Painting with Patterns

Are you ready to re-invent the color wheel?

These paintings are created with acrylic paint, enjoying it's wonderfully opaque qualities, over a black surface. We added the earth pigments burnt umber, yellow ochre, and iron oxide to our primary color studies and expanded our understanding of color theory with many new mixing experiments and combinations.

We got inspired with geometric patterns from folk art, graphic art, and woven textiles. The bold results really pop! They grab our attention even from across the room. 

Sunprint Drawing Transfer

Students and families were amazed at the striking results from this multi-step process! Several parents asked for details.

The first part of our project was to draw in reverse using a Sgraffito technique, also known as scratch art, on a clear sheet of plastic coated with ink. This can be purchased prepared for you, or you can make your own with waterproof ink. (A variation is to draw or paint with ink on a clear sheet.)

The scratch tools must be sharp enough to draw easily, or it's not much fun! Before class, I whittled dowel rods down to a point, and students used sand paper to maintain the point while working. (Of course, we always remember our safety rules with these sharp tools.)

Next, we were ready to transfer our drawings to sunprint paper. The clear sheet with the ink drawing was laid directly over the photo-sensitive paper and exposed to direct sunlight. All clear areas where the ink had been scraped away allowed light to reach the sunprint paper, creating a polarized, or reverse, image.

Also called nature print paper or cyanotype paper, sunprint paper can be found at many art, craft, and science suppliers. The paper is coated with a non-toxic chemical that turns a brilliant blue color after being exposed to sunlight, rinsed in plain water, and air-dried.

Final art work can be treated like watercolor paintings, that is, keep dry and protect from gradual fading caused by direct sunlight over time.

Drawing Class: Baskets in Charcoal

As I looked around my studio for a something to challenge returning students while welcoming newcomers, my eyes landed on my collection of baskets. I thought, what a great way to introduce concepts of line to a new group of drawing students. To develop a strong sense of contour, we need clear visual pathways to follow. Baskets have many lines in repeating patterns that we can follow and study through drawing. For advanced students, working to capture the overlapping forms can give an added challenge. 

 

Friendship Tales

We started Friendship Tales with Cartoon Day and some very fun results!

The kids learned about word bubbles and drawing simple cartoons with basic shapes.

Some even had previous experience and were working in panel form!

Students participated in get-to-know-you games, helped build our learning community, and listened to Mo Willems’ My Friend is Sad. We worked together to figure out if the story was sad, silly, or a little of both.

Corduroy by Don Freeman and Frog and Toad Are Friends by Arnold Lobel helped us persevere to learn sewing skills.

 

Finally, our button artwork came together in fine form. Meanwhile, we thought about different ways friends can help each other and work together to solve problems.

After reading Mr. Putter and Tabby Write the Book by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Arthur Howard, we made a list of good things, just like Mr. Putter. Then we had lots of fun crafting books! It turned out the students were already experts at this.

Ling and Ting - Not Exactly the Same! By Grace Lin led us to a painting activity. I had plans for the kids to paint the covers of their books, but the students declared mutiny and decided to create these beautiful paintings instead. We struck a happy truce!

While reading The Sneetches by Dr. Seuss, we began creating stick puppets to help us tell stories of friendship. Best Friends for Frances, by Russell Hoban, illustrated by Lillian Hoban, helped us continue our crafting fun, by this time settling into a great routine for our final few class sessions.

I am so proud of the thoughtful discussions we had on some difficult friendship problems. The Sneetches helped us talk about how it’s okay for friends to look different from each other.

Hearing Frances’ troubles helped us think about ways to get past hurt feelings and be friends again.

We decided you can have time by yourself and still be friends. But, we all especially agreed that it's not okay to exclude people because of who they are.

Our final class, we were inspired by Little Bear’s Friend by Else Homelund Minarik, illustrated by Maurice Sendak. This story helped us find ways to stay friends, even when we had to say goodbye!

Garden Art Summer Day Camp 2012!

Experience a whole new kind of Summer Art Camp! Not only will your children return home with beautiful handcrafted clay sculptures, miniature gardens, paintings and collages, they'll always remember spending three days in nature surrounded by trees, songbirds, chickens and flowers.

Our Garden Art Activities Include: Drawing, Painting with Watercolors, Sculpting with Clay, Collage, Sun-print, Wire Garden Ornament Sculpture, and Planting Miniature Gardens.

Get inspired by the colors, textures and sounds of Village Green!

Art and Gardening materials included.
Please pack a lunch and plan for the weather.
Ages 8 - 12
Wednesday - Friday, 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Session 1: July 11 - 13
Session 2: July 18 - 20
$250

Where: Village Green Perennial Nursery, 10223 26th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98146
 
Registration: Mail-in, payment by check. 

Registration Form

The Whole Story

The Whole Story

A unique, holistic and inclusive history and her-story class. Find your voice with writing, art, storytelling and collaboration while exploring patterns and threads of culture, communication, identity, civilization, trade, geography, basic human needs, abstract thinking, and technology.

About the Instructor
Sarah Browning delights in stories about personal transformation, positive role models, hilarious irony, and following your heart. A West Seattle home schooling parent, she has taught classes at the Village Green Perennial Nursery, Alki Community Center and Bathhouse, and the Children's Museum of Seattle. Visit her at www.sarahbrowning.com.

Class Goals
Basic: Learn, Share, Grow, Think, Participate, Ask Questions, Be a Good Listener.
Challenge: Build a Shared Vocabulary, Find Your Voice and Articulate Your Own Story, Be an Ambassador of Your Own Personal Culture, Learn About People: How We Are the Same and How We Are Different, Practice Empathizing With Someone Who Seems Really Different From You.

Lesson Plans
Sessions have a group activity and a personal activity. The instructor will introduce maps, timelines, stories, and activities with a guided but flexible structure.

Currently offered through the Family Learning Program at Southwest Community Center.

Registration Options:

Online: Go to SPARC online registration system, and enter course number where it says "Search for programs by barcode", then click the magnifying glass. Have password and credit card ready.

Click this link to request a password or new account.

By phone: Call Southwest Community Center at 206-684-7438, have credit card ready.

In person: Southwest Community Center, 2801 SW Thistle St., Seattle, 98126, or at any City of Seattle Community Center; cash, check, or credit card accepted.