5th Grade Animal Etchings

The 5th graders created phenomenal etchings of animals in  scratchboard- a thick board coated with a layer of black ink that the students scratch into.They applied the grid technique to create proportionally correct contour drawings of photographs. Next, they applied impressive drawing and etching skills when using stippling, hatching and crosshatching to render light and dark value to create forms and texture in their drawings. The scratchboard challenged them to think about the drawing approach in reverse, as they removed black ink to reveal light versus the traditional approach of adding dark value to light paper

Pacific Northwest Masks

The 4th graders created 3D versions of spectacular mask drawings they made inspired by the Pacific Northwest Native Americans’ prolific design motifs and simple yet striking color palettes. The students did a wonderful job employing extensive planning and problem solving skills to turn everyday objects including balloons and paper plates into unique masks. After constructing them with plaster gauze, the students painted Northwest-inspired designs including the U, split-U, ovoid and S-curve on their masks using acrylic paint and embellished them with raffia and feathers.

Tangled up in Zentangles

Andy Warhol Hamburger 1985



Ed Ruscha I Was Gasping

  The 6th and 8th graders have kicked off this semester by creating beautiful Zentangle Art. Inspired by literary Pop Art created by Ed Ruscha and Andy Warhol, the students used their initials as the inspiration for these illustrations. Leaving the letters as negative space, the students drew a tangled line and filled in the shapes it had created with a series of imaginative, complex patterns. This method not only challenges the students to devise original patterns and hone in on highly detailed drawing skills, but it allows them to take a peaceful and quiet break from their busy day, as they get caught in the meditative practive of repetative fine illustration.

Turkey Traditions

Annual family traditions are not easy to establish and maintain over an extended length of time, however my father and I have an 18-year old ritual of painting a watercolor every Thanksgiving day. We created our first turkey watercolor in 1995 when I was only 11 years old and that began our annual process of creative story-telling, illustration and pure teamwork painting watercolors depicting a marvelous story about turkeys in our modern world. 

 Why? Because we believe that family traditions such as doing a piece of artwork together has meaning, creates a long-lasting memory and is completely fun!

Our saga began when our turkeys were being carried off to the slaughter house, but chose to take control of their ill-fate, and thus the adventures began...

My dad's and my turkeys have taken on hobbies that our meaningful in our own lives.

There was chaos on Pennsylvania Ave in 2003, when our flocks protested No Turkey Left Behind. 

In 2005, our turkeys survived the disastrous Hurricane Katrina!

Here I am illustrating our turkey tribute to Norman Rockwell's famous Thanksgiving painting.

In 2004, our turkeys traveled with me to Florence Italy, where they too studied classical art.

In 2008, Turkey-bama was elected as the first feathered president of the United States!

How do my dad and I paint these when we live in two different cities and can’t get together for Thanksgiving? We found an answer to that problem a couple of years ago when I left my family in Colorado and moved to Seattle: 

We first come up with an idea, sketch it out and email each other with feedback. My dad then blocks out the drawing in light pencil on watercolor paper and mails me the paper from Denver along with the original watercolor set that we’ve always used. I then paint the watercolor in Seattle and mail the completed artwork back to my dad for final “touchup” and scanning. Its that easy!

Inspired by Dorthea Lange's emotional sepia photographs from the Great Despression,  we created this painting to convey the Recession of 2009.

2012 Turkeys on Mars. Well, this year has been a memorable year for our turkeys. This is the “mockup sketch” for the 2012 watercolor celebrating the historic NASA mars rover mission, the retiring of the space shuttle and Felix Baumgartner’s 5-mile leap from space. I’ll post the final painting soon!

Repousee Calaveras

The ornate designs on these elaborate 7th grade skulls were inspired by "calaveras" or sugar skulls found in Dia de los Muertos celebrations. Students then used the repousee method of stretching thick sheets of aluminum to create these elaborate renderings. Finally, they added the "antiqued" effect by coating them in a thin layer of India Ink that was then burnished with steel wool.