mud buds

End of Mesa Classes

2010-01-02T21:07:00.001-08:00

I am sorry to inform you that I will no longer teach classes in Mesa. My family has relocated. If I come across anybody that teaches art classes in the Valley then I will send you his or her info so that you can contact them.
Thanks for all of your support.
Heidi

Fall Art Classes: The Elements of Art.

2009-07-26T20:06:00.001-07:00

updated: August 2nd.
I have 2 spots left.

This year I am planning my art classes in Units. Each class is still $10 per class, however, children should plan on attending all of the classes in the unit to get the full experience.

My classes are multi age level. The youngest age that I will take for my classes is 5. I also take older students and adapt the lessons and expectations to each child's ability.
The units are multiple consecutive weeks and range in number of weeks.
All school year classes will be held on Mondays from 3:35 to 4:35 at my home.
The dates of each unit will be given under the unit description. I will post the units a few weeks before they are offered.
Spots will be given on a first come first serve basis.
5 spots per unit!
Rather than have you pay me to watch your children draw, I like to use a lot of our class time for meaningful instruction. There is a chance that your child may not complete an entire project in class. Please encourage them to complete it at home (or better yet, complete it with your family while they teach you what they have learned) and then bring it back the following week to share with the class.
Sign up by e-mailing me at heidileagarner@hotmail.com. I will then e-mail you a confirmation of position in the classes as well as directions to my home and my phone number.

If you would like to take classes but cannot fit this time in your schedule, or all of the spots are full, please contact me about making other arrangements for a group organized by you. We can see what works with both of our schedules! General information is at the right of the posts.

Our first unit will be:
THE ELEMENTS OF ART.
Number of weeks: 5
Time: 3:35-4:35
Day of the Week: Monday's
Dates: 8/17, 8/24, 8/31, 9/14 and 9/21 (my baby is due the 30th, and I tend to be a week early, so we should be safe. I will make phone calls and send e-mails if she comes early and we have to cancel..and I will refund any fees for classes canceled on my account)

Overview:
The elements of art are what some people like to call the "building blocks of art." All art is made up of Lines, Shapes, Colors, Textures and Value. A piece can contain one or a combination of 2 or more of the elements of art. In this unit we will explore each individual element, sometimes on its own, and sometimes in a combination with others. In many of the units students will lean about some famous artist and how they used the elements of art in their own work.

Lesson #1. Line
Monday August 17th: Alexander Calder's Lines.

Alxander Clader (1898-1976) was a famous American Artist well know for his wire sculptures and mobiles.

In this lesson students will create "Calederesque" line drawings in which they do not remove their pen from the paper. Students will also make wire sculptures using pipe cleaners.

For more information on Calder go Here

Lesson #2 Shape
Monday August 24th: Eric Carle's Whimsical Shapes.

Eric Carle is a well know children's book author and illustrator. His illustrations are unmistakable. Through the combination of shapes Carle is able to create whole collage worlds of plants, animals, bugs and people.

In this lesson students will explore creating a picture with shapes, but not after creating their own Eric Carle style paper.

for more info on Eric Carle go Here

Lesson #3 Color
Monday August 31st: Exploring Color mixing.

There is a lot to learn just about color, but one of the first things kids will learn is how to use the primary colors (red, yellow and blue) to create the secondary colors (green, orange, and violet) Can you believe that this painting below was painted using only the primary colors? That is right only 3 colors were in my pallet!

In this lesson students will create their own paintings that display a whole rainbow of colors, however, they will only have red, yellow and blue in their pallets!

Lesson #4 Texture
Monday September 14th: Van Gogh's Textures

Vincent VanGogh is a very well know artist, however his work was not recognized until after his death. He is well known for his bright colors and thick paint textures.

Although the textures on his work are "real" the textures on the work created by the students in this lesson will be "implied".
In this lesson students will create Van Gogh style art work by using a texture rubbing method and crayons.

For more information on Van Gogh go Here

Lesson #5 Value
Monday September 21st: Value: The lightness and darkness of a color.

Value in art work does not always have to do with how much it is worth, in fact value has to do with the lightness and darkness of a color.

In this lesson students will add white to a color to change it's value. Then they will then add a silhouette of a beautiful desert scene to create a very nice desert landscape painting.

images in this post from the author and these sources:
line: http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/wxyz/images/wire_calder_goldfishbowl_lg.gif
shape: http://www.museums10.org/images/uploads/EricCarleMuseum/ericcarle2.jpg
texture: http://www.artcanary.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/figure-11-vincent-van-gogh-starry-night-1889.jpg

Fall Art Classes

2009-06-15T11:54:00.000-07:00

I will be offering Art Classes one day a week this Fall!

