Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Fall Workshops at the Belin Blank (WINGS)

I was asked to teach two WINGS workshops at the Belin Blank this fall. One was a class on watercolors--easy peasy!

The other was a class on creative circuits. Which was more than a bit outside of my comfort zone. I could figure out the creative part, but figuring out the circuit part proved a little more challenging.

What I came up with was a three hour workshop where students could create a simple circuit with cell batteries, wire, and LEDs. They would then use their circuit to create a light up plush that they cut, embroidered, felted, and sewed themselves.

I had to source some help from my engineering friends when it came to creating this custom circuit. I failed A LOT. But in the end, all the hard work paid off and I could really tell that the students enjoyed the heck out of this class. :)



My younger watercolor kiddos:

Workshops at the Cedar Rapids Art Museum

In August of this year, I had the privilege of teaching two workshops at the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art.
The first was for young students between the ages of 5 and 12: The Science of Watercolor!

I taught very young kiddos some cool tricks for using watercolor, including crayon, salt, and rubbing alcohol. But the really fun part was painting with cabbage juice--and making it acidic or alkaline to get different colors!

I also was able to teach not one, but TWO adult workshops on watercolor basics! These Brave Beginners not only learned a lot about watercolor tools and techniques, but we also discussed creative mindsets and explored watercolor via mind stretching art exercises. This was so fun. And a couple weeks later I was rewarded by spying one of my students from the second adult class buying watercolor supplies at Michaels!

Summer Blast at the Belin Blank 2017

This summer at the Belin Blank I taught a two week workshop on Mixed Media art and Creative Thinking.
The students were exposed to a wide variety of media from printmaking to encaustic to stop motion animation. We also practiced creative thinking exercises daily using surrealist parlor room games and drawing exercises that stretched the students' imaginations.
If you're looking for a book with many creative drawing exercises this is a great resource: Playing with Sketches by Whitney Sherman.
Below you can see some examples from our two weeks of learning how artists think, developing studio habits, and tackling new and exciting media. :)

Marbling and Paint Pouring:
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Exquisite Corpse and Paste Paper:
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Black out poetry:
Stopmotion Animation:
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Encaustic Painting:
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Monoprinting, Watercolor still-life, and Collaborative Stopmotion Animation:
Resin and Acetate Collage and Squash Books:
Our finished Resin Collages and Accordion Books:
Needle Felting and Embroidery:
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