ArtSeed Fine Arts Summer Camp

Bayview Opera House

July 8 - July 18, 2003

Contact ArtSeed: Josefa Vaughan, Founding Artist and Director

Box 401177, San Francisco, CA 94140-1177
Email: artseed@josefa.com
ArtSeed Hotline:(415) 641-5909, Fax: (415) 641-4442

ArtSeed Mission:

ArtSeed is a grassroots nonprofit enterprise that has grown out of innovative art making and teaching practices. ArtSeed artists work with various individuals and organizations to develop interdisciplinary arts projects while providing long-term vocational guidance to the young or disadvantaged. Our mission is to invite people of all ages and backgrounds to grasp, utilize and transform the arts through programs that include collaborative workshops, exhibitions, field trips, commissions, and private art lessons. Behind-the-scenes "HouseCalls" to homes, schools and work environments culminate in festive "Shebangs" and on-going "GrapeVines" referrals through our website and our living Directory of Resources for Artists and Youth. We work with other professions and arts groups of all kinds (both experimental and traditional). By fostering shared creativity, critical thinking and peaceful self-expression we aim to expand the meaning of art, enrich families and cross-fertilize the potential of people from diverse communities.

Teaching Artists:

Josefa Vaughan

Marissa Kunz (marissaartseed@yahoo.com)

Curriculum:

Day 1 and 2: Collage/Coloring/Drawing

Objective: To explore composition through drawing, coloring and collage. To discover how, in art (as in life), we are given opportunities to fill a blank space, color in outlines already given and arrange readymade stuff (things that have been chosen for us). We can create our own unique expressions in all these different situations.

Terms discussed: Collage, juxtapose, superimpose, chance procedures, abstraction, representation

Materials: National geographic magazines, Xerox of drawings/patterns/designs, scissors, Elmer’s glue and glue sticks, brushes, rollers, paper, markers, pencils, smocks

Process: Cutting, arranging and gluing. Demonstrations. Students made collages from three elements: 1) pictures they chose from a magazine, after pictures were given to them at random, 2) line drawings of abstractions they colored, 3) drawings they made from scratch. Students cut parts of each component out, arranged and glued them onto their paper. Next students tied the elements together visually by coloring over the collage with bold oil pastels and markers.

Wrap up: Each students’ collage was presented to the class with comments from the teacher and other students. This day ended with a personal story from Josefa about growing up in Texas.

Day 3: Sketchbooks/Drawing/Painting

Objective: To introduce the use of sketchbooks in art making, To explore basic various drawing and painting techniques.

Terms discussed: Sketchbooks, drawing media (dust, oil, water), primary colors (red, blue, yellow), secondary colors (orange, purple and green), warm colors (yellows, reds and oranges), cool colors (blues, greens and purple)

Materials: Fifty homemade 10x5 sketchbooks, paper, acrylic and tempera paint, rags, brushes, smocks, charcoal, litho crayons, markers.

Process: Students were introduced to the idea of how artists use sketchbooks to practice drawing and to experiment. Each student was given a sketchbook to take home. In class, they decorated the cover of their books. Inside their sketchbooks, students explored different fine arts drawing media: charcoal, waxy litho sticks and markers.

Next, students were asked to pick their favorite drawing from their sketchbook. Students received a painting demonstration and learned how to paint using different sized brushes and mixing colors. Students learned to describe large color fields first and then use smaller brushes to fill in details.

Day 4: Monochromatic Portraits

Objective: To create monochromatic portraits with various fine arts drawing media.

Terms discussed: Monochromatic, portraits, highlights, shadows, reflected light

Materials: Paper, white acrylic paint, rags, brushes, smocks, charcoal, litho crayons, markers

Process: Both teaching artists did side-by-side demonstrations of two types of portraits: one realistic and one cartoon-like. Students discussed the differences between the two in terms of lines and shading. Students learned how to shade, use white as highlights, and to draw over mistakes rather erase them. Each student made numerous portraits.

Teaching artists also conducted a “portrait war” where they took turns drawing over the same work in a visual tug-of-war between cartoon and realistic interpretations of a face.

Day 5: Portraits, Landscapes and Still Life with A Bug Theme!

Objective: To learn about three subject matters in art: portraits, landscapes and still life through drawing and painting. To appreciate the diversity of insects and understand their main characteristics.

Terms discussed: Portraits, Landscapes and Still Life, organic and geometric shapes

Materials: Canvas (bank moneybags!), tempera paint, rags, brushes, smocks

Process: This lesson started with a personal story about Thailand and the way her parents met. This story segued into a story about bugs of Thailand, as students were to use insects for their theme today. They were shown pictures of insects and discussed ideas for their insect painting. Students then drew an outline on their canvas bags. Next, they got a chance to paint on their canvas bags.

Today we also had a special guest artist from Hunter’s Point, William Scott. William did a demonstration of a portrait and also led a group portrait where students took turns completing a large drawing!

Wrap up: This class ended with a display and discussion of all student work as well a showcase of singing talent by the teachers and students!

