Random pictures from March, April, and May ArtPlay.

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Adriana began her life-sized self-portrait last week by allowing me to trace the outline of her body on a piece of paper against the wall.  It tickled and was just a little creepy, she told me, to be outlined.  Although Adriana is a bundle of expressive energy, she did not want to hold her arms out to be traced, but kept them straight at her sides.  "I'm not really that tall," she said when looking at her outline, and pointed to the half-inch soles of her flip-flops.  Using tempera, we worked together on the background, and we experimented with various skin tones before we were satisfied.

This week she finishes her picture by adding flowers - tall and straight and spare, as she is herself.  She debates on whether to add a sun or clouds with rain, as flowers need both to grow.  She settles on sun for this particular painting, pushing the yellow paint to the edge of the sun with a straight brush.  "My mother showed me how," she says.  "She is an artist, you know!"

She is engrossed in this project and insists on drawing each flower and then the sun with pencil before painting them.  After starting each flower and then the sun, she is dissatisfied, saying, "Oh it's ugly."  Fortunately, though, she presses through her dissatisfaction until she is happy.

"Your flowers remind me of you," I tell her.  Both stand simply, straight and straightforward, and seem to meet the world without wavering.

No, Paula is not drinking from what looks like an orangeade spill.  She's blowing onto a wet wash to move the paint around.  There are other techniques for moving paint around on a wet piece of paper, including using paint brushes of course.  Dripping is an option, and spattering, as is holding up the wet paper and letting the paint run.

Today we explored the world of the wash.  What happens when you get a piece of paper wet and add color to it?  And what if you add another color?  They blend!  And if they are colors next to each other on the color wheel, (as Paula's orange and yellow above) they make new and beautiful colors.

Skyler has made a lovely pastel blend by letting her colors run, then blotting them with paper towels when she was satisfied.  When dry, she can use this as background for a painting or drawing.

Sofia accidentally discovers what will happen if you swipe the water on with a brush that has a bit of paint on it.  "Oh, it looks like the ocean," she says, and decides to add blue.  Cleverly, she holds the paper up so the paint will run.  It truly does help to stick out your tongue.

Later, when the wash is dry, she will add a boat and a fish to complete this picture.

Riley first came for art lessons two years ago, when she was in the third grade.  Now she's back at age 11, almost ready for Middle School!  At left are her three phases of the art project called "Finish the Drawing" I've been doing with my students this week.

"You're kidding, right?" is what Riley said she felt like saying when I told her what we were going to do last - a full-page painting of the drawing we'd been working on from the inside out, so to speak.  Once she started, though, she found it a lot easier than she had supposed, partly because she was so familiar with the drawing already and partly because she used a nine-part grid to get the proportions right.  A sizable drawing is a lot easier when you take it one small portion at a time.

I showed her how to make a wash and she took to it right away and was delighted with the results.  Watercolor is not a forgiving technique, but Riley used it well.  Because of the color work we've done, she was able to choose colors that blend well.

When I have only one student, I enjoy working alongside her with my own similar project.  Children know how to learn by asking questions, but also by watching others work.  As we work, we chat about school, family, and friends - and also about watercolor paper and why it's rough and thick, and about what kinds of hair and fibers paintbrushes are made of.

Because of school vacations and scheduling conflicts, my weekday groups won't be back for three weeks.  I'll miss them!

Along the lines of "guerrilla art," my friend Erin and I did a quick wardrobe change for our church's patron saint (St. Stephen, whom everyone is now calling St. Patrick).  We vowed not to tell anyone, but everyone knew anyway - especially David, my other guerrilla-buddy.  We arrived at the church at 5 am Sunday morning and were done by 5:30, but not before the arrival of two police cars who parked side-by-side at the parking lot entrance.  They weren't aware of us, though, until we left.  I wonder what they thought we'd been doing there at that hour.

Yes, that's right - St. Stephen has no hands.  No, it's not about a martyrdom you missed somehow, it's the result of vandalism.  He used to have hands.  Some wag broke off all his fingers but the middle one on both hands, so someone else finished the job.  Rather that replace the hands to invite more vandals, our current rector added a sign: "We Are St. Stephen's Hands."

Today I used the same activity for two classes - Paula, Sophia, and Nate at 9 am, and Adriana at 11.  It's called "Finish The Picture," an old assignment I was given in junior high school that has been used for many years with children of all ages.  It's been successful because it accomplishes several things at once.

