Fall Trees: Drawing with Sticks?

Sometimes going low-tech in this high-tech world produces beautiful results. Take a look at what Melissa Giglio's students at Nouth Carolina's Arapahoe Charter School can do with sticks and a little ink. Yes, sticks, plain ordinary, fallen from the tree, sticks. The original tool for scratching in the dirt, marking out territory or digging a hole. Melissa says, "In the pictures you'll see how 'gestural' they are...I LOVE THAT about stick drawing with ink. We also splattered and used a watered down ink with a paper towel as a 'wash' to create gray areas."

While I'm sorry to see summer come to an end, I can't wait for the trees to shed their leaves and drop a few sticks so that I, too, can take my students outside to draw with sticks! Visit Melissa at her new blog, The Art Room at ACS.

Adventure in the Hot Shop

It's been a cool summer in Michigan, but the West Michigan Glass Blowers Society Hot Shop was the sizzling spot to be this week. I just returned from a couple of intense, exhilarating days in Kalamazoo learning to do amazing things with glass. Here, my friend Tina is showing the honey-thick, molten glass just who's boss as our instructor, Judy, looks on, ready to help out at the first sign of trouble.

After gathering and shaping a glob of hot glass, we blew through the pipe to begin expanding the glass, hoping eventually to form a tumbler or vase.

In my first attempt I blew so hard the glass popped as if it were a soap bubble. Fine threads of glass floated down to the concrete floor. Back at the "glory hole" I gathered more glass with the help of our instructor, Mike. Our classmate, Jenny, manages NOT to pop bubbles!

After almost five hours in the hot shop we were ready for a shower, a bite to eat and then on to our next workshop: Photo Screen Printing.