STUDENT WORK

IMAGE #1- Polymer clay relief sculpture by Victoria, age 11

IMAGE #2- Polymer Clay relief sculpture by Jessica, age 13

I LOVE featuring my private art students on my blog! For approximately twelve years, I have been happy to open my studio to a small, select group of talented kids with parents devoted to their arts education. My lessons are private, usually two students at a time and I am picky. Still, I turn away more kids than I am able to accept, sadly. I am proud to say that many of my private student have gone on to careers related to the arts. Many are award and scholarship winners, and ALL leave me filled with a sense of pride. This week, we are on hiatus for Spring break, but I am happy to have in my possession two really COOL student works created by a pair of sisters!

The project in question was inspired by the polymer clay illustrations of artist Jeanette Canyon. You can find out more about Ms. Canyon on her publishers website. (link) Ms. canyon has illustrated books like Over in the Ocean and Over in the Jungle, using polymer clay as her media. For our project, we began with a detailed sketch and then we painted an 8 x 8 canvas panel in acrylic to create a backdrop. We then formed each piece of the landscape or still life separately in polymer clay. Ms. Canyon's work focuses on the painstakingly textured surfaces of whatever she illustrates. We used various unique and creative methods to add texture to the individual components that we created. For instance, the texture in Jessica's lemons were created with an awl, while the scales on Victoria's fish were created by pressing a finely woven cloth to the little fish and her different corals were impressed with various bolts and nuts found in Miss Deb's studio drawers. This project took us about six hours, or three classes.

On a more personal note, Jessica was named the "Art student of the Year" at her private school last year after winning Best In Show, Middle School division in the Association of Christian Schools International, Pennsylvania State art show in Harrisburg, with a project completed here in my studio. Yep folks, I said Best in the STATE.

BLOOM

It has been weird, rainy and dull outside, so I have been making the inside pretty. I have flowers now. Yes, my first flowers of the Spring- beautiful crocus and daffodils are everywhere, I tend to plant a lot of them, and some in out of the way places like "over where we park," "behind the corner of the barn," and "next to the fire pit" so that I don't feel at all bad about whacking them down and bringing them inside when they bloom. I find fresh flowers in the house to be soothing and healing on many levels, unless you have allergies. Having a cutting garden and fresh flowers in season also gives me a GREAT excuse to buy pieces by my favorite Etsy potter, Sarah Marymee. Her work and my daffodils are featured in the photo above. "Bloom " was also the theme of the commission that I just finished and listed in the shop last night. For the patron, I found six or seven examples of the word 'Bloom' in vintage ephemera to include in the background collage of a new abstract piece, completed for her new home. Dinner tonight with my sister should top off a much brighter day. DGC

GOODBYE MY WINTER

In every life there comes a time when nothing grows, storms come and bleakness abounds. For me, personally, that time came abruptly after Christmas this year. Marked by the sudden and stressful decline of my autistic son due to medicine changes, the lengthy illness, surgery and subsequent recovery of my husband and the devastating loss of a best friend; I have been buried, so it seemed, under a mountain of gut-wrenching ice, suspended thus for the duration of the season. My Nana, the little farm-wife sage that she was, used to say that "bad things come in threes." It was one of MANY sayings that she left the women in her life to ponder after her passing a few years ago. I don't know if there is truth in her words, but I am hoping so for that will mean I have endured my "three" for the present, and it is time for Spring. The people closest to me, a very small crowd I assure you, know that when I am overwhelmed, I tend to bury my head in the sand like an ostrich, preferring not to be reminded of the chaos swirling around my neck. I have been MORE than largely absent from both Etsy shops, from my studio, other venues, and indeed from my life, as it were for a few months now. But I emerge from winter, like so many that hibernate-- leaner, meaner and hungry. Unfortunately, it is muddy and rainy here in the PA. countryside and it is taking some time for me to cast off the muck. Like the tiny crocus and golden daffodils in my yard though, I am attempting a heroic emergence. My initial plan is to return slowly to the art and to the blog, that is if there is anyone left in my extended realm who cares to notice. Thanks so much. DGC


image is Snowscape- paper landscape, now in a private collection.