First, it can be a rough gauge of a child's level of art development.  Does he sense proportion?  Can she form and execute a concept?  Is she ready to draw what she actually sees?  (Children begin by drawing what they know:  boats float on top of a line of water at the bottom of the page, for example.)  Second, it introduces children to the grid - so useful to artists through the ages for getting perspective and proportion right, and such a stretch for young artists to grasp.

I let the children choose two identical pictures lined with a nine-rectangle grid.  Identical except for one thing:  in one of the pictures the center rectangle is missing, and in the other picture, everything except the center rectangle is missing.  In stage one I am asking them to draw the one missing rectangle in the center of the picture.  In the second part I am asking them to draw everything except the one rectangle that is present.

Above is Sophia's drawing inside that one missing rectangle - the crucial center rectangle - of the picture she chose.  Sophia really challenged herself with this drawing.  Notice how she was aware of and correctly drew two lines - the line where the pond meets the wall, and the line where the lily stems meet the water and become reflections.  She was able to foreshorten the lily pads as well.

The next part of the exercise is even harder.  Looking at only the center rectangle taken from the picture, I ask the children to draw the bigger picture right out to the edge of the paper.  This really requires spatial awareness.

Here is Adriana's drawing in which she extended her small portion of a cat outward to fill the paper.  Isn't this cat charming?  In doing this drawing, Adriana was surprised at how big the cat's ears actually are.  She was also able to mimic the cat's tabby stripes, which bend around the curled-up cat.

The last part of the activity, should time and attention spans allow, is to use a nine-rectangle grid to draw and paint the entire picture - the same picture we have been working on - on a fresh piece of paper.  By this time we are familiar with it, having drawn it already in parts.

Here is Paula's watercolor based on her picture.  She used a faintly-drawn grid to get the proportions right, then used the wash technique we learned last week to paint the water and the sky.  I notice Paula's understanding of how objects appear to sit below the horizon, not on top of it.

Adriana spies something else she'd like to try.  She wants to turn over a small picture of a flying bird and trace it on the back.  Of course!  But she must then extend the drawing all the way out and fill the paper with nothing to guide her but her imagination. 

                                              

She did it!

Today was another experiment in color.  Starting last week, Riley and I have been overlapping colors to see how they mix.  This week she used transparent inks and masks made from tape and shelf paper to work out a variety of experimental designs.  In the design at left, she used a star cut from shelf paper as part of her overlapping process, working with the transparent inks and finishing with an opaque white.  She snipped out favorite areas of these designs to save for later collage work.

Experimental processes always result in lots of leftovers.  Instead of throwing these away, we decided to make creative use of my shredder, and we wound up with long, ribbon-like strips of colorful paper.  Riley experimented with braiding and weaving the strips, and we worked together intently, getting a start on a mystery object, more whimsical than anything else - something that may or may not be completed or changed next week.  It's freeing to know we can throw it away when we're finished having fun.

After Riley went home, I hung our whimsy on the on the studio wall.  Probably due to the season, it reminds me of an Easter basket - even more so when I tuck an "egg," a favorite part Riley cut from one of her color-overlapping experiments, behind it.

Sometimes play, including experimentation, is the best way to open up the intuition, relax the inner critic, and surprise ourselves with something new.

I nearly always start children's art classes with color. To me, color is the most important thing to "get" about art.  Line and form are important too, but color, if it's right, can stand on its own and carry a bad composition a long way.  Way down here in South Miami where the sun is bright, color is everywhere.  We have no problem with in-your-face, highly-saturated colors, from art deco peaches and ocean blues to the bright yellow-green of sunlight seen through banana leaves.

Children love rainbows, so that's where we begin.  I help them make a "real" rainbow with colors in their natural order - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. If they haven't already met, I introduce them to Roy G. Biv, the Rainbow Boy, who always knows what colors go next to each other and loves to blend them.  It's most fun to do this with chalk pastels which blend easily by rubbing gently, especially when you can wipe the chalk dust off your fingers onto your "clothes" (I keep old T-shirts to use as smocks).

Then comes the color wheel.  Paula and Sophia each make their own.  I give them identical instructions - three little pots of primary colors, then three little pots of secondary colors arranged just so in a circle - and watch them with amazement as they take their own paths into blending colors.  Colors next to each other in the rainbow or the color wheel will always make a beautiful third color.  Colors opposite each other on the color wheel will brighten each other if they are side-by-side, but make mud if they are combined.  These are the lessons of the first day.

Today there was time left over, so we experimented with abstract brush strokes using colors from the wheel, then color washes - water first, then a drop of paint to spread, then a drop of a related color to blend.  If there is extra water, it's fun to hold the paper up and let it drip!  We'll use these washes as backgrounds for paintings next week.

