Kids Cafe Art Lectures

Today is Friday and thank goodness! It doesn't have the same meaning for me as for others, as I work part-time and am usually off three-four days a week anyways, but the sentiment is nice all the same. I was jamming in the car this morning to happy bouncy music (i.e. this song, which was making me laugh and sing along loudly to repeatedly) to get me excited about work. Don't get me wrong, I love my job. I've just been so exhausted feeling lately, that sometimes it takes a bit more encouragement for me to get in the mood. I fell backwards and hit my head on a stool last Friday and it's been hurting, plus making it hard for me to sleep (as I hit the back of it). I finally made it to the doctor yesterday and it turns out I got a first-grade concussion, which is essentially a small but not serious one. It sounds scary though. Mostly just my head hurts every now and then and I keep getting headaches, though I usually get those anyways as I have migraines. The one this morning hurt like a mother but thankfully I had some Motrin in the car. 

My first post on this blog was about Kids Cafe, a program that I'm involved in which I do every week. It's a really great program which I enjoy doing. As I said on that first post, I usually do mini-art or history lectures and then we do a craft. I'd like to start sharing them on this blog, so that will probably be my Friday post (at least until I run out of them). I was rather proud of last week's as I did it on the Dutch Baroque artist Jan Vermeer and his use of the camera obscura (aka pinhole camera). I made my own version of the pinhole camera, which was really cool once I finally figured out how it actually worked. Anyways, the first couple ones I did with a spoken lecture and some pictures on the magnetic board. After a few weeks, I realized that most people couldn't see them so I should make it larger. So I started using a Powerpoint followed by a craft and this is what I've been doing since then. I will try to post images of my personal art examples as well. 

Disclaimer: Most of the writing was done by different people and I just edited it, some is my own; for the text I borrowed, I have included where I got the information from. 

This particular Kids Cafe went over pretty well, considering it was the first program I  did (the first week at least). I'm not sure very many were listen, then as well as now, but I still really enjoy doing them and I think that shows with how much prep goes into them and the way I am presenting them. The good feedback I get from the attendees is usually from parents, though some kids obviously like it too. I really liked the paint chip poetry, but didn't actually do an endangered animals coloring sheet myself. 

Kids Café: Color Wheel and Pop Art - Jan 6^th

·         Introduction: Welcome to Kid’s Café. My name is Miss Rachel and we’re going to learn a little about art. Today we’re going to be talking about the color wheel and learn a little about Pop Art.

·         Primary Colors: colors that are not created with any other colors

o   Red, Blue, Yellow

·         Secondary Colors: colors made from mixing two primary colors

o   Orange, Violet, Green

·         Warm Colors (red, orange, yellow) and Cool Colors (blue, purple, and green)

·         Pop Art – from the 1950s – 1960s

o   A famous French artist named Marcel Duchamp said in 1917 “that any object  could be art, as long as the artist intended it as such.” The movement centered around painting, sculpture and printmaking. It has been defined as (see Pop Art quote below). Pop Art uses images from popular culture such as comic, advertising esp product labels, news, and other cultural images. It can also use found objects and tends to be rather kitschy (tacky and cheap)

§  Taken from: https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-1010/pop/a/pop-art and http://www.moma.org/collection/theme.php?theme_id=10170 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_art

o   Artists included

§  Andy Warhol: most famous American artist of this period – made printmaking more artistic and less commercial 

§  Jasper Johns: incorporated symbols such as numbers, flags, maps, and targets into his paintings 

§  Roy Lichtenstein: based his early images off comics 

§  Robert Rauschenberg: famous for creating what he called “combines” or mixed media art using found objects; his most famous example is Monogram, which combines a found object painting with a stuffed goat with a tire around its middle and its face painted 

§  Wayne Thiebaud (tee-bow): very colorful paintings of common objects, most famously his cakes 

·         Activities:

o   Andy Warhol Endangered Species Suite 1983

§  Give out kids 4-square images of one of the Endangered Animals used in Warhol’s painting (use coloring sheets - I used a butterfly, tree frog, rhino and elephant) and have them color them in primary colors or complimentary colors (colors that are opposite from each other on the color wheel) - Most kids didn't color them this way, but it was still fun

o   Color Poetry

§  Get kids to fill out Color Poetry sheet and then give them paint chip cards (the square Behr ones) - I only had two kids do this activity, which I was a little upset with because I thought it was really cool; I had originally wanted to include this activity not only because it is cool but because some people, myself included, are better with words than art. The below examples are the ones from the website I found the activity on. 

§  Taken from: http://www.arttherapyblog.com/color-meanings-and-color-symbolism-chart.html

Warm & Cool Colors

Marcel Duchamp’s Fountain 1917

Pop Art has been called “‘Popular (designed for a mass audience); Transient (short term solution); Expendable (easily forgotten); Low Cost; Mass Produced; Young (aimed at Youth); Witty; Sexy; Gimmicky; Glamorous; and Big Business’.”

Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans 1962

Jasper John’s Target with Four Faces, 1955

Roy Lichtenstein’s Drowning Girl 1963

Robert Rauschenberg’s Monogram

Wayne Thiebaud’s Confections 1962

Kids Cafe and The Kraken

We have a program that the library is co-sponsoring with a local food bank and the USDA called Kids Cafe. Basically we give a wholesome snack to children 0-18 with an enrichment program. I doesn't have to be fancy, just has to be vaguely educational. I like to make an effort with my programs and have been using them as an opportunity to expose kids to art. My undergraduate degree was in Art History and I love to be able to use it when I can, plus I like to teach people about art. In addition, I know a lot of schools have cut art programs because of all the budget cuts, so I figure that they will be predominantly learning something new. Overall, I have really enjoyed the mini-lectures I have given, despite the time constraints, as I am limited to basically 10-15 minutes, and then we do a craft. I've gotten to research cool artist like Van Gogh, Kandinsky, Chihuly, Matisse, and even cool historical periods/cultures like the Ancient Egyptians. 

Dale Chihuly's The Sun and Black Nijima Floats

This month I'm am attempting to do some programs around poetry as it is National Poetry Month. Last year, I blogged every day with a different poem. I don't have as much time this year. Today's programs was on "Haikus and Origami". Needless to say the origami was more popular, even though I was super excited about the haikus as they are one of my favorite poetical forms. Anyways, I have decided to post this poem today because I recently found it while reading a children's nonfiction book with my son on the Kraken entitled Here There Be Monsters: The Kraken and the Giant Squid by H.P. Newquist. I highly recommend the book. 

The Kraken

by Lord Alfred Tennyson

Below the thunders of the upper deep, 

Far, far beneath in the abysmal sea, 

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millenial growth and height; 

And far away from the sickly light, 

From many a wonderous grot and secret cell

Unnumbered and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie

Battening upon huge sea worms in his sleep, 

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep; 

Then once by man and angels be seen, 

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.