Perpich residency - 6 hours MIA residency - 6 hours
This week at Perpich, the students in the screenprinting class were beginning to work on their second project for the semester. For the visual arts area students, this was another chance to work with photo emulsion and begin to create more complex prints. For the media area students in the class, they were beginning or working on prints using drawing fluid and screen filler to create images on the screens. Since most of the media students in the class haven't worked with screen printing or printmaking techniques in general, Jeremy has been easing them in with simpler techniques to prepare for a photo emulsion print for the final project. Drawing fluid can allow for some pretty interesting and engaging images though. One student has been creating simplified, semi abstracted images of bodily organs throughout the course, and was working on a print of a heart when I was in the class Wednesday. I'm excited to see students working with a singular idea or concept throughout different projects, with the potential to create a larger body of work.
In addition to working with the students, Jeremy and I began talking about what sort of lessons I could teach coming up in the semester. Currently, I'm thinking about teaching interested students how to do four color process screenprints. It's a technique I've taught myself and have a good deal of experience in, and it can be interesting in print work as it allows one to reproduce photographic images or images using the full color spectrum. It's a somewhat involved process, so it'll probably become a multi day lesson with a leave behind process document to help guide students, but I'm excited to get this part of the course going.
On Saturday, I was back at the MIA to help out with their Creative Saturdays program again. Witt brought in Michael Gaughan as the guest artist again, and the students were working with acrylic paint this session. The students were all given palettes containing the primary colors plus purple and white. They began the class by mixing as many colors as they could to paint into a grid we gave them, with some students in the older class (8-12) mixing around 50 colors by my count. After the color exercise, we headed up into the galleries to look at paintings. Witt and Michael led the students through some of the modern and contemporary galleries to look at different examples of painting technique from Chuck Close, Van Gogh and works in the portrait gallery. They both emphasized breaking the images down into their mark making and paint handling, as well as use of blending (or lack thereof) and color. While all students were pretty attentive and engaged, I did notice a couple of students that were absorbed in a Gauguin painting of a Tahitian landscape next to the Van Gogh Witt was discussing. After the tour, we went back to the class for the students to have free painting time. I wasn't able to get any pictures unfortunately, but the students that looked at the Gauguin painted similar scenes featuring a mountain and a sunny, glowing sky. I was extremely impressed with how they synthesized what they saw and how quickly they managed to complete their paintings. In addition, I was impressed at the sophistication of their paint handling, using a variety of sort of impressionistic, brushy methods.
