{WCAP: FIELDWORK} Painting and Drawing Outdoors

This last summer I was invited to do a class at Waukesha Community Art Project and came up with the course "FIELDWORK: Painting and Drawing Outdoors" (tm) to gain inspiration, appreciation, and observational skills in nature.

We created journals and pressbooks:



We worked on warm up techniques indoors:


We traveled outside to paint in several different places:








In the end, we took our favorite items and framed them with thrifted frames and background mats that brought out the best of our colors. There was a small group show with these paintings in WCAP. Usually, items sold are donated by the students and funds return to the centre.

Visit WCAP (Waukesha Community Art Project) on Facebook

{$TAR HAMILTON: Fashion Illustrations}

Recently while spending more time at home, due to cold weather and an awesome boyfriend, moving computer printer and scanner to the house has been a giant catalyst for doing new work outside of the studio.

India ink has great appeal on its own: it dries dark, it's easy to photocopy and reproduce for zines and screen prints, it can be used on a light table and painted on typing paper (the perfect size for scanning), it doesnt require heavy toxins or much space to use and store. But, combined with photoshop as a tool, the possibilities are limitless because black and white is no longer a limitation. It's almost hard to believe that this isn't a preliminary phase for all great paintings, as watercolor once was not even considered a genre but to test draw for larger oil works, but for people who require instant gratification, do not have patience or much storage space, this is the best alternative.

Water colorist and fashion diva, a collection of both landscape paintings and fashion model figurative works arose from the depths and organized themselves on my computer. From the combinations of these figurative and landscape works experimentally, and the fashion stage name gifted by life enthusiast Theresa Columbus, the new blog $TAR HAMILTON was birthed. It is being updated with one or two new images each week. Follow on tumblr! This blog PENNY $PENCER remains the Vanessa Devaki Andrew blog (aka MADAM CHINO for all Image works, so it is included here a sample of these works and a link to that blog!

Fake Indians


Industry Lady


MESAma


Industry Luxury


Untied


New heart Girl


X, Penny $pencer

{LOOK NOOK: Flyer Heaven}

Flyer Heaven is the place where all of the fliers I have designed from years past now live. FLYER HEAVEN is a set on Flickr that you can go to visit them. The history of my flier designs dates back to pre-photoshop-skill days when I would paint on vellum and go to kinkos to do all the enlarging and shrinking physically with the xerox, scissors, and glue.

Thankfully, I have been developing greater skills in Photoshop, and no longer have to spend days in the dreaded Kinko's. I have also found a great source for copy-right free images on Flickr, called The Commons where you can use any of the photos as long as you give due credit to the archive that took the time to scan and list them.

I have been learning a lot of secret tricks and keeping files of scanned textures and drawn shapes, enlarging my fonts collection, and learning to use wingdings graphically. Using Automation I have constructed buttons that allow me to do many functions such as "floating objects", "black and white", "black layers" and other such useful steps.

Below are a set of images that are new to this style:

A MONTESSORI MURAL

This fall the Montessori School that I am currently working at as a Paraprofessional Teaching Assistant, has moved to a very amazing old public high school building named after one of the founders of our city (Milwaukee, WI) Solomon Juneau, which has been combined with Montessori High School and renamed to become MacDowell Montessori k-12.

For those unfamiliar with Montessori, it is a style of learning that focuses on intrinsic motivation and independence within a community. The materials are conceptual, exquisite, beautiful, and promote the natural unfolding and deeper understanding of concepts through the visual presentation of mathematical and language functions.

Milwaukee Wisconsin is top in the country for both its Montessori program and Montessori teacher training.

I was asked to bring my personal skills in art/design/murals to the walls of our new cafeteria with drawings inspired by Montessori materials. I was charged with the duty of creating a composition based on these tools of learning. The process entailed drawing materials, inking them via light table, scanning the inkings, converting them to both color and black and white, and finally rearranging the black and whites into compositional arrangements to be projected via transparency onto the walls.

Below are the images that I have created in connection with our program. All of the rights to these images belong Vanessa Devaki Andrew. If interested in using these images, please contact madamchino@yahoo.com

BEAD BOWL


ONE BEAD


TWO BEAD


THREE BEAD


FOUR BEAD


FIVE BEAD


SIX BEAD


SEVEN BEAD


EIGHT BEAD


NINE BEAD


TEN BEAD


BEAD CHAIN TICKETS


BEAD CHAIN TICKETS


PRISMS


SHAPES CABINET


TRIANGLES SET


BINOMIAL CUBE


BARS


PINK TOWER


STAMP GAME



BELLS


MUSIC NOTES


WORD SHAPES


WORD SHAPES BOX


GRAMMAR BOXES



SANDPAPER LETTERS



SANDPAPER BOX


The final image will have a Montessori quote made out of sandpaper letters and a beadchain boarder! It will be completed with the children. In the mean time, we took advantage of General Electrics Volunteer Day and used their employee volunteers to commence with the project.

These are the transparencies that were created:


The day of installation:














The mural is currently waiting for further quotes and student involvements! In the mean time, please visit my other more frequented blog: www.madamchino.blogspot.com