This was not the day for forms other than circles and arcs, nor was it the day for lines, accurately drawn or otherwise.  This was the day for color!  It was a great beginning.

I seem to have taken up doodling again. Maybe I'm not as interested in long meetings as I used to be. But they say people who doodle actually pay better attention than people who don't. I'm not so sure.

One thing I do know: Doodling is part of a creative process that spreads to envelop much more than its place in my notebook. I love the surprises - a #1 appears without intention or forethought. The word engage captures my attention over a half-hour of listening to a financial report. In fact, I go back to it the next day during another meeting, this time an after-event debriefing, to add more embellishments. After a two-hour meeting during which I've been doodling, I'm not only not bored, I'm looking for the unexpected, listening for the relevant word. I am noticeably more open, more engaged with a process that sees and hears the world through a quirky, kaleidoscope lens.

For years I have carried around a composition book which I refer to as "my brain."  I can't manage more than one of these at a time, so everything I do gets recorded in one book: to-do lists, grocery lists, meeting notes, phone numbers, random thoughts, passwords and screen names, hand-drawn maps and diagrams, and so on.  Lately I discovered I could buy unlined composition books online, so I bought a dozen. They are much better at encouraging doodling, writing crosswise on the page, and thinking outside the box. The resulting mix of words and images also helps me remember where things are. Where is the information about my old car? Oh yes, it's inside the oriental rug in the upper left-hand corner of the #1 page.  Doodling organizes "my brain" in more ways than one.

I think doodling might be contagious. I see people sneaking peeks at my doodles. I hope they try some of their own.

After three one-hour sessions, Sarah and Carolina are through painting these life-sized pictures of themselves. I am always surprised at how expressive children are. They have traced their bodies, painted backgrounds, given themselves clothing and features that say something about who they are. Children do not have to be asked to do this - they do it naturally.

Carolina has showed herself as sturdy and beautiful as a tree, blessing us with a peace sign. I love the way the tree's branches echo and expand upon her gesture. She herself seems as grounded as the tree.

Sarah has painted her energetic, playful self, as always working quickly, sure of what she wants. Her gestures are full of fun, her hands reaching out to the full extent of her space as though she wants to fill it all. She titled her painting "Super Sarah."

These paintings are full of life, and they have something to say. Good job, girls!

Once a year, my church has a big art show. It started 22 years ago as a hot dog stand alongside the even bigger Coconut Grove Art Show. Now the St. Stephen's Art Show rivals the bigger show in quality, if not quantity. It also draws artists from all over the country, and it has its own charms - a shady oak grove setting being high on the list. An admission price one tenth that of the bigger show is also a draw.

For some of our artists, a church setting is meaningful, charming, or at least quaint. A surprising and growing number of artists bring a work of art into the church early Sunday morning to be blessed at an Episcopal Mass. After the Mass, our priest puts on her baseball cap, and she and an assistant take a censor out and walk the show in sneakers and full regalia, swinging church incense into each booth, praying with artists who want to pray, laughing and talking with an array of show patrons, a few of whom tag along for a while. It's a tradition not to be missed.

For the next few days I, like practically every other parishioner at St. Stephen's, will do nothing but tend to the show. This yearly effort is a glue that binds us in a common effort and a shared experience. It is also, for me at least, an opportunity to think about the connection between art and spirituality. As an "Artist Liaison," I get to talk to many of the artists, and they seldom fail to bring it up. Most will say they like the connection with "church," even if they are not religious.

The experience of creativity can be very close to the experience of spirituality. I believe most artists are religious. They practice it every day.

Use more light colors than dark, says Sarah. She's right. She knows how to color her world - a big blob of white, a medium blob of yellow, and a tiny blob of green.

Carolina mixes brown from red and green, then adds white. Gray! This calls for orange. Finally, tree-trunk color. She wants to stand by a tree.

It's called "peach," not "flesh color," I remind myself. There are, after all, different colors of skin. We mix lots of it to get it right. We mix lots of all the colors!

This is as much as we can do today. We have painted our surroundings, but we will have to wait to see ourselves in them until next week.

I'm thinking about tomorrow's art class. We had a structured exercise the first week (color wheels and rainbows and the "Rainbow Boy," R.G. Biv). The second week we played (fanciful foil sculptures and free play time). This week it might be time for a little more structure again. Perhaps head and torso outlines on craft paper.

