600 Butterflies
I received an email out of the blue from an artist/teacher/mom, she was asking for help with ideas around an art fair she was organizing at her kid's elementary school. Their art teacher was ill most of this year and recently passed away from cancer. Ah... a fallen comrade, sigh. It's awesome their school even had an art teacher, most elementary school do not which I know is just NOT right, one could even call it a sin (light humor). "In the beginning God CREATED...." and what are we doing with our educational system, our kids, their creative spirits? Ken Robinson would say we are educating them out of their bodies and into their heads which in not where [...]
Edgar Muller
We wanted to share what some other artists have been up to lately. The first stop is with Edgar Muller. Edgar and Mark Wagner (founder of Drawing on Earth) were both in the 2010 Guinness World Record book for largest pieces of art. The work featured here is one of his most recent, it's wild, beautiful, way out there - literally in the woods, and then add snow to the mix. We've asked Edgar to answer a few questions about his process but he's been busy, the answers are still coming. We did get permission to show this project and use his photos. What is special here is that he shows the process in his documented photos. Acrylics, canvas, a [...]
Drawing Out of the Box
Over the many years of drawing with thousands of kids on playgrounds, I come to notice a certain kind of kid - the ones who draw out of the box. Usually I create a large outline, give a demonstration, and invite the children to draw inside the area filling in the bigger drawing collaboratively. I subdivide the larger area giving kids their own smaller spaces of their choosing to do whatever they want. The really little kids work better if they can see a space that they can work in, negative space is an abstract concept and the space around a drawing unless defined is confusing, and it doesn't get filled in, and thats a waste a space if we are [...]
When it Rains
I came back to the school playground for our next day of all school art and noticed something off, something different about the chalk drawing. Upon looking more closely and putting on my Sherlock Holmes thinking cap, I realized that the school yard water sprinklers had gone off during the evening and soaked some of our work. I've seen through other artist's photos of down pours at chalk festivals around the country. I personally haven't really been around any big rains. I do know a big pour on a slope without covering will completely wash away the work, and I've heard you can see the colors running away in the water. But this was soft and gentle water, and when someone now asks [...]
Drawing on the Walls
Not only can one draw on the streets, and draw on the earth, but one call draw on the walls. A recent private home commission in San Francisco. original sketch client approved sketch, with grid photoshop applied over photograph of wall Photos of the Process and Final Product: Ganesha (/É¡ÉˈneɪʃÉ/; Sanskrit (IAST): GaṇeÅ›a; listen (help·info)), also known as Ganapati and Vinayaka, is one of the best-known and most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon. His image is found throughout India. Hindu sects worship him regardless of affiliations. Devotion to Ganesha is widely diffused and extends to Jains, Buddhists, and beyond India. Although he is known by many attributes, Ganesha's elephant head makes him easy to identify. Ganesha is widely revered as the remover of obstacles, The patron of arts and sciences and [...]
Art Lessons on the Street
After the morning assembly, classroom after classroom of kids (most of the elementary school kids) come out to the yard and circle up around me. First thing I do, if they are really little kids, I ask em if they are 5th graders - they squeal pleased and then yell "NO, we are first graders!" The next thing I do is give an art lesson right there on the playground. How chalk likes to be used and some other basic foundations of the visual arts. Most of the elementary schools I visit in the northern California Bay Area have NO art teachers - a terrible way to invest into the future! What we want to do is to [...]