testing

While taking a break from clearing things out of the family home, I’ve taken a couple of entertaining “personality tests”. The first was on HGTV.com, a “Style” test – I came out “Eccentric with a touch of sweet”, and then my “Personal DNA” report was that I am a “Respectful Creator”.

both tests are fun and free.

Marc3

Much to my surprise I discovered today that my work appeared on the website Marc3. I don’t know how it got there, and don’t know much about the site because I do not read Spanish. Maybe once school starts again one of my students can read more about it for me. In any event, it is a very handsome site and I like the other art that is displayed there so I’m happy! It is like being in a group show except lots more people see the art.

I discovered it when it turned up as a “referring link” on StatCounter.

Art Camp starts tomorrow, and as usual I’ll have second graders. My first year of doing art camp they whipped through my entire weeks’ curriculum the first day!!! But I’m an old hand at it now, they only scare me a little. (Glitter fingerpaint is key—-in Cyan, Magenta and Yellow, and they discover color mixing on their own, it is pretty fun) Hopefully I’ll have to pictures to post.

Women in Art

Thanks to Judy Decker on the artsednet list for directing me to this wonderful thing.

part 2

The photos in this post and the one below are from this semester’s Middle School students. We wove functional bags (the boys don’t like me to call them purses) in the 6th grade (some are photographed with flaps open) and the 7-8th graders went completely crazy making sculptural figures from wire, masking tape and newspaper. I’ll add more of those tomorrow, my school computer has no way to rotate images. (hard as that is to believe!) The bag to the right shows blending, egyptian knot, vertical stripes, and joining (the triangle), all required patterns, but of course they can make those patterns do whatever they want. This boy created his own pattern, using the yellow black and green in a very interesting way between the stripes and the triangle. I especially like the skull bag. The red eyes are a nice touch.

As for the figures below, there is a Sumo champion and a moment of drama between a smurf and a giant caterpillar that is attacking the smurf’s toadstool home.

A few good pieces

International connections

Although it might not be a normal thing for an art class to do, this semester some of my students have been “epals” with a class in Italy. One of my students from last semester, Josh, used to talk all the time about the Food Network, so when one of the Italian students began his first letter “My name is Francesco and I love food!” I knew I had a match. Recently, Francesco sent along a recipe for Spaghetti Alla Carbonara. Josh isn’t in my class anymore, but conveniently he is now in Home Ec – so I brought the ingredients and this week he cooked the dish in Mrs. McGill’s Home Ec. class. I was lucky enough to have a plate delivered to me as well. It was delicious!

end of the year

I only have a couple of days with my current students before I turn them over to whatever summer means to them. For some it is holidays in nice places, for some it means endless hours at computer games, and for others it means untold abuse and/or no hot meals until their nasty but free school lunches start again. It always astonishes me that they suddenly want to start projects now, three school days before the end. It kills me to say no, but I must. whatever variety of prayers you make, make them for public school teachers now. Whatever the news says about us, our hears are breaking right now.

Playing with pictures

I’ve been playing with some of the photos I took in Italy last summer. I want to be able to frame a few that I especially like.

I have several good excuses for letting a year pass. The day we got home we discovered that my mother (who lived with me) had fallen the night before and was hospitalized (and sadly, died a month later). Also, a close of Kent’s had died that same day, at the same hospital. Basking in travel memories was not on the agenda.

So as summer approaches, I find myself thinking about the trip.I took a 120 Agfa Clack that I had converted into a pinhole camera. Kent took a digital Nikon. I also too a very carefully planned sketching kit, but only got one drawing done the whole time.

The two photos above are from Tivoli, both digital. I’ve posted the roses before, but now I’ve made them into sepia and have been trying to tint the roses softly. Not successfully yet. The photos below are pinhole photos I took with the converted Agfa Clack. Left is a window on the inside of the Coloseum in Rome, looking out, with the light streaming in. The one on the right is also a pinhole from the Coloseum, of one of the capitals. For someone like me, an artist but not a photographer, a pinhole camers is a lot of fun. My goal was to come back with one photo I liked, but I got about eight. I keep meaning to make a section of my website for them. (a summer project). These are actually scans from the contact sheet. The photo company I was using closed its doors before I got prints made, so I need to find another place – especially since I still have film in the camera from Galveston beach at Christmas.

shipping to London

Well, my first efforts at Etsy were, literally, instantly successful. I put on some tiny collages out of the good bits of failed woodcuts….I sometimes chine colle in reverse, and stepped away from the computer, came back ( I was one room away) and had sold three to a buyer in London! I won’t be able to retire on these prices, but it is fun to think of my little pieces being in one of my favorite places in the world.

Etsy, here I come!

Tonight I started working on my Etsy store. I have a website and paypal and all that, but I think it is a good idea to have this as well. Also, I think it might be a good place to offer all the little things I make on a whim that I really don’t want on my website, and some simple lower priced things as well, so expect some little landscapes, altered books, experiments, who knows what. I’ve been thinking about printing some of my woodblocks on tea towels, so there’s just no telling. I’m listed under Betty C Bowen Fine Art, unless somebody thinks of a better name. You have to search with no spaces – BettyCBowen – will do.