Art At The Sudio Newsletter-3

Teaching art is a great joy. I invite you to join with me on Saturday the 2nd of  November from 2-5, as we enjoy the work that your children have worked on. 

Children and art 

 Many people seem tothink that primary school children are not creating authentic art. I would like to change this narrative. From  the earliest age, a child will grasp anything and as soon as they are able to make a mark with this on a piece of paper, they will.  Children are born to explore, to see the world with fresh sight and to notice everything, no matter how small and mundane. Art is about ways of seeing and children come to the artistic process with an abundance of these present. Seldom, will a child struggle to enter into the art process. I have experienced the great joy of children of all ages , places and schooling types or philosophies, embrace the act of seeing, creating and enjoying art. 

The art we practice at The Studio, is a classical observational art. At the heart of much of what we do is helping or allowing children to use their ways of seeing and exploring while creating. I try very hard NOT to interfere with this process but rather guide them through it. 

I aslo try to balance the term with some imaginary or intuitive work as well as intriducing a variety of artists from around the world as well as South Africa. 

This term we learnt about Paul Cezane with a focus on his still life work. We experienced clay, as well as stenciling and some process art work. I find process art extremely interesting. All children,no matter their age, emerce themselves in the process of printing with simple, everyday objects to create patterns. It was particularly satisfying to see these children, this year, spend a great deal of time hidden and emerced in this process. 

 

Teen art

On Friday afternoon I run a teen art class. Please do join it if you are leaving for high school at the end of the year. This class started with one and then two committed artists and now has grown to a good size and a beautiful, funny group. In this group, they have greater freedom to explore and express. The theme for the two terms has been portraits. We learnt a great deal about what portrait art is and some of the history while looking at different artists along the way. The body of work is varied and wonderfully wacky. Please do spend time enjoying these young artists work too. 

Family art

I have two family art groups where parents AND children create art alongside one another. This is a beautiful and carefree relaxed space for everyone to create and enjoy time  together. We have enjoyed making art from the storybook , "The Dot" as a sourse of inspiration as well as looking at artist Imi Knoebel. These art classes intersect with the themes from the general classes aswell. 

Homeschool art

On a Tuesday at 1:30, I have a delightful group of homeschooled children who dash into art and throw themselves into the art project.

Personal work

Many of you will know that I am involved with art on a Tuesday morning with a group of young people in Mictchells Plain. Many young people in our city and indeed in our coultry have no access to  the arts in the way that schools in ;eafy suburbs offer. This is the legacy we live with as a country. I am privileged to share something of art with these wonderful young people and in return, they teach and share so much of life , with me. 

Twice a year, I also have the great joy of running two art workshopd with grade 10 girls from an NGO programme called ISEEU. The theme is finding your voice and we spend the morningooking at the history of resistence and protest art in South Africa and then explore what issues could be expressed in the artwork they make. This is one of the highlights of my year. 

Finally, I am pleased to announce my first exhibition of my own artwork to be held with fellow artist and friend, Mareliza Kirschbaum. Please see the invitation below and do pop in for a coffee and chat. 

I look forward to sharing all our art with you in November. 

Thank you for the joy of shring time and art with your child. 

The Studio art exhibition will take place on November 2nd from 2 to 5.

Please bring a plate of eats to share. 

I do not want to share the artworks in THIS newsletter so as to keep all the beautiful work, a surprise. 

Dates to diarise. 

Art at the Studio - Newsletter 2- 2024

Esther Mahlangu, South African artist, born in 1935 is the artist we focused on this term. Her work is a visual art flourishing and delight of the cultural patterns and desins of the Ndebele people on their homes. She is known around the world for her canvas versions of the walls she grew up with and still inhabits at the beautiful age of 88. 

We began with looking at pattern and the ways we can create pattern using the elements of art. There are 7 elements of art which are very much like the ingredients of a recipe. 

Line

shape - Flat

colour

value - shading in tones

texture

space

form - 3 D

We began by creating patterns of interest and then recreating pattern onto our boards

The idea to build ontop of our pattern boards, creating 3D structures using line made out of paper helped us to think about art in a differnt way on on different levels. 

