Monday, January 30, 2012

United South End Settlements' Children's Art Centre: Resource of the Month: Creativity Matters E-Book

Another great resource for friends, coworkers, and parents! Enjoy!

United South End Settlements' Children's Art Centre: Resource of the Month: Creativity Matters E-Book: At the Children’s Art Centre, a firm belief in the power and importance of creativity to children’s cognitive, social, and emotional well-be...

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

A Resolution I Plan To Keep

Versace Autumn/Winter 2012

Last year I fully explored my love of comic books with students to show to them how the medium is absolutely Art related and opens many doors of the world. I'll admit, there was some hestitance from the female population of classes, but nearly as much as I anticipated. Thankfully, my fandom of Wonder Woman helped build a bridge and throughout the year, both boys and girls were producing incredible graphic novels with thought out stories and incredibly detailed work (focusing on foreground, middle and background, pen & ink, etc).

It's a new year and to build on a popular theme in many of my lessons, fashion, I intend to do much of the same, though reversed, as I had with comics. Let me explain. Girls, ages seven to eighteen, immediately seem drawn to clothes -- the majority anyway. Well, I want boys, seven to eighteen, to understand that they too can express themselves through their form of dress. Alright, so maybe it won't be as important to them as it is to girls, duly noted, but I do want them to experiment and have fun with the idea. In the coming months I will be broadening design and color lessons to utilize a more fashion athstetic. The inspiration comes from an article I read online in British Vogue. If I teach my students anything beyond the Art fundementals, I want to broaden their perception of their day to day life in a fun way. Keep an eye on this space for results of students' work as it's produced.

Monday, January 16, 2012

How do you teach Civil Rights?

This is an article from the NY Times that speaks to all teachers (and parents for the matter) asking, how do we teach Civil Rights to our kids?

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Tentative Lesson Plan for the Semester

This is an idea of how I prepare for a semester of art classes at the Worcester Art Museum. A lot of things are missing in this early stage, like how I'll tie each class with the Massachusetts Visual Art Curriculum and how much unspecific time I want to give each project. Even though it's not yet written down, I already have such ideas/plans in my head that evolved as I planned. If you look close and use your imagination, you can see how each lesson is a progression of the last and loosely tied to each. For me, it all starts with a theme or final project that I want students to achieve, with each class a step towards that end direction. A lot goes into preparing a semester, not all of it is listed here -- I have to keep some surprises alive!



Portraits, Landscapes, & Sculptures / Explore Your World

Thursday, January 12, 2012

vozwords: Al Parker (1906-1985)


Mike Vosburg was one of my favorite comic book artists of my dad's original Marvel and DC Comics collection from the Seventies and Eighties. I happened across his blog and was immediately inspired by his love of an illustration artist I had never heard of. Vosburg has moved on from comic books into TV, film, and even music videos and is another real life example of where comic books can take you. I'll be using Mike Vosburg as suggestion of research for my older students, as well as Al Parker, featured in the link below.

vozwords: Al Parker (1906-1985): The invention of the camera shattered art in the western world. For several centuries one of the primary goals of the artist was to reprodu...

Monday, January 9, 2012

New classes!



Happy new year! I'm pleased to announce my upcoming Saturday classes at the Worcester Art Museum. Classes begin January 14th and end March 10th.


With a variety of materials students and I will be exploring and creating landscapes, cityscapes, seascapes, and more. We'll also be learning about famous artists from different parts of our world!


Students will be studying works of the past to inspire new works of their own with subject matter that is real, and some that is surreal. Lessons will be both two dimensional and three dimension with a final project that incorporates both.

To register for my classes, simply click on the links above.