Angie and Bill Visit The Andy Warhol Museum

My Message of Hope for 2017

"A Bigger Splash" by David Hockney

Happy New Year friends! Last night my husband and I enjoyed watching the fantastic new Ron Howard documentary "Eight Days A Week" along with a really fascinating extra features dvd about The Beatles' touring years. And we recently enjoyed inspiring biographies on the lives of artist David Hockney, and music mogul David Geffen. 

All of these uplifting films shared a common theme about rising to the top of your chosen field through hard work and staying true to your vision.  I can't help but contrast this with the bizarre rise of a narcissistic, born on third base, reality TV vulgarian to the top position of leader of the free world. I will not accept Trump as my President. I believe that when someone shows you who he is, as Trump certainly has through his reckless tweeting, you should believe him. Narcissists don't want to change, because they love any kind of attention, even negative. Narcissists are unfit to be Presidents.

I wonder, will there be great art when the bar is set so low?  Right now we really need the arts to remind us of our shared humanity and to give us hope. It's frightening to think about the future, and although it's important to look to the past for inspiration, we can't be stuck there pining for the good old days. I think it is important during these uncertain times, to look within ourselves for hope, to continue to fight and stand up for what we believe in, and to enjoy living in the moment.  It is not healthy to be consumed by fear of the unknown. I have hope and faith in God that truth and goodness will always triumph over evil.

The artists and good people who care about our shared humanity and planet can teach our children that Trump's narcissism is not normal or good. Caring adults can model kindness, empathy, stand up for equal rights, and speak truth to power. I won't be watching a news media that normalizes and legitimizes Trump, presents false equivalencies, and only reports negative news for rating$. The corporate news media deserves most of the blame for this horrible fiasco. People have been duped into believing in a con-man. This is not acceptable. 

Wishing you love, hope, and happiness in 2017!  Surround yourself with those family/friends who show unconditional love and kindness towards you, who support and appreciate you for who you are. Look within yourself and lift yourself to create, to be you, and enjoy the moment. Artists look deeper and longer, to see in a different way not limited by the camera's eye. With a pencil and paper, paint, or whatever medium you choose, the possibilities are endless. You can make a bigger splash!

"I was aware that the teaching of drawing was being stopped almost 30 years ago. And I always said, 'The teaching of drawing is the teaching of looking.' A lot of people don't look very hard." David Hockney

‘When you photograph a splash, you’re freezing a moment and it becomes something else. I realise that a splash could never be seen this way in real life, it happens too quickly. And I was amused by this, so I painted it in a very, very slow way.’  David Hockney

Easy Winter Themed Art Lesson Ideas

Winter tree, cool colors

Allentown row homes, collage/painting 

Evergreen tree collage

These images are my lesson examples, which I made while modeling the steps and procedures during class. I teach young students how to draw a tree by asking them to think of an upper case Y, and imagine the branches are like the fingers on your hand. I demonstrate by holding my arms up over my head, like a Y, so they can visualize the larger trunk, and smaller branches. We use cool colors to paint on top of blue construction paper.

In the second example, I give students pre-cut rectangles in different sizes, and they glue those on blue paper, then we talk about the row homes in our city, types of buildings, and the shapes we can draw to make windows and doors, and decorative details. I simplify for younger grades. Then we add white paint with Q-Tips.

In the third example we tear paper for snowy hills, and use pre-cut triangles and rectangles to make the trees, and I show them how to cut a slice of a circle for the crescent moon. We add snow with construction paper crayons or oil pastels. I've had success with all three of these lessons, at varying grade levels Pre-K-6. All of these lessons can be completed in one 45 minute art class.

Easy Fall Elementary Art Lesson Ideas

Kindergarten art work, Pumpkin Family

Grade 5 art work, Fall Still Life Collage

Grade 2 art work,  Still Life with Pumpkins

Autistic Support K-2, Fall Tree Collage (torn paper)

Cityscape

Oil pastels on black paper

Owl over Spain

Mixed media collage

Elvis

Pop-Art lesson example for middle school students, mixed media collage

Art Time with Angie at TPT!

Here's a sneak peak at the kinds of lessons and activities I will be sharing at my TPT (Teachers Pay Teachers) store. I am still working on this one, but it will be done soon. This is my cover page and preview. In the mean time, you can download my "E-Z Draw Bird" for free. Also check out my clown fish in coral reef, paper guitars, and circus clown lessons. All tried and true and created by me! I'm still learning how to do the fancy graphics for my products, but it's the content that is most important! See link to my store at my right side bar, or click here to go to "Art Time with Angie."

E-Z Draw Bird Family

For grades K-2, and autistic support. Read more about this lesson here.

