Teaching Art to Blind Children: My New Job

I have a new job teaching art at the Academy for the Blind. Until I saw on the school's marquee that there was an opening, it hadn't occurred to me that such a job could exist. It does. Considering that there's only one (maybe two) schools for the blind in any given state, and each of those schools may or may not have an art teacher, I feel especially lucky to land such a challenging and fulfilling position!

My students' ages range from four to nineteen, and their visual and learning abilities are as varied as their ages. Because the needs are diverse, the classes are small, sometimes only two or three students at a time. This has allowed me to get to know and love the children very quickly.

I started my first full week, ironically, with an Op Art assignment. Optical illusions may not mean much to most blind, but the line is the simplest of art elements and repetition isn't a hard concept to grasp.

This student exclaimed, "I did it!" after drawing each line. It warmed my heart to think of all the encouragement she's received during her short life. I love the sense of movement in this simple piece.

Week two I plunged into color theory, which is difficult, even students without visual disabilities. In fact, I have taught many college students with 20/20 vision who made it through childhood without learning their color wheel. Luckily, these kids were up to the challenge of mixing the three primary colors to get secondary and tertiary colors in even steps.

Here is another Op Art project using line and repetition in complimentary color schemes.

 Piet Mondrian and Roy Lichtenstein are favorite artists to study when learning about primary colors and triadic color schemes. You can see from this picture how close most of my students need to get to the paper in order to see what they are doing. This Mondrian-style piece was done on braille paper.

The student who created the red piece in the upper right said, "This is really beautiful. Do you think people will like it?" We discussed Picasso's Blue Period before making our own monochromatic paintings. I believe that teaching art history and formal design principles is what separates real art lessons from mindless craft time. I want to give kids the tools to make informed aesthetic choices to better communicate ideas.

The youngest students have done crayon rubbings of various textures and created textures in salt dough by stamping it with objects. We are also making and decorating newspaper hats. I've only been at the school for a few weeks but so far I am loving it. I pinch myself every morning.

Aesthetic America

Part of being in artists is a heart-pounding-breathless enthusiasm for beauty. As a freshman in college, I sprinted home to share an amazing rainbow with my roommates."Oh, Kristen,"was their response. "Don't be such an artist."
Worst advice ever.
Being an artist and enjoying the beauties of the natural world are things that bring me joy. Last month my family wrapped up a road trip which included visits to 21 National Parks and Historic Sites in 18 states. It was a thrill to take in the variety of colors and textures of the American landscape. I'm happy to share some of the eye-candy the natural world has to offer.

 

Mission Commission

Last month, I was commissioned to do a painting for the recently reopened LDS Macon Mission. The task was to find a scripture to illustrate. Every Mormon missionary knows Doctrine and Covenant 4 by heart, so I knew if I picked key words, phrases, and images for a montage representing that passage, they would understand the piece.  I used gouache on an opaque acrylic under-painting, with some pencil for this piece.

Dusting a Dummy

I wrote a story a couple of years ago and made it into a sketch dummy (a picture book mock-up). I love the process of putting sketches with the words. It helps me understand and revise things like the story's pacing and setting changes.

My old dummy was called, Jackson's Magic Jacket. It was about a little boy's obsession with his favorite piece of clothing. This month I've decided to make it about a rabbit and call it Jack's Jacket. The story has changed enough for me to delete some scenes and add a few more. Here's a page spread that didn't exist in my last draft.

Elephants on Parade

One of my projects this month included a large gouache painting for a nursery. The patron who commissioned this piece is about to give birth to her fourth son and requested a line of elephants to represent her boys. She also requested that I use a specific technique, which I will happily share with you now. First, I draw the image (outline and some value) in graphite. I use spray fixative to keep the graphite from smudging before doing large washes as under painting, usually in burnt sienna. In this case I did the sky in purple.

At this point the painting looks terrible. My husband suggested I start over, but I thought to myself "It's not dead yet!" and pressed on. Here you can see I added top layer of gray on those brown elephants…

but it isn’t until I lighten the value with the blues and greens that the muddiness goes away. After both layers of paint, I go back with the drawing pencil. The backlighting gives the illusion that the sun is starting to set. Go to sleep sweet baby.

Illustrator's Day 2013

Here I am in Atlanta, with illustrator, Will Terry, who gave an insightful presentation on the future of our field.  Scholastic Books Executive Editor, Diane Hess and Abrams Books Art Director, Chad Beckerman, also gave helpful advice about how to get noticed.

As one of the first twelve to register for Illustrator’s Day, I got a chance to participate in a mentorship assignment. I usually do the assignment multiple times as a way to hasten my growth as an illustrator. This year, mentor, Mark Braught had us to choose from a list of animals, time periods, and places.

I did one painting of Victorian gibbons in Egypt 

and another of 1940's Asian rodents.

One of my first scribbles in deciding which animals to choose, was part of a bunny. Since rabbits don't technically fit into the rodent option, I didn't use it. I later went back to the sketch and spent the two weeks after completing this project doing several dozen bunny paintings. There was no underpainting or physical texture to these new pieces. They were more gestural and generally more energetic. It was such a breakthrough for me! You never know where you'll end up when you get to work and follow your heart. Thanks for the springboard Mark!

Sketchbook Project 2013

Another year, another Brooklyn Art Library Sketchbook project.  This year I chose Dwellings as my theme. Here’s what I made last week before popping it in an envelope and sending it off to meet all the other sketchbooks. It will spend the year traveling to places like Atlanta, Chicago, and Los Angeles.