when you have aluminum foil?

We did papier mache, using balloons as our form. The papier mache will be dry by next week and we'll paint it.

Brittany, our wonderful teenage volunteer

Kathleen, our wonderful grownup volunteer!

After the kids were done with the balloon, they could form an armature with aluminum foil, and then papier mache over it.

Victor made a dinosaur

Again, fun with aluminum foil!

Class ends December 20 and starts up again January 10th, Thursdays from 3-5 (pre registration required)

a museum visit and self portraits

We visited the California Center for the Arts, Escondido museum. First, we discussed 'museum etiquette' and as one kid put it 'library voices.' They did great! We walked around, discussed the exhibition of work by Raúl Anguiano. On display was work of his from when he was 5 years old to the end of his life. It was great showing the kids his early drawings.
Much of his work was portraiture, so we used that as inspiration for our class.


Back in the classroom, I did a portrait demo, showing proportions, and they worked in chalk pastel.

Abstracts with oil pastels

We did abstracts today--with a full, active class!

The kids drew from fruit, using oil pastels and creating colorful backgrounds. They drew four different fruits, on four small sheets of paper.

Yeah! we have a new volunteer, high school student Brittany.

Then, on a larger sheet, they chose their favorite drawing and glued it down. They folded and cut the other 3 rearranging them, and gluing them down to become abstract.

Some of the kids finished early, and had waaay too much energy to stay inside. So we went out and visited the Dia de los Muertos community installation in the courtyard of California Center for the Arts, Econdido. We talked about the altars and what the mementos told about the people who had passed on. Victor told us his children would cover his altar with pizza because he loves it!