More information will be posted about the classes in July. But here is a little heads up on what to expect.

Unfortunately I will not be in a bigger house this Summer (or the fall- as it is looking) so I won't have access to my Kiln until the weather cools down. (Sorry, clay is so fun and messy- but please plan on clay classes after the NEW Year.) I don't want to get any hopes up, but if there is any possibility of clay before then I will send you all an e-mail so you won't miss out! And it will be posted on the blog.
This will be a "unit" of classes based on the Elements of Art, so plan on attending all of the classes offered.
There will be 4 or 5 classes in this unit.
Classes will be held on Monday's after School
Sign up will start after the class descriptions are posted on the blog.

I am going to try to set something up so that you can sign up to get notified of new postings on the blog. I'll e-mail all of you when this happens.

Summer Art Classs: All the Info You Need

2009-05-18T20:17:00.000-07:00

All classes are full at this time!
Theme: Op Art Pop Art! We Just Can't Stop Art.
We will be learning about the Modern Art Movements of both Pop and Op art while investigating new media and developing our artistic skills.
The Pop Art movement started in the mid 20th century and focused on popular culture and icons. Op art, also a modern art movement, is based on optical illusions in the work.

Days:
Art Classes will be held on Wednesday afternoons in June and July from 12:30-1:30

Location:
My House

Fee:
$10 per class (due at the beginning of each class taken)

Class size:
Classes will be limited to 5 students

How to sign up:
Sign up is first come first serve. You can sign up for any number of classes that interest you. Sign up by e-mailing me at heidileagarner@hotmail.com. I will make a note of it on this blog post when a class is filled up.

Additional info:
I will be out of town the first two Wednesday's in July. Art classes will not be held.

AND... we are in the process of getting our house rented and moving into a larger home this summer. We are planning to stay in the area. Hopefully there will not be an interruption in our schedule. If there will be an interruption I will let you know as soon as possible.

Sometimes an hour is not enough time to finish a project. Students will be provided detailed instruction and may find that they run out of time during our class. They should finish their work at home, and may even want to teach their parents and siblings what they have learned and make more art work using the information that they have acquired in class. We will be using very common supplies for our projects, and they will be provided for use in our classes. If your child needs to complete a project at home you may have these materials already or they can easily be found at Michael's or even Walmart.

Class Descriptions:

Wednesday June 3st: Andy Warhol Pop Art Pop Cans (FULL)

Some of Warhol's most famous works included his Campbell's soup cans. Students will be learning how to draw cylinders, a 3d object, on a 2d surface (paper). They will be showing depth in their work. They may draw a pop can of a popular canned beverage or make up their own designs.

Materials:
Paper
Pencil
Color Pencil

Wednesday June 10th: Andy Warhol Portraits (FULL)

Warhol was also well known for his portraits of popular celebrities. He often made several silkscreen prints of a celebrity or public figure and displayed them on one canvas. This time the student will be the celebrity and we will "warholize" their portrait.

Materials:
Paper
Color pencil
In addition, I will need to be e-mailed a digital photo of your child (jpeg format). Just their head would be optimal. I will need this the Tuesday before class.

Wednesday June 17th: Thiebaud Desserts (FULL)

Wayne Thiebaud was born right here in Mesa Arizona, but moved to California soon after his birth. He is well known for his bright oil paintings of yummy desserts and candies. In this lesson students will use oil pastels to emulate the work of Thiebaud and draw their own dessert counters. They will also learn how to shade to create more depth in a drawing.

Materials:
Construction Paper
Pencils
Oil Pastels

Wednesday June 24th: Robert Indiana Word Art (FULL)

While Robert Indiana was not the only pop artist to use lettering in his art work, he has a special place in my heart because we are lucky enough to have one of his LOVE sculptures right here in the valley.
In this lesson students will create images using words. (Think of the PBS kids show "Word World").

Materials:
Paper
Pencil
Color Pencil
Markers

Wednesday July 15th: Oldenberg Food (FULL)($.50 materials fee added to this project)

Claus Oldenberg is well know for his gigantic sculptures of everyday objects, including food! We will be doing just the opposite as we sculpt miniature foods. These tiny sculptures will serve as erasers once completed. Art that is both beautiful and useful.

