Daily Prompt: Express Yourself

Posted on April 5, 2014 by Mama Cormier

Do you love to dance, sing, write, sculpt, paint, or debate? What’s your favourite way to express yourself, creatively?

People who have been following me for awhile know that I love to paint and experiment with new art forms. I loved drawing when I was in elementary school, especially when one of my teachers took the time to teach us about perspective and shading. It opened a whole new world for me.

The unfortunate part is that once I went to high school I no longer took art classes. There was no room in my timetable for it. I knew at an very early age that I wanted to be a Family Studies teacher. That meant taking a lot of science classes in high school and of course my one and only elective I had went to Family Studies classes.

Once I started teaching I spent the next 17 years working side by side with the art teachers because we shared an open concept space or were only separated by a door. At the time all middle school students took Unified Arts, which included visual art, shop and family studies. I loved watching the creative process that happened in all three disciplines but I didn’t venture outside my own comfort zone and try my hand at woodworking or painting.

Once my own children approached adulthood the yearning to paint grew stronger and in my late 40s I took my first art class. I loved it. I started with folk art and then moved on to watercolour. In recent years I’ve experimented with acrylics and just recently tried oil painting. This year past I also took a pottery class and loved that as well and last week I attended a 6 hour workshop on dyeing fabrics with indigo dye and of course I’m crazy about that too.

As you can see I need to try new things all the time. Recently I took on the job of teaching art to grades 2 to 5 along side my library duties. I have the best job, books and art. What a perfect combination.

Here is a small sampling of some of the art forms I’ve played with:

An earlier attempt at collage.

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Smooth objects

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Mama Cormier

….had to go back into the vault to find these photos

For more fun photos of ‘smooth’ objects go to Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge.

One More Pottery Class

Posted on June 17, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…. where does the time go?

It just seemed like yesterday when I started my classes almost 10 weeks ago. Tonight was our second last class and all my pieces have been fired. One piece needs to be glazed and I started a new piece which should also be ready to glaze on Thursday.

I was really excited to see the glazed pieces tonight. My first piece was a bit disappointing. It was much darker than I anticipated and it had a very flat finish. I’m going to paint another colour over it on Thursday to lighten it up.

The plate and the bowl that I made I glazed with an apple green and than added a sapphire blue on top. I really liked how these two pieces turned out.

The last glazed pieces are my berry bowl and under plate. They were both made from a white clay and I applied a clear glaze to both pieces. This way the fruit that I add to the bowl will contrast nicely with the white.

My teacher, D, suggested that we make a new piece tonight and save our glazing for our last class on Thursday. I really wanted to try a new technique that involved rolling a ball of clay into a slab and then pressing a design into it. After that you cut out a base shape and build your walls with shapes that you cut in any pattern that you want. I cut out a bean shaped base and then started to layer my sides around the base. It was a lot of fun and allowed me to be a bit creative.

I hope it survives the firing. Now I need to figure out what colour to glaze it.

Still Waiting to be Fired

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Mama Cormier

…..my pottery that is

At my pottery class tonight I trimmed the bowl that I made two weeks ago. I did the trimming on the wheel. It was fun shaving off the excess clay and making the footing for my bowl. It probably doesn’t look much different.

The new project that I worked on was a tall vase. I rolled out a slab and rolled it around the a tube and then attached a bottom and decorated it with stamps. Now it sits and waits to be fired along with all my other projects.

My berry bowl and it’s saucer wait for their first firing and my plate and jar have been fired once and are now glazed and wait for the final firing. I’m most anxious to see how the glazed pieces will look.

Cheers!

An Artsy Couple of Days

Posted on May 11, 2013 by Mama Cormier

….pottery and children’s Mother’s Day gifts

On Thursday I went to my pottery class and was delighted to find that my pot and platter had been fired and were ready to be glazed. Deciding on which glazes to use was probably the most difficult part of the process. It’s like deciding on what colour to paint a room. So many choices.

Before I tackled the glazing I cleaned up the berry bowl I started last week and it is now ready to be fired as well. Here is a photo of it upside down. I need to make a saucer to go underneath the bowl so that the water that drains from the berries has somewhere to go other than the table it is sitting on.

As most of you know I teach 110 students art at my school. This week I had many students trying to finish up projects that they could give their moms for Mother’s Day this Sunday. Most of these projects didn’t start off as gifts for mom but as the day got closer I may have suggested that they would make terrific presents. Unfortunately not all the students were able to finish their works of art and I encouraged them to give the project as is and then bring them back and finish them next week.

Next year I’m going to have to either plan earlier for a simple project that I can start with the students and then let the teacher finish it in class or leave the gift making entirely up to the homeroom teacher. It’s too difficult to organize that many projects when you only see students once a week for an hour and twenty minutes. Someone is always away or doesn’t use their class time well and then has nothing for me to evaluate or doesn’t finish special projects that are intended to be gifts.

Here are a few of the successful projects that are making their way home for Mom this weekend.

The top two projects were made by boys in grade 3. These quilt squares were completely hand stitched and then decorated with embroidery stitches and buttons. The third project was made by a girl in grade 4. In this class the students had to design a coat of arms and then they transfered the design onto a foam plate and rolled printer’s ink onto it and transferred it onto fabric. When the ink dried they attached a piece of batting to the underside and then stitched the lines with coloured threads (embroidery floss or crochet cotton). The student for this project wanted her piece attached to a bag which we purchased from a dollar store.

Here’s another quilted square made by a girl in grade 3. She decided to frame her piece. The stitching in her piece is outstanding.

Note the tiny cross-stitich that she added on the right side.

The student who completed the following piece took everything that I taught her about pioneer quilts to heart and included fabric from some of her clothes that she had outgrown. The pink ruffled fabric is from her pyjamas and the studded fabric in the middle came from a pair of socks. She liked the idea of making a frame from twigs to give it a rustic feel and made it completely on her own after I showed her how to attach the branches with a God’s Eye pattern. I was very surprised that she pulled it off because it was quite an awkward process. The only thing I helped her with was attaching the square to the inside of her frame. What do you think? Pretty amazing for an 8 year old.