Day 6: Perspective and Imaginary Cityscapes

Materials: Paper with string taped to the vanishing point and a horizon line, pencils, erasers, rulers, color pencils

Terms discussed: Perspective (one point), horizon line, vanishing point, scale

Process: After discussing a brief history and definition of perspective using a large reproduction of a work by Raphael, students watched a demonstration on drawing one point perspective using the special stringed paper as a guide. Students started with the easiest item: a road. Then students learned how to draw a cube. Next they were encouraged to draw trees or other objects that get smaller the further back they went. We also talked about five ways to make things look like they recede into distant space: (1) objects get smaller the closer they get to the vanishing point, (2) edges get softer and fuzzier as objects recede in space, (3) closer objects generally appear lower on the page than distant ones, (4) warm colors make objects seem closer while cool colors recede and (5) parallel lines and arrangements of objects come together and eventually meet at the vanishing point along the horizon.

Wrap up: Finished work was presented, discussed and hung up on the walls at the end of class.

Day 7: Sculpture/Construction with a Insect Theme

Objective: To create 3 dimensional insect sculptures from a variety of recycled objects and art materials.

Materials: Each student received an envelope with beads, pipe cleaners, colored aluminum paper, fancy tape, various fasteners, toilet paper tubes or corks, clay, and scissors.

Terms discussed: Sculpture, constructions, fasteners, (insect parts: thorax, antennae, legs, wings, abdomen)

Process: Students looked at and colored pictures of insects for ideas. The teacher then demonstrated how to make a bee from the materials available. Students were encouraged to experiment with the materials and find new ways of combining those materials. Students then worked independently while teachers came around with a cart of additional supplies and advice.

Day 8: Review: Making Miniature Magnet Drawings, and Sculpture for Small Jewelry Boxes.

Objective: To discuss the difference between Still Life arrangements and Landscapes and review terms and concepts discussed throughout the camp. To understand how objects in art become symbols for other things such as feelings and identity. To develop our tactile intelligence, become familiar with the properties of various materials by learning how to manipulate them.

Terms discussed: Symbolism, still life. Review of artists introduced in the camp including Raphael, Michelangelo, da Vinci, van Gogh, Pollock, Gentileschi, Twombly and Morandi.

Materials: Flat magnets, recycled jewelry boxes, various drawing materials and various construction materials.

Wrap-up: This final day ended with celebration, refreshments and student art presentations! A certificate of completion signed by the teachers was given to each student to be individually decorated. Questionaires evaluating the camp were filled out by and collected from each student, teacher, volunteer, BVOH staff, parent or observer from the community who happened by.

Counting teaching artists Marissa Kunz and Josefa Vaughan there were 55 participants total: 40 elementary school age students, 9 teenage volunteers and 4 adults chaperones. We have evaluations and observation assessments from these participants as well as from other community members and parents who dropped by during and after the workshop hours.

Here are some of our favorite quotes from participants:

Ashia Coleman, student, age 8: ‘’I enjoyed everything, creating all kinds of things.’’

Brandy, student, age 8; ‘’ I would like to share with the whole world, if I had enough.”

Mary Midget, chaperone/teacher: Josefa, Marissa and Bonnie worked under challenging conditions. Assistant Bonnie was able to keep the supplies flowing while the art staff kept the projects moving. The students were excited when they return to the Bayview Opera House and saw their artwork hanging on the walls. The staff personalized their art by sharing their personal stories. Allowing them to discuss and present their art honored the students. I am very excited about the program. I look forward to it coming to the Bayview again. I have been teaching in the area for twenty years, the program is unique, stimulating and fun for the students.”

Laura Morgan, chaperone/teacher: “I hope the program will continue since the children benefited so much from it. They need this opportunity.”

WE DID IT! Thanks to the Bayview Opera House and Shipyard Trust for the Arts, ArtSeed’s Fine Arts Summer Camp 2003 was an all-consuming endeavor and we believe, a real success. We are grateful to the BVOH staff and interns and to ArtSeed’s assistants: Bonnie Kirkland, Baktaash Sorkgabi, Monica Mercado and Stephanie Mejia. We would like also to thank Heidi Hardin for introducing us to new constituents in the Bayview Hunters Point Schools through her Children’s Mural Program, the inspiration that got this show on the road!

We want to find ways to bring about more meaningful connections between the 300 artists at the Shipyard and residents of Bayview Hunter’s Point through a proposed apprenticeship project. We hope to follow up on a core of students who expressed profound desire to continue working with us. One way this can happen is if four pairs of artists from apprenticeships proposed to S.T.A.R. were to commit to one teaching session for younger kids a month. Some of these same youngsters would then get follow up classes once a week from four different apprenticeship pairs. These mentoring partnerships could be comprised of selected interns from the BVOH program coupled with selected artists from a variety of disciplines such as painting, sculpture, video or performance. We are looking for funds to provide honoraria for artists and stipends to apprentices. To showcase work produced in these apprenticeships we are proposing to organize a citywide 2004 Fine Arts Summer Apprenticeship Summit.

For more information contact Josefa Vaughan at (415) 641-5909