The colored marker will slightly tickle our head and shoulders as it makes our outline on the brown paper. We are always surprised by how big we are - how we fill our space. Then we color in our heads and upper bodies however we want to - literally or symbolically - with tempera paints, requiring a tarp on the floor and old t-shirts over our clothing. We may want to learn a little something about making a human face (the eyes are in the middle!). Then the background. Where are we? Are we in the color blue? Are we in a forest?

This is a two-hour project, meaning, in this case, two weeks - and attention spans to match. I think my girls are up to it.

Supply list:

Big tarp (got it)

Big t-shirts (got 'em)

Big paper

Washable markers (got 'em)

Tempera paint (need more colors)

Brushes

Photos to prove human eyes are in the middle of the head, not the top (got lots). There are other ways to demonstrate this. For example, I sometimes make dots by their eyes while outlining their heads. What a surprise!

My friend asked me why I haven't produced a canvas in some time. I can answer that. Even though, as any artist will tell you, it is boring to paint what you already know how to paint, I am reluctant to enter the place from which real creativity comes.

That creative place, like a secret garden, is available only with this key: what Arthur Koestler calls "innocence of perception." When we are anxious to please others with our art, we give up that innocence in exchange for approval. We learn the rules. This is why art therapists say, "Beware the great strength." We are less, not more, likely to be spontaneously creative when we are highly trained.

By the time we are adolescents, many of us have given up original creation altogether. Age 12 to 14 is a crucial creative stage, a tight passage through which many adults have not passed. Most people stop art activity at age 14. After childhood, a step into real creative space requires a big step away from what we think we know. To facilitate that step, it is sometimes helpful to have adult artists work with an unfamiliar medium or in an unfamiliar way. In working with children, this is almost never necessary.

Watching a child create, I can appreciate her thorough immersion in the art process. I know there is an element of magic in this. An engaged child will almost never ask for snacks, will be unaware of the passage of time. When parents come for pick-up, there will be cries of disbelief and an unwillingness, sometimes almost an inability, to disengage. Artist and teacher Robert Henri spoke of an engagement with creativity as "a flight into a higher state." It can be hard to make a gentle landing.

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." - Oscar Wilde

I would expect that from Oscar Wilde, author of A Portrait of Dorian Gray. It reminds me, though, that art can change us. Some works of art have what Native Americans call "medicine." They enter us deeply and become templates for change. As Rilke said in response to the Archaic Torso of Apollo, "You must change your life."

All this seems a bit nose-heavy for a playful activity like brushing pigment on paper or pressing a painted hand on the wall of a cave. Yet making or responding to art does change us, however subtly, and a timeless pause before one of Monet's huge water lily paintings can change forever the way we see the world.

It is with this in mind that I approach my students. There are a few rules, but not many. Mix primary colors to make secondary colors. Mix opposite colors to make brown (various shades of poop, as my students never fail to notice). And I have my preferences: fill up your space, don't try for perfect, experiment. Everything can be fixed. What will happen? I don't know. Will the painting have a life, and a voice? It will.

We stand on my stoop, my neighbor and I, talking about art, and children, and why it can be so hard to teach your children that for which you have passion and, perhaps, talent. My neighbor is an artist trying to give some art direction to her 11-year-old daughter. It's not going so well.

I remember my mother, a professional musician and singer, trying to teach me to sing. I stubbornly refused to learn, although I thought I wanted to, and soon mama and I were caught up in a head-to-head struggle from which neither of us could escape. Mama threw up her hands, and that was the end of my singing lessons.

I'm thinking, too, of "parallel play," that circumstance where two children play alongside but not with each other. This way of playing with a child, companioning but not watching, is the way I learned to do art therapy; it can also be a way of teaching art that is learning at its most relaxed. The experience is shared, the activity is spontaneous. We learn by playing.

The "art classes" have started up again. The little girls come over together after school and rush upstairs to my studio where their tools are laid out for them. Today they will crush aluminum foil, wrap it with tape, and paint it. They warm to the task slowly, experimenting with how much foil will be necessary, how tightly to crunch it, what shapes emerge. What do they see in the shapes? Sarah makes sea life (worm, anemone, rock, sponge, seaweed), working quickly, with energy. Carolina takes her time and decides on an alien with one eye at the end of a stalk, then a planet with a patchwork of colored continents. It reminds me of an art therapy exercise: "Create the planet that is you."

"When are we going to spatter-paint?" asks Sarah. This is her first time attending a series of 10 art experiences, but she has heard about the final session from her friends. "On the last day," I say. Spatter-painting is always their passion, something to look forward to. It is permission to be messy, to fling color into their world, to play.

Art should be fun, I tell them. If it isn't fun, we'll do something else.