Easy Spring Flower Drawing

Student work, grade 1

Here is an easy Spring drawing lesson for young children. I start by showing them a variety of flowers (I use fake ones so they can touch the flowers and so I can use the same ones over again) and I tell them about the artist Georgia O'Keeffe, who liked to look inside the flower. I show a few examples of her work and talk about how she became famous because she painted flowers this way. I tell them, if you look inside, you can see shapes and parts, like little flowers within a bigger flower. Pretend you are using a magnifying glass. (Or, actually pass around a real magnifying glass).

Then I model how to draw the flowers, one step at a time. We draw with a black or dark crayon on a square sheet of paper. 12"x12" works well. First we draw a circle for the center of a flower, make sure it is not too small because we will be drawing inside the circle. Inside each circle we draw lines like a peppermint candy or wheel, or dots like a sunflower, or spirals, or shapes resembling antennae or lollipop, etc. Next, I show them how to draw layers of petals going around the circle. Some petals are round, some are like triangles. They love to go round and round, making the flower bigger. We fill up the whole paper, and it's okay if some flowers go off the edge. I like students to draw at least 3 different flowers.

Once they have their paper filled, they can start coloring. I tell them that green looks nice as a background color, to resemble leaves. But I allow them to choose their own colors. I provide a variety of crayons. I prefer crayons over markers so we can blend colors. I talk a little about shades and tints of colors. This lesson connects with science, seasons, shapes, color, line, art history, fine motor skills, and most importantly- joy. Time frame: 45 minutes.

"The Color Purple"

mixed media collage

"The Roxy"

mixed media collage

Night Owls at Starn's

 "Night Owls at Starn's", mixed media collage. I don't know what happened to this piece, from the late 1980's featuring the actual 1970's groovy wallpaper from our house, and a photo of my dad with his friends at a famous seafood restaurant Captain Starn's in Atlantic City NJ. Well at least I have this photo!

Comb on Over for Halloween!

A "Donald Trumpkin"

Easy Bird Family Lesson for Primary Grades

This is an easy and fun drawing lesson for primary grade students. This was the last lesson I taught as a long term substitute elementary art teacher in the Allentown School District. You can see the easy steps on the right, and I always model the drawing one step at a time so students can follow me, and not feel frustrated. What I loved was the way the students used their imaginations, ( which I encouraged) and gave their birds human traits and personalities by adding hair bows, hats, etc. I let little kids be little kids!

New Art Work: "The Donald"

Mixed media painting on wooden panel. Poop Art Trump: The Narcissist, The Sociopath, and The Fraud.

Grade 5 Flower Drawings

Four different approaches to the same lesson. I showed students how to draw closed and open roses, and other flowers. They incorporated the flowers into a design of their choosing. Most of the girls chose to draw several flowers, and most of the boys preferred to draw one single rose. I love how these came out, even though they did not have time to finish coloring. If only they had art class once a week, instead of once every three weeks! This was the last art class of the year.

Mini Self-Portraits

1st grade art work

4th grade art work

3rd grade art work, 5th grade is above

These are 3"x3" and will be part of a district wide mosaic project to be displayed at the Allentown Art Museum this summer.  I challenged some of my first grade classes because they were very attentive and interested in following me as I showed them step by step how to draw the features of the face. I encouraged all students to do their best, and offered lots of praise and assistance since I knew this project would be intimidating and frustrating for some of my students. There were some tears.  Kindness, patience, and compassion is always the best way to treat students who struggle with confidence, fine motor skills, or behavior.

Since I am working as a long term substitute, I was not included in the planning of this project. I would have objected to the small size because I think it is developmentally inappropriate for primary grade students. While teaching this lesson, I learned that some younger students like to portray themselves as super heroes, imaginary characters, etc. instead of how they really look, which is normal for students ages 5-8. I would never discourage a child to draw from their imagination, since that is developmentally appropriate.

UPDATE 9/15  The summer has passed and I have not heard anything about this project. No one has contacted me, and if the work has been displayed I have not been given any credit by the Allentown School District for teaching this lesson.

Claire Danes, Altered Image

Altered xerox, Cubist style

This is how I teach Cubism to middle school students. Make photocopies, color, cut in shapes, re-assemble, glue, and draw on top. I let them pick images of celebrities from a teen magazine.

Introducing Vermeer

Mixed media

Self Portrait

Colored pencils on xerox 

Tomato Party

Girl in Landscape

Large oil painting on plywood

Vanitas 2

Mixed media painting by Angie Villa

Teaching Autistic Students K-2

These are very simple and fun torn paper fall trees, a lesson I teach to students in an autistic support room, grades K-2. I love the way each one is very different.  I teach by modeling, one step at a time. First tear the green grass, then a rectangle for the tree trunk, then the branches, and then add tissue paper leaves to the tree, or background.  Their teacher was very supportive and hung them in the hallway.

A Simple Landscape

Oil pastels on black paper

Kindergarten Floral Paintings

Grade 1 Funny Fish Paintings

They added lipstick and eyelashes!

Fish in Coral Reef, Grade 4

Construction paper crayons on black paper

Grade 2 Bird Paintings