Materials:
Fimo Eraser clay

Wednesday July 22: Op art with M.C. Escher (FULL)

Escher was well known for his tessellations. We will be seeing how math and art can work together as we create these puzzling pieces of artwork.

Materials:
Construction paper
Index cards
scissors
Glue
Markers

Wednesday July 29th: Bridget Riley Optical illusions (FULL)

The work of Op Artist Bridget Riley seems to move or even radiate, but it is just paint on canvas. We will be making some works of art that almost pop off of the paper.

Materials:
Paper
Pencil
Ruler
Color Markers.

To learn more about these artists you can visit: http://www.artchive.com
also you can run a google search or a google image search to find the 2 that are not listed.

Summer Art Classes

2009-05-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

I deleted my previous post on summer classes because I have changed my mind. We will be holding once weekly classes at my home in the afternoons. More info to come in the next weeks. I will also send e-mails out to those that have attended or shown interest in the past. If you would like an e-mail please contact me with your e-mail address.
Heidi

catch up in clay class

2009-03-23T15:29:00.000-07:00

Sorry that this has not been updated as of late.
(A long on going bout of all day sickness-more commonly known as morning sickness will do that to you- I have been on survival mode)
We are still having clay classes in my home and I am also traveling to teach classes. I recently did a Girl Scout group and helped them pass off their ceramics badge. I am offering girl scout groups at a discounted rate so if you have a group please ask for details.
I was shocked to see how much they charge at some of the big pottery decorating shops. I was a girl scout when I was a little girl and I am very involved with the Cub Scouts (den leader) so I'm glad I can be of some assistance.

Our most recent projects in the clay classes taught in my home were our complted tea sets. This was a 3 day project. One day for the pots, one day for the cups and one day for the saucers, plates and cream and sugar. (and an additioal long glaze day). They turned out GREAT, as you can see.

In addition the girls made pinch pot animal bowls.

Over spring break we met for one long class and sculpted heads. They they are waiting to be fired and glazed, but I am very excited to see how they turn out. They look amazing as greenware.

I am still planning on summer classes. I should have all of the details posted by then end of next month. Please keep posted.

I'm a little tea pot!

2009-01-12T15:47:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year and we are back in full swing. We are working on a 3 class project.

Tea Sets!

Last week we made the cups, this week the pots and next week the cream and sugar.
Hopefully we will do saucers too!

New Class offered

2008-12-01T10:17:00.000-08:00

I will be offering a New Clay Class on Tuesdays from 3:20-4:35 after Winter Break.
Currently I have a few spaces left in my Monday class at the same time that will be filled on a first come first serve basis.
If you are interested in any of my classes please let me know Via E-mail.
heidileagarner@hotmail.com
I need to have at least 3 kids in each class to keep them running.
There is a Max class size of 6 kids per class.
Price per class is $10.55 (which includes a materials fee)
Please pass on this info to anybody you think might be interested.

First Glaze Fire

2008-12-01T10:06:00.000-08:00

Here is a little box of treasures going home with one of our students. You can see how brill ant all of the work looks once it has gone through the glaze firring. These pieces were glazed with an underglaze when they were still greenware and then bisque fired. They were then glazed with a clear glaze and glaze fired. The clear glaze gave them the great shine.
This week we will be glazing a lot of work. Some of the glazing will include clear glaze on underglazed pieces but the majority of the work will be glazed using regular glazes. It will be a unique experience for the students. When using the underglazes the students could simply pick up a red bottle of glaze and be confident that their finished piece of work will have a red glaze on it. When using the glaze for bisque ware they will have to actually read the lable and look at the test tiles. Our clear glaze actually looks light blue in the bottle and the color "exotic blue" looks pale pink before it is fired. This is a great way to understand the science behind clay and glazes and what happens to materials when they are placed in a very hot oxidation atmospher.

Nativity Tiles

2008-12-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

Here is a picture of the girls working on Nativity Tiles. I did not show any Detailed photos of Student work, as some of them are going to be Christmas gifts, and I don't want to ruin the surprise. I will post finished work after Christmas.

Test Trial.