Homeschool art groups offer a creative and artists space to explore and create and share time with friends. This beautiful , board, pattern project flowed naturally into learning something of Ester Mahlangu and Ndebeble artworks. These are the patterns created by children and include these bold and contrasting frames. 

What do we do with colourful paper we have created? 

The Studio Newsletter 2024

Welcome back to art with Caren at The Studio for 2024.

Here is what we have been up to so far. 

We began the year with beautiful nature drawings of seed pods,  cones , seeds and the like. Children often really enjoy a pencil drawing experience and these are no exception.  

What pencil to use for drawing? 

Find any good quality B pencil - 3/4/5/6/8 will do. A good quality sharpener and eraser is also helpful in the drawing process. 

The art we engage in at The Studio is traditional , observational artworks as a starting point. Much like gathering information for any work, even works of imagination, we gather and use resourses to create artwork. Very young children have excpetional observational skills and create wonderous works. As do older children and adults , however the older we get the more  self critical we tend to become. 

This term we have focused on self-portraits. 

We learnt abut the proportions of a face. 

Where do we put our eyes? 

Where does the nose turn around at the end? 

What abou the position of ears? 

and then, there is the mouth? 

For the background or negetive space, we looked at  North American artist, Kehinde Wiley. This well know artist was asked to paint the portrait of Borack Obama. he has turned the way portraits represent people today, right on its head. :)

Link to his work. https://zeitzmocaa.museum/artists/kehinde-wiley/

Kehinde Wiley paints orate, highly decorative backgrounds full of nature including meaningful and thoughtfully chosen flowers. 

We hope to finsih of the term with these amazing self reflective works. 

Adult Class- Thursday morning

This year we started off adult art class with all things giant. Each artist is working on their own work of art and idea. The way I like to work with adults is to provide a project idea and then let the artists fly. Some or working on enormouse flower works while some do works in watercolours and chalk pastels.

 Follow Art at The Studio on social media. This year I am focusing on encouraging us all to draw every day. Spending 10-15 minutes every day creating art will change your perspective and really improve your art skills. 

Art at The Studio has 2 family art sessions. This work below is from one of the art sessions. The idea is that children and their parents enjoy an art session together, while working on the same project. It creates a space for beautiful conversation and sharing. 

Art in Cape Town

This year we have enjoyed The Cape Town Art Fair once again. Each year this exhibition is held in the CTICC and is a real celebration of many South African and African artists. 

Highlighting - Esther Mhlangu

 Dr. Esther Mhlangu is a national treasure of South Africa. 98 year old Esther has an exhibition on at The National Gallery. Her familiar and beautiful Ndebele art pattern works can be enjoyed by the whole family. I don't know about you, but I long to be creating in my 90's. 

Art with teens

Art at The Studio works with teens. On Friday afternnon we have our wonderful teen art class. T Shirt painting is the order fof the day to begin the year of 2024. 

We are learning all about how paint works on strtchy fabric. The works are not yeat completed. lookout for them next term in the newsletter 2. 

I work with teens in Mitchels Plain too. These beautiful teens are also creting T shirt art and this is a safe and relaxing place to express and explore. 

Art Times at The Studio 4

Thank you

for joining us in sharing some of our art news for the last term of Art with The Studio. 

Here are some of the amazing works of art from term 3 and 4 . 

The children come from many different communities and range from four to 16 years of age. 

These beautiful patterns below grew out of our discussion of Basotho Blankets.  

Below are 

some of the works of art from the family art group. 

 

Welcome to the 4th art news for this year. This has been a beatiful year of Art at The Studio and I will share some of the highlights with you all. 

I will begin with our annual art exhibition. 

This October, despite the wind that Cape Town often offers up, we shared some gfreat snacks and enjoyed our works of art. Below are some of the works from the day. 

