110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - 110° Magazine - July 2007 - Through the gates of Hell - Index

ARTS [PERSONA]
78 www.110mag.com July 2007
off the picture of the kitty that had
been planted there by little girls.
After completing a project I give
children time to do something
absolutely creative to make their
pieces different; to put their own spin
on their creations. I want them to learn
that everyone has good ideas. My standard
of success for children’s art is that
at the end of the day students feel
good about whatever they did.
My classes have always gone against
a trend for young children that limits
art to cutting things out and coloring
things in. I wanted children to draw
their own coloring books. When I start
a lesson I give kids paper and have
them begin making geometric shapes.
You can make millions of things beginning
with a circle. Combine that with
some squares, ovals, and other circles
to “build” a rhinoceros, or a president,
or a mountain…. Some children are
thrilled by this!
I try to trick children into drawing. A
young boy might not like to learn to
draw circles, for example, but he might
gleefully draw a round gumball
machine full of gumballs. He might not
be too interested in drawing a cat, but
he’ll have a great time drawing a cat
getting fish bones from a garbage can.
He’ll have great fun drawing spiky hair
on a monster. This year I taught the
classes to draw a balloon that’s popped.
That was enormous fun.
My goal very often is to take the ordinary
and make it run. Taping three
papers on a table creates a sculpture.
Drawing on a paper with a piece of charcoal
paints a picture.
It’s no secret that public school art
classes operate on a shoestring. My
curriculum includes a unit on charcoal
drawing. Since there is insufficient
money in the budget to purchase charcoal
I make the stuff myself out of
branches cut from the willow tree in
front of my house and out of pieces
from the grapevines in my back yard. I
actually planted the willow as a source
of sticks for my charcoal.
My grandmother taught me how to
do this. You must cut the wood into
short sticks, which you then dry for a
year. Wrap the sticks in tinfoil, put them
into an aluminum can with pinholes
punched in the sides, and cook them
for a whole day on the barbeque. You
put in sticks and take out charcoal.
Chemistry in action! It’s magic!
Second to fifth grade art classes
follow the same type curriculum that I
would write for a college course. We
cover the fundamentals of space, shading,
composition, color theory, and
perspective. Some theorists believe you
can’t teach perspective to children, but
I’ve been successfully teaching it for
two decades.
ORIGINS OF MY TEACHING
I was born and raised in Sacramento, and
moved to Brentwood in 1982. My husband,
Randy, is an Electrical/Mechanical
Designer/Draftsman for Lawrence
Livermore Labs. He likes puzzles and
mazes so that job just suits him.
I kind of backed into my life as an
art teacher. When the second oldest
of my four daughters was in the fifth
grade at Garin School, her teacher was
a remarkable woman named Didi Del
Chiaro. Didi was a force to be reckoned
with.
My daughter had me come for Career
Day and speak to her class about
cartooning. Didi invited me to come
back and give art lessons to the children.
They were enchanted! For the rest
of the year I continued to return periodically
for further art lessons.
The staff at Garin knew that at the
end of the year my daughter would
move on to middle school and my
volunteer teaching would end. Ike