Summer Art Academy!

The classroom I had, was on the 2nd floor of an old unair-conditioned building.
I taught four 1.5 hour classes a day, I was also outside teaching too.

This past week, has been a wonderful blur of excitement. God's blessings are so abundant! It was my second year of teaching for the Summer Art Academy. There were 75+ students at the camp, 26 of them were mine for the week! I taught Basic Drawing & Urban Art - A fun class that covered the challenging basics of drawing, while working indoors/outdoors, using various tools to achieve detailed, realistic & stylized sketches. Students used ink, pencil & charcoal for their drawing mediums. We explored the campus grounds, sketching buildings and landscapes. I focussed primarily on teaching composition: good vs. poor, shading & dramatization,  developing a critical eye, learning perspective, being selective & creative, while having fun! 

I believe I had about as much fun as all the students did! Teaching to a group of kids aged 8-14 is fun & challenging. A lot of work too. I had a classroom to myself, were I did about 1/2 my teaching, the rest of the time I was outside on campus grounds teaching. It was truly amazing to be part of so many kid's lives, sharing the gift of art! 

Students working hard, drawing what they see: buildings, statues, landscapes, etc. exploring the beautiful campus. 

Talented young artists, sketching away! 

-GB

Ps. Here be a link to last year's post on the Academy. :)

The garden in March - prep work

Planning a garden is so exciting! I love working outside - Deciding what to plant, when to plant, where to plant, & how much to plan, etc. We're preparing our little patch of earth for what will, Lord willing, be a great season of growing. Our garden is about 32x56 feet in size. We are trying to use every inch of space for planting. Mapping things out, thinking ahead. I just planted all the cold weather seeds out in the garden today. Then I planted the "after danger of frost" seeds indoors, under grow lights. We bought a bundle of eighty-something red onions & I planted them outside with the chives, carrots, radishes, peas, lettuces. 

We live near a very large river & apparently our yard used to be river-bottom. The little rototiller we have, failed us miserably, because the ground is rocky. (It's like 70% rock with the rest being dirt.) So we shoveled, hoed, & broke the dirt by hand. Then we pulled & sifted the rocks out of the earth. Once that was complete, we had a lot of rock. So I decided to put some of the rock where the pathways were, the rest we wheelbarrowed out. The river rock that we are so abundantly blessed with, is always round, & anywhere from softball to golfball sized, with smaller silver-dollar sized rocks being the most popular.

In the spring of 2012, we fenced, de-rocked, landscaped, planted grass & installed a sprinkler system on our two & a half acres. It was a huge full time job through summer. We planted over 60 trees & bushes & lots of flowers. It was  backbreaking work. Working hours each day, we did everything ourselves, with the exception of a few dear friends - Who most graciously spared time from their busy lives to help us sift, dig, & move tons of rock & dirt. It was a tremendous blessing, & eventually we got it done. Sometime, I'll post a before/after pics of our yard.. Hmm. Anyways, I had a garden last year, but it was wild, because I didn't have the time to properly tend it. (I did a little  blogging about it though. hehe) 

So this year, I'm really hoping to have a productive, orderly garden… Wish me lots of rain, few grasshoppers, fewer rocks, & maybe a little luck for my green thumb. ;)  

-GB

Dirt Under My Nails

My garden is small, but there's a lot in it— 

carrots, chives, tomatoes, egg plants, sweet corn, green peppers,

pumpkins, gourds, cucumbers, bush beans, squash, zucchinis, 

sugar snaps, lettuce, onions, weeds & lots of rocks…. 

Gardening. The sound of the swollen river in the distance. 

 Birds chirping contentedly. No phone. Cowboy hat. Warm sunshine. 

Dry breeze. Hum of busy bees. Abundance of life. Ice water.

Hard work. Just me & the plants. I love the outdoors.

Planting, weeding & harvesting. Get out & do it, tend to your garden, whether it's big or small! It's the best kind of work, for one & all! It takes patience & effort, but accomplishes much. It's totally worth it—to have the satisfaction of knowing that your produce is organic & fresh. It's somethin' anyone can do, to promote your health, fitness & beautify a small patch of earth. I grew carrots for the first time, they did really well. I've always had some form of a garden, some years it's bigger then others. Just depends. I enjoy working outside, under the sun. Being physically tired after a day's work is quite satisfying. What's growin' in your garden? 

-GB

Teaching

This past week has simply flown by! (Dontchya love June weather?!) I had the awesome privilege of teaching art (basic drawing) at the Summer Art Academy; an intense week long art camp, for kids ages 8-14. It was such a wonderful experience, to be a part of so many kid's lives, brief though it was, sharing the gift of art with them! All of my students were amazing, & did wonderful jobs. It was fantastic meeting new people, parents & students alike, who had an enthusiasm for art. I had a total of 30 pupils, & taught for 4½ hours each day. I dearly love working with children & teaching; it's as much fun as it is challenging. I got a huge class room all to myself. It was on the 2nd floor of a large & creaky floored, unair-conditioned building on the beautiful campus of grounds :) Here's what I taught— 

• 1st class: Converting basic shapes (e.g. triangle, sphere, rectangle etc.) into fruits; shading with random hatching, curved hatching, crosshatching, dots, scribble & blending. 

• 2nd class: Drawing multiple objects: focusing on centering, composition, distance. Developing a critical eye for position, proportion, shapes, & relation. Using charcoal & pencil. 

• 3rd class: Positive/negative space, blind & semi-blind contour drawing with charcoal & pencil. 

• 4th class: Drawing textures in fabric; wrinkles in paper, folds, rough surfaces, smooth surfaces, reflective surfaces, in metal & glass, with charcoal & pencil.

• 5th class: Drawing symmetrical objects, with a ruler & measuring with a pencil. Review & discussion of previous classes. 

Soli Deo gloria- 

-GB