Tuesday’s painting class with the homeschooled students took an interesting turn this week, and like most fun projects, the idea for the structure of this class came together from pieces of items which had previous uses and from the inspiration of friends. I had torn the ceiling tiles off the living room and split the ones in good condition into 12 x 12 pieces to use in painting classes. A friend dropped by for a chat on the patio and returned a couple of art books she had borrowed a while back. I had forgotten them and was happy to see them and so looked through them and came to the conclusion that this week the students would move into the study of lines in painting. As the days passed I realized I also wanted to break up the class with a different activity to keep things lively for all the students.
The day before the class, while working on the house (more on that wild ride is coming soon-I have pictures), I was talking about the ceiling tiles to Martin and, naturally, rambled on about the class. It was then that the idea to do string art on the tiles popped into my mind. Martin mentioned his familiartity with it, and though he and I have discussed and looked at images of fractals in the past,and much string art reminds me of fractals, that did not occur to me at the time. Probably because Martin mentioned sail boat string art and I was laughing so hard because when talking with Martin it seems all things are connected somehow to boats. (In my next post I will show you how this was a great benefit to me today and why this point seems so relevant.) I did some online searching and came up with a pattern for a sailboat. It was the simplest introduction to string art I could find as well as the best way to tie the project into our discussion of implied lines. Also, I thought I was cute to do string art with a violinist coming to be in the class that day!
The kids arrived being fed spoonfuls of peanut butter off a rubber spatula. They were still hungry so Robin and I fed them some chocolate muffins while I began the class discussion. When I announced there would be no painting that class one student cheered! I do think everyone was excited to try their hand at something new. We moved into a brief discussion about the importance of line to the composition stages of the painting process. The kids were able to give examples of implied lines quite freely and it was easy to see they had an excellent grasp of the day’s concept. We moved into the studio, the kids learned a little about copyright and inscribed the pattern authors copyright and website onto the back of their tiles with Sharpies, everyone’s favorite. Then they began working to pound finishing nails into ceiling tiles. All sorts of hammers were discovered and used, including rocks. Everyone chose their colors of embroidery threads and began the process of tying and wrapping the string. Rachel was freezing and we shut down the AC for as long as the rest of us could stand it. I noticed Wilson was taking a different approach from the others who had begun wrapping the strings. His strings were wrapped at the top of the nail and they cast a really fun shadow.
It is too bad that the flash wiped out the shadows in the photo. By now, we had to get the AC back on, freezing Rachel or no freezing Rachel. Fortunately, Robin came into the studio to view the string art and rescued Rachel by making a shawl out of some old palm tree pj pants. Rachel, donning her lovely new shawl, was finishing up her pastel boat as Robin was chatting with Mary, our guest student. Mary’s come to class once before. She is the girl who plays the violin and viola with her sisters. After Scott and I finished up the final few difficult knots on his sailboat, I pulled out my violins and Shannon and I played a little. Shannon is wanting to study the violin and she seemed quite comfortable handling it. Mary continued to craft the boat until the very end, but managed to squeeze in a helpful comment or two as she worked. Then Rachel, took the violin and had a go at it. She said it was her first time to play with it and she seemed to enjoy the newness of the experience.
It was another wonderful Tuesday in the studio with the homeschoolers. Tuesday is becoming my favorite day, not just because of these students, but also because it seems to be the day most of my friends have some time off work and want to play in the evening. This week after class I quickly finished the mudding of the new wall in the sunroom and painted a test patch on the exterior of the house. (OMG, I never thought I would want to paint a house purple, but I do, and I’ll get a photo up here soon so you can try to stop me if you think I’ve lost my mind.) Then I put on my swimsuit and sarong, Robin gathered food and drinks, and we headed off to Jerri’s for a pool party in honor of several our friends birthdays. I’ve got some silly pictures to share from that, too! I’ve fallen a bit behind on the blogging, but tonight it seems I’m attempting to at least catch up on the word count!
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