2008-11-14T22:48:00.000-08:00

While looking at one of my favorite clay blogs
(ok, i don't really have a lot that I look at)
I noticed a really neat technique for decorating the surface of clay.
You can see it here.
I have worked with masking out areas to create a glaze pattern, and I've used wax resists. I have never used paper stencils and was curious as to how she got them to stick.
I contacted the artist and had a correspondence with her about the technique she used.
She created her patterns using a newsprint stencil and a thick slip.
She applied the newsprint "snowflakes" to leather hard ware and then sprayed it with water so it would stick to the surface. She then smoothed it out and applied a thick slip.

I thought I'd try it using under glaze.
Under glaze is supposed to be applied to green ware, but for this project our time restrictions would necessitate application to clay that was just rolled. Because this is not a normal practice I decided I'd do a trial run.

I also tried the technique using slip from our white clay applied to the terra cotta clay that we will be using for the ornaments.
Different clays shrink at different rates, so of course I needed to do a test run and see if the slip would stay on our terra cotta as it went through the process.
I did the test bisque fire and we will see how it turns out.

If all goes well, this will be our project for next week.

Naturally Jakie wanted to help out, so I found something to do so that he could be both "helpful" and occupied.

Slab Houses

2008-11-14T22:45:00.000-08:00

Here is a village of our little luminary houses.
I allowed them to dry (safely away from the hands of little Jakie).
These houses were made using our favorite slab method. Because the clay had to be close to leather hard to assemble the houses, I rolled and cut the pieces for the students. The kids designed the decor of the rest of their homes.
They finished their stamping and cutting just in time for class to end.
I was able to assemble the houses before they got too dry.

Prep Work

2008-11-09T22:04:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I need to do some behind the scenes work to prepare for the classes. On Monday we will be making luminary houses. These will make great Christmas decor or gifts. Our clay needs to be a little closer to "leather hard" (ask you kids what this means- hopefully they remember). The stiffer clay will make it easier to assemble the houses. Basically they will have a "house kit" They will do all of the assembly and decorating and they will have to cut their own roof and form the base... so they will be putting a lot of individual work- and they won't have to ROLL OUT CLAY (which i think is not a favorite activity).

I also prepared some test tiles for our glazes. Glazes look different after they have been fired, so after these tiles have been glazed and fired, the kids will know what to expect when they glaze their work.

Angels

2008-11-09T22:00:00.000-08:00

Last week we made Angles. UnfortunatelyI do not have a picture of student work, but they look similar to this angel. This is yet another slab project.

photo from Stuido Elan.

underglaze

2008-11-09T21:46:00.000-08:00

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We worked for 2 weeks applying underlgazes to our finished work. Underglaze can be applied to greenware (work that is dry but had not been fired) or bisque ware. Once it has been fired it needs to be fired an additional time with a clear coat. Then they will be complete.

Castles

2008-10-10T10:02:00.000-07:00

Slab is a wonderful technique for hand building that we will use a lot. This is our 3rd slab project. We made castles using card board armatures. They turned our great. I think everybody has Halloween on their minds because a lot of them are looking spooky.

Our next project will be another food project using the slab technique.

Pizza Anyone?

2008-10-05T20:53:00.000-07:00

Clay Pizza, Yum. Once these bad boys are glazed they will look great.
The kids learned the term Trom l'oeil. A french term that means "trick the eye." That is our goal.

Also, thank you so much to my Mom, Cherri Anderson, for making our great green canvas table cloth. Now clay won't stick to the wood table.

Monsters

2008-10-02T22:28:00.001-07:00

These whimsical monsters are made with a low fire earthenware clay called Terra Cotta. They will look great in a garden and might even scare off some pests. They won't be glazed, so once they are bisque fired they can be taken home and enjoyed.

coil pots

2008-09-21T19:08:00.001-07:00

Please forgive the "lateness" of this week's post. I've had a cold and sick kids... very sorry.
On Monday the mud buds made
coil pots.

Patterns were added with stamps for decoration. Stamps can be made out of anything and the girls used traditional rubber stamps, bisque ware stamps as well as odds and ends such as screws and clay tools.
Vocabulary learned this week included: slip, score, coil and pattern.

Here is a teaser for Monday the 22nd of September....
MONSTERS!!!!

First day of class

2008-09-09T20:57:00.001-07:00

getting started is GREAT. students viewed a short film about the historic pueblo potters in new mexico. cultures across the world and throughout history have used clay- but living in the south west i thought this video would be most appropriate for our young potters. we also created our very first pots. we used the pinch method to make simple pinch pots. students also learned some clay vocabulary including: plastic, leather hard, green ware, bisque ware, glaze, kiln, and fire.