Kids Cafe Art Lecture: Australian Aboriginal Art

I've been a bit MIA from the blog. Personal/Professional life is getting all crazy again. I just started another free online class, this one through Vanderbilt University called Online Gaming: Literature, New Media, and Narrative. As the course overview says, the class is " a multi-genre multimedia tour of how literature, film, and games engage in storytelling. It will also take us to some landmarks of romance literature, the neverending story that lies behind most fantasy games: J.R.R. Tolkein's The Fellowship of the Ring, a bit of Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and poems by Keats, Tennyson, Browning, and others." Anyways, that just sounded really intriguing to me. The course talks about all kinds of gaming, especially online gaming, but focuses in on Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO for short), which I have played twice previously and am playing again now for the course and because it is enjoyable. 

I had an interview for a Librarian I position in my library system on Monday (next step up, would've been my first professional library position as you have to have a Masters to get it). There were three positions available, and I was hoping for one of them, but I was not added to the list for the next interview. Oh well, I will try again when another position opens up. The Youth Services Department getting ready for Summer Programming again and the Summer Reading Program starts in June. As soon as we have some written materials, I'm going to try to do some outreach to a local school and some daycares to get them all excited for it and get more kids enrolled. I'm scheduled to do a summer program on Food Photography, which should be pretty interesting. I think it'll end up being super Macro (up-close) and look something like the following:

On to Kid's Cafe. For my second week of Kids Cafe, we did Australian Aboriginal Art. I knew a little bit about it before I started researching, but honestly didn't know much and it was fascinating to learn facts like they only started using canvas about 40 years ago, and before that it was more of a temporary spiritual art. I was really excited about this program (both the presentation and the activity) and the kids seemed to have fun with it, even though making all those dots was pretty time-consuming. I was rather proud of my art examples that week, even if the program crowd was small. I showed the kids some pics so they could get an idea of what dot painting actually is. I compared them to European examples, like Georges Seurat's 1884 painting A Sunday at La Grande Jatte and then I showed them actual examples of artist-created dot paintings (in part to spark creativity and in part just to give them examples) and ones that kids and adults had done in imitation of this style. My art examples have a brown painted background as that is the traditional background color. Not bad for my first attempt at this style of art, I was rather pleased with myself. 

·         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 Australian Aboriginal Art

·         Where is Australia? Get globe to show kids

·         Aboriginals is the name for native Australians, kind of like our Native American Indians here in the US

·         Australian Aboriginal Art – made for thousands of years and they continue to be created today

o   Aboriginal Art consists of symbols. Symbols were used in order to show the presence of different things or objects that existed around them.

o   These symbols were used as a means of communication, because they have no written language of their own – to show their customs and rituals and for decoration. These works were almost always ceremonial or religious.

o   The subject matter was based on patterns and animals, and colors used were only ones found in nature; and they used things like bark, rocks, clay, burnt sticks and trees.

o   The background of the paintings are always busy and never blank and feature a dots, patterns, or lines to create movement.

§  Taken directly from: http://art-educ4kids.weebly.com/aboriginal-art-and-patterning.html

o   Aboriginal art is based on important ancient stories and symbols centered around “The Dreamtime” – which is when they believe the world was created and is at least 50,000 years old.

o   It is only in the last 40 years that canvas and board are being used; before they were scratched on walls, used in body painting or drawn in the sand or dirt.

o   Dot painting came about because the aborigines did not want the white man to understand their secret art, so they covered the symbols with dots

§  Taken directly from: http://www.kateowengallery.com/page/10-Facts-About-Aboriginal-Art.aspx

o   Other Aboriginal Art includes bark painting, weaving and sculpture

·         Activities: Creating our own Aboriginal Paintings

o   Supplies: paint, paintbrushes, water cups, Styrofoam/plastic plates for colors, butcher paper for tables, Q-Tips to make dots (very important), paper template (20 total) – could alternatively paint on paper bags to symbolize bark paintings (but really need bigger bags)

o   Take template of animals (kangaroo, snake, gecko, turtle) and paint in aboriginal style, colors are entirely up to kids – usually inside of template is colored in one color, then colored dots added on the outside

o   Show them the two examples I made

George Seurat's The Sunday at La Grande Jatte

Aboriginal Turtle

Tracks or Water Holes

Honey Ant Kids Example

A Mom's Example of Gecko Art

My version of Aboriginal Kangaroo (the J-looking things are Kangaroo tracks)

My version of Aboriginal Gecko (the circles with wavy lines are supposed to be watering holes)

An Ember in the Ashes

An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
Published: April 28, 2015

Laia is a teenage Scholar girl living with her grandparents and brother in Serra, under the rule of the unforgiving Martial Empire. One night, the Masks (an elite Martial fighting group) raids the house killing her grandparents and taking her brother to prison, claiming he has committed treason. Laia manages to flee and meets the Resistance, who put her in the house of the Commandant, the leader of the Masks, as a slave and spy. Elias is about to graduate as a Mask from Blackcliffe Academy, but is planning his escape from that life. The book alternates between Laia and Elias's viewpoints. Will Laia be able to get her brother out of prison? Will Elias ever escape the Martial military? To find out, read this awesome book. Highly recommended for ages 14+, 5 stars. 

