My philosophy on teaching art is to focus primarily on the enjoyment aspects while gently introducing the technical and academic. Hence, in creating a passion for the subject matter, the quest for knowledge also becomes enjoyable.
Here are some examples of work my students have created.
Recently, I began teaching woodworking (hand tools) to students in seventh and eighth grades. Here is our work in progress (finished spoons and classroom signs to come in a couple of weeks).
I teach several “special population – Art as Therapy groups” – people with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and Traumatic Brain Injury. Here is a sampling of their work (more to come)
These are paintings done by “seniors” in a residential home where I teach a watercolor class. I am totally in awe of how beautifully they express themselves! They are working with mixing color and learning to paint more “wet on wet” (the beautiful foundation of watercolor). I always leave class with more energy than I had when I came!
More beautiful watercolors from my octogenarian students …
These drawings were done by adults in my six-week drawing and six-week watercolor course.
These are oil pastel sgraffito drawings done by students aged 6 – 8 years old.
These sgraffito tree paintings are inspired by the work of Emily Carr.
These elephants colored pencil drawings were created by my fifth-grade students at the school. They were studying Ancient India.
When I was in fifth grade, we never studied botany … this was a new twist for my students, last year – Moonlit Fungi.
When you study weather (in the eighth grade, it’s great to paint your own cloud type chart! If you zoom in, you can see the labels!
Don’t you just love these FOLK art birds drawn by my students in kinder to second grade?
The drawings above are fun “crazy hair” designs done by children in grade six.
We discussed Georgia O’Keefe in our Saturday ProjectArt class at the Library (K – 7th grade) and painted these lovely Big Flower Paintings (watercolor and oil pastel resist).
These beautiful marker drawings (inspired by photos of real rainforest beetles) were created by students in grades k- 5 in my Saturday art class.
These portraits of Dr. MLK Jr. created by students between the ages 5 and 8 years old in my Young Rembrandt Class. They knew so much about his values and his work, I was humbled! They will grow up to be excellent leaders and role models! There is hope in this world, I am sure of it. It lies in our children!
The oil pastel and watercolor resist paintings above were done by first and second graders in my ProjectArt Class at the Public Library!
We used REAL vegetables for models. I love how closely they looked at the leaves and proportions to create ABOVE AND BELOW THE GARDEN PAINTINGS.
These watercolor paintings below were created by children aged 4 to 10 years old who participated in the 2016 summer program at the Garage Cultural. The sense of color expresses how they were feeling about painting!
These lovely watercolor paintings were created Fall 2016. The fourth-grade students at the school where I teach art part-time were inspired by the changing of the season. We also created two lines poems about each other paintings.
Winter paintings created by fifth-grade students at the school. This is one of the first times they painted wet on dry, so it was challenging! I think they really caught the mood of a cold winter night!
These portraits of MLK Jr. were drawn by my eighth-grade students at the school. This is the FIRST time that they applied a lesson in proportions of the human face. We had a wonderful discussion about MLK’s values and the thoughts and perspectives they have gleaned from conversations with their parents and the student’s hopes and dreams for America.
The sixth-grade students at my school have been studying light and value. This was their first attempt at using pastel to shape landscapes. I love how they each have a unique feeling of the time of day!
MaestraSasha 