teaching art

Putting power into the magic wand of an artist! Teaching color

Posted by Maria
Working with color for most artists is the foundation of our work. Color dictates the tone, mood and message of your concepts and ideas. It is one of the first elements in a piece that can capture the viewer even before one starts to think about what they are seeing. It can transform separate pieces into one, it can create light, dimension, emotion, language and memories. For artists particularly ones in the beginning stages of their career this can be the making or breaking of your work.

As a teaching artist it is my absolute favorite thing to teach. I feel as though I am giving my students the powers to their magic wand! I teach color mixing and theory to students of all ages and stages in their work. I truly feel it is beneficial to all artists to take a step back and work just on color.
My younger students are engaged and excited as the lesson progresses. They find it fun and challenging to create an endless color palette from their primary colors. While my adult students sometimes forget what they may already know and may have slipped back in their mind, often from deeply concentrating on concepts and ideas during their struggles to perfect their images. I have several techniques and practices I teach; how to mix paint, making a variety of colors without breaking the bank, basic colors vs. intermediate/sophisticated colors and paint, choosing color palettes, and practicing, cataloging and creating a color journal for reference. For the more advanced student I go further in-depth with advanced color palettes and tubes and tools one should have in their toolbox, as well as mediums, paint types, brands and surfaces. My love for art, art materials and teaching are a perfect combination for a winning lesson in color!

 

Private lessons in my studio or your home are available.
Contact me if you are interested. Lessons are with acrylic paint.
Price is based on individual students. (place, materials to be covered, length of lessons etc)

The new Whitney Museum NYC – Art events for Kids! Why viewing art is important for children.

Posted by Maria

The new Whitney is an amazing museum. I will post a review of it for adults soon. In short I can say as a native New Yorker and artist for over 20 years, this is the best thing that has happened for the arts in NYC in a long time. I highly encourage artists, art lovers and the art curious to get to their current opening exhibition, America is Hard to See on view until Sept 27th.

Recently the Whitney had one of their special events for families and children. “Whitney Family Programs offer interactive tours, art making workshops, and special events that encourage kids and adults to learn about art together.”

I truly wish more families encouraged the arts and the act of art viewing specifically in the museum setting for their children. As a teaching artist, I have seen first hand when showing children artwork that is new, out-of-the-box or unfamiliar, it brings them excitement, curiosity, imagination, instant joy and confidence. Confidence just by viewing artwork? How? Seeing new artwork sparks and excites their brains and creativity, which makes them feel happy and excited that they are learning and seeing things which they haven’t before, often realizing (at times subconsciously) immediately this is not something they learned in school. When they go home and to school parents have often told me how excited they were to talk about the art they learned about in art class, and how good and happy it made them feel. I strongly believe learning new and alternative things from the “norm” is extremely gratifying, enlightening, encouraging and builds up the confidence to seek out more new and unfamiliar things, while generating skills for learning that can be applied with other subjects as well. Once again, this is all just from the viewing of art.
Here are some links to the Whitney’s past kids event and information on the programs they have available.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152806839626433.1073741896.20959866432&type=1

http://whitney.org/Education/Families