Princeton Art Museum

This trip to the Museum was an Art Club event but, anyone in ARC could sign up. We had only 7 people sign up, so it was quite manageable. We had 2 docents waiting for us when we arrived, so we split up into 2 groups. Our docent was very knowledgeable, but I think we spent too much time on too few pieces of art. I would have moved us around more, but, I wasn't in charge. I did spy a large collage in the gallery with modern art, so I asked if we could see it. She allowed us to go off course a little, so that was good.  In this gallery there was one of those Andy Warhol Marilyn Monroe prints.  I had shown everyone a Marilyn on the first day of Art Club (along with the Mona Lisa and American Gothic and some other very famous paintings) so it was cool to see it in person at the museum. I think at least some of the Art Clubbers remembered seeing it.

I want to resume Art Club in September. I'm thinking that I will have everyone write and illustrate a book. More info on that coming soon.

Collage Class Wrap Up

The final Art Club class was Tuesday, May5th. Everyone mounted their collages onto black presentation board. Some Art Clubbers could not attend due to Special Olympic schedules, and one Art Clubber was ill. No problem, we mounted their collages for them. Then we put them up and had a critique. That went better than expected; sometimes it is hard to talk about your own art. We managed to come up with names or at least descriptive words for all of the collages.

Patti Johnson asked us to send the collages to her so they could be hung in the ARC office.

At this point we had special, art opening style snacks, apple juice, cheese and crackers and oreos. (Thanks for shopping, Kate!) See a picture of the staff relaxing with their snacks.

I spread a large piece of paper over the table and set out buckets of magic markers and once again, everyone got creative.

On Saturday we will be visiting the Princeton University Art Museum. Check the blog to hear about this adventure.

A Way to Make a Collage

I used these images in the Art Club class on collage to help get the students started.

When I make a collage, I usually start with an interesting image. The image might come out of my collection or I could search through magazines for something fresh. I found this pumpkin in a Martha Stewart Magazine and I really liked it. I already had this goat that I really liked, and I put them together.

In picture #3, i just wanted to point out that everything looks cool with wings. You can put wings on almost anything and make it look magical.

Ultimately, I did not keep the wings on my goat. I found a lot of nice pictures of fruit that I decided to use, including and apple that was grasped in a hand. A lot of my collages have kind of surreal look to them. I just get a kick out of that.

At this point in the process, I've made up a story about what is going on in the collage. Sometimes I will add words that help explain. Here, we just have a goat that likes fruit. Maybe the goat is having a dream about fruit!

The April 28 Class

The Art Clubbers really seemed to enjoy themselves as they assembled all of the pictorial elements they collected the week before. Today's pictures are of Josh's collage and here is Tory with her "Mantini" collage. (We had a lot of Men's Health magazines around!) Click on any image to enlarge. They are very clever.

The first thing we did was have everyone come into the kitchen for a demonstration. I went over the posters I had made to remind everyone of a way to assemble their collage. I collected some images and made a collage for them. I had a little cup with Modge Podge, and a foam brush and painted the back of my elements and glued them down. I think this way is better than everyone using a bottle of Elmer's glue. Those tips are forever clogging up.

After the demonstra-tion, everyone got their own cup of glue and a foam brush. They picked from a variety of different papers to use for a background and set to work. At this point I learned that it may not be such a hot idea to let people bring their projects home. Some did not come back to class. It was not a tragedy, they just had to start over and find new images.

Some people finished in a hurry. Twenty minutes into a two-hour class and I had calls of, "I'm finished!" Yikes! I asked if they might like to put words into their collage. Some said yes, so the hunt was on once again. We looked through the magazines for letters, creating our words "ransom note" style. Jimmy's was particularly successful. Leann spelled her name out this way on her collage.

Then the artists needed to decide if they wanted glitter on their collage. I am particularly fond of glitter, and all things sparkly. I think it can make a collage look magical, Not everyone went for the idea, but some did. We went to the kitchen, where I had a glitter station set up. I did my best to keep the mess down, but, you know, its glitter! I would say 90% of glitterers went for silver. Nick's rock and roll cave man collage really came to life when he used glitter. The other choice was white glitter, which ends up looking kind of frosty. People who had previously rejected glitter were now lining up to make their collages magical. Mary Glasser created a great border of swirly lines out of glitter. Amy Coldreck's spare use of glitter added just a little bit of sparkle but did not overwhelm her tiger-stripe background.

The next and final Art Club class for this session is May 5. I'll see if I can get the artists to talk about their choices and hopefully come up with titles.