ATCs for China

Artistic Trading Cards (ATCs) have been around since the mid 1990s.  They originated as a calling card or business card for artists.  They are original mini works of art that are traded: you give a card you get a card.  ATCs are now traded world wide.  I have a large collection from my years on yahoo art groups making and trading.  The only standard is they MUST be the size of a baseball card: 2-1/2" x 3-1/2".  Other than that, anything goes- paint, marker, crayons, collage...

While my husband, daughter, friend and I are in China we will be serving at a performing arts school that educates 135 very poor, rural mountain kids.  We will be teaching Bible lessons on Creation and Noah's Ark.  I plan on making ATCs with the Chinese kids with the themes of: weather, animals and food and trading them with the cards that I am bringing from kids here.

Here are some examples I made.  I still have a bit of coloring to do.

"Sunny" and playing around with Van Gogh's "Starry Nights".

These are some of the 90 cards made by my students at Grace Christian School.  I will be taking them to China, making trading cards with the students in China and returning home with the cards to swap out.

My son is working on this one.

Surrealism

Home school art classes will be working on a surrealism project based on Salvador Dali's "The Elephants" (picture further down).  Dali was a surrealism painter born in Spain in 1904.  As a child he created very detailed drawings at a young age.  His parents sent him to art school when he was older.  He studied classical style of painting and was introduced to Dada, an avant garde movement of art.

He met artists Picasso and Miro and tried cubism and impressionism and then met Magritte who introduced him to surrealism.

What is surrealism?  It is a philosophical movement that said the way to find the truth in the world was thru the subconscious mind and dreams rather than logical thought.  Hmm, sound way out there!  Dali studied Dr Sigmund Freud's theories and used this method to create reality from his dreams and subconscious thoughts.  He mentally changed reality to what he wanted it to be, not necessarily what it was.  This became his way of life and was expressed in his art.   Dali painted until 1980 and had to retire due to permanent trembling in his hands.  He died of a heart failure in 1989 at age 84.

"The Elephants", painted 1948.  Sorry still figuring out how to add photos!

Dali's most famous work "The Persistence of Memory", 1931

Art Party

I did an art party for a 13 year old's birthday this weekend.  The theme was whimsical birds.  The girls combined collage and paint on canvas.  They did a great job and everyone went home with a super cool piece of art work!

Update on Warm/Cool Suns

We spent a second class working and some students finishing up the warm/cool suns.  When completed we will outline the suns in black.

Look at the beautiful blending of warm colors in this project!

Finished project.  Nice job.

Drying after first class. I enjoy a project like this where the students are given some guidelines to work with and we end up with such a variety of work.

Paper Mache Plastic Eggs - Step II

Here is the finished egg. I used craft acrylic paints from AC Moore.  With all the texture from the paper mache, I needed several coats to get in all the cracks. It would be nice to seal the egg with Modge Podge or a gel medium.  Gel medium is found in the fine art section of the local craft stores or in an art catalog.  I prefer this over Modge Podge because the MP will get tacky in humid weather.  Gel medium can also be used as a glue in collage.  It comes in a matte or glossy finish.