I adored this book! I literally could not stop reading it, and it's hard to believe that this is the author's first book. The author is great at world-building and you can feel yourself totally immersed in the characters and setting. It definitely lives up to the tremendous hype it has gotten so far. The description made it sound like the Martials are Roman, and the Scholars sound Greek or Egyptian to me. I really enjoyed the writing, and even the story was fairly complex, I was able to follow along pretty easily. The violence in the book is pretty graphic, especially in the beginning,so that's why I settled on ages fourteen plus. I can't wait to see what happen next in the series - apparently it is billed as a stand-alone book, but she definitely left it wide open for a sequel and I know many people will be disappointed if she does not!

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

Picture Books and Why They're Awesome

Last week's post was all about National Library Week. I talked about the fill-in-the-blank photos that my library system was displaying in celebration, and I wanted to add that if I was going to do one my would say "Hello, my name is Rachel and I read way more Children and Young Adults books than Adult ones." I have been teased by this fact, but the truth is that I love reading them, and would still do so even if I wasn't a Children's Librarian. I'm a sucker for good illustrations, as my book reviews can attest. I know a lot of people like to poo poo this kind of art, especially if it's for children, but some of the best art I've seen lately has been from these sources. The majority of my children's book collection at home is picture books. A lot of times I can't think about a certain author without thinking about the artwork included in their children's books, like William Joyce,  Mo Willems, Peter Brown, or even Tony DiTerlizzi. I've been sharing picture books with my son since he was a baby, and sometimes I check them out just for me to read. It honestly surprises me to see which picture books my son likes, especially if they are ones I got for me because I didn't think he would like the subject matter or understand what it is about. Case in point, I brought home a haiku poetry book called Won Ton: A Cat Tale Told in Haiku by Lee Wardlaw, which is right now one of his favorite books for me to read to him. 

So when I saw this post today from Nerdy Book Club, I knew I had to include it in a post. In it, 5th grade students made up a list of why they love picture books, all of which I agree with especially number 8, 7, 5 and 1. So I guess the moral of this post is pick up a picture book and enjoy one with your child, or just on your own. 

Our Top Ten Reasons We Love Picture Books

10. Picture books are amazing because they are short enough to teach us something in one class period. 

9. Picture books are amazing because they bring us laughter and make us remember when we were younger. 

8. Picture books are amaing becauase they help us to be creative. 

7. Picture books are amazing becuase they give us a break and chance to relax from reading chapter books. 

6. Picture books are amaing because they are entertaining and don't have as many rules to follow as chapter books. 

5. Picture books are amazing because they allow all of us to feel the joy of reading. 

4. Picture books are amazing because they teach us. Just because they're short doesn't mean they can't teach us a lesson. 

3. Picture books are amazing because they help us learn lessons through them and then we can turn and apply them to our own reading. 

2. Picture books are amazing because they open up the whole world to us in a short text that we can gather around and share together. 

1. Picture books have no age limits. (This one is supposed to be said with enthusiasm. 

National Library Week 2015

Ok, so I'm a little late for this as it ends tomorrow, but I figured I would post a little something. We've been celebrating it at the public library I work at this week for basically two reasons. First, it's a library celebration, so why not? Especially if it celebrates both libraries and reading, two very important things in everyone's daily life. Secondly because the system is trying to win the National Medal (we are one of 30 finalists) and I think we're trying to be as fun and community-related as possible, plus it's another way to highlight all the cool things that this system does. This coincidentally also goes with this year's theme, "Unlimited possibilities @ your library". For example, the Media Relations people asked the staff to take pictures with a sign that said "My name is (blank) and I (blank), and called it "Library Confessions". There are some pretty cute ones here. 

So I just wanted to share some things I thought were cool that relate to libraries and reading. The first are a couple of the ALA's (American Library Association) Read posters. They always get actors and actresses to do them. As I've been playing Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) again lately, I thought I would include this poster with Orlando Bloom (plus he's holding a copy of a JRR Tolkein book, one can only assume it is LOTR. 

I wanted to include this one because A. I thought it was cool and partially in Arabic, and because it was a woman representing Dubai Women's College. 

The next two I just wanted to add because I'm a children's librarian and I think they are not only informative but also very true. Plus the first one is especially important to me because I've actually heard some parents say they don't want to read to their children because they "won't be able to understand the words".