Lydia's Entry into Jeane's Book

I was really excited about this book as I love anything to do with theatre.  I am teaching my favorite unit in Pre-School at the moment, 'Exploring the Arts'.  It always reminds me that I am an art teacher and not just required to teach 4 years to do up their zips (although I see the value in that too of course!).

I love combining the visual and performing elements of the unit.  One of our projects will be to act out different emotions.  To document their acting prowess I will photograph their facial expressions then use the power of color to enhance the images.  These are some of my demos, I have used colored oil pastels over black and white photocopies. When you rub the pastel away a bit it becomes very translucent and allows the subtly of the photograph/expression to show through. I think they fit well into the theme of FACADE.

Lydia's entry into Angela's book

Before Christmas I was asked to design and make three stained glass windows to form part of a set in our school production of the 'The Sound of Music'.  I've never tried this before.  Instead of glass I used colored gel sheets, normally used for stage lighting.  It was a very nice material to work with, I stuck all the pieces together with black electrical tape to get the  led piping effect.  I was amazed when the lights were put behind it - the colors were really vibrant.

Anyway, when I came to tackling Angela's book I decided to continue fiddling with designs constructed in the style of stained glass windows.  I used some of the motifs others had touched on in previous entries such as mouths (teeth) and speech bubbles and letters (envelopes) but mainly I picked up ideas as I moved from one cafe to the next on a trip to Budapest with my husband. The shutters are inspired by my favorite architecture in Basel and advent calenders which I have always enjoyed.  I love that idea of enjoying a little piece of art everyday, the waiting and wondering.  I guess in terms of 'communication' this is an elaborate postcard from Budapest with a reminder to stay in touch beyond the sketch book rotation.

Jem's entry in Petr's book

Since joining this group I have been in awe by Angela's lines. They are beautiful and inspiring to me. For this entire entry I had Angela and her lines on my mind! Thank you Angela!  Petr your book will be home soon!

Lydia's "Book" / Petr's Entry

I was very very curious and excited upon receiving Lydia's incredibleness ... and found it hard to figure out where to go with it as there seems to be little in common to the "entries". I liked Mary's elements of shells and conchs, which took me to slugs, i know a little disgusting, but i'm oddly attracted to these creatures, and so are my children every summer at our cottage, and here's the result ...

... Lydia, the creation travels home today!