One of the things I love about children's art exhibition, is that we get to share  the works we have created with one another. Someone said something to me resently which made me feel quite sad. " This is only childrens art". while I understand why the person said this, I felt that this parent had missed something of the profoundity of a child drawing or painting what I term , " real art". This is not craft , although sometimes there is an element of craft, but what I offer for art is a real, athentic space for children to begin the journey of observational art learning inclusing some theory and art history. This space is the very beginning or a journey where art engages with life. 

Our art exhibition shares osmething of this philosophy. Anyone and everyone can be an artist. 

During the October break, my family and I traveled to the town of Nieu Bethesda in The Karroo, near Graaf Reinett. The main purpose of this family holiday, was to visit the famous Helen Martin's Owl House. The Owl House is the centre of the community of Nieu Bethesda and has more fet through its small doors than our National Gallery. People travel from all over the world to witness the beautiful work of Helen, Koos Malgas and The Owl House. 

It did not disappoint. 

Here are a few of my photographs. 

 I have shared two photos that capture bothe the light and the love of The Owl House. It was a truly mystical and grateful experience. 

I would like to share a little about the making of the delightful bird sculptures from the exhibition. These artworks grew out of our exploration of The Owl House and the work of Helen and Koos. They were indeed a personal labour of love and patience and each child gave of their all to create these wonders. 

Art during the holidays - What can you do this holiday? 

There are so many wonderful art exhibitions and spaces in all of our cities in South Africa. From a small town like Nieu Bethesda to any of our large cities, many artists share their work. A few weekends ago Kirstenhof held their very first community market where many people exhibited their works. - as an example. 

The Norval in Tokai is always a must for a visit. The garden with all the sculptures by well known artists is a firm favourite. Take a small snack and enjoy this space with many shady trees. Maggie Laubser is still on show with her mesmerizing portraits and a lovley timeline of work on exhibit. 

Zeitz at The Waterfront is free for SA citizens on Wednesday mornings.There is an amazing exhibition of political resistance art from South Africa and many other parts of the world. It is extremely powerful. Not for children under the age of  12/13.

Galleries are also a wonderful space to pop into. The big galleries like Southern Guild, Blanc, A4 and Goodman etc are place on e can visit for free. Just check the internet for details. 

The National Gallery - this is a firm favourite of mine. It holds a beautiful collection of South African artists as well as artists from the world. The childrens gallery is bright , welcomming, with paintings at a lower level and bean bags to lie on. 

I end on this note. Thank you. Thank you for sharing in the exhibition . Thank you for encouraging your children in their artist journey.  To all those grade 7 children who begin a new year at a new school, go for it. Make new friends and keep on drawing. A reminder I have an art class for teens on a Friday afternoon. 

Have a peaceful, restful holiday time . I look forward to spending time with my family, new "family" and my 82 year old mom who is visiting us from Johannesburg. 

I look forward to see you next year. 

in art

Caren

Art Times at The Studio - 3

Good morning artist parents and guardians. This is our 3rd newsletter and the trickiest ne to write because I will need to be as secretive as I can about the art we have been creating for the exhibition. 

You will not be disappointed. 

As you may know by know, I have several different art classes including adult, teen, homeschool, family art groups, outreach work as well as the weekly general art classes for your children. These are all beautiful spaces where a mirriad of artworks are being workd on. 

In addition to these, I try and offer an art outing to an exhibition once a term and the above photo is an example of the adult group visitng the Zeitz Mocca art gallery in Cape Town to see the , "When We See Us" exhibition. Some of our children also visited this ehibition during the july holidays. It is an extrodinary exhibit of black artists work from the diaspora and I highly recommend a visit. Wednesday mornings are free for SA citizens. 

 

 

Surrealism is a genre of art that developed in the shadow of WW 1,as a response to the horrors of war. This art form wanted to express the ideas that are hidden in our dreams and sub conscious and key artists are people like Spanish Dali , French Rene Margritte and Max Ernst .

https://www.artlex.com/art-movements/surrealism/artwork/

These holiday and homeschool artworks which take an animal and then create something wonderful with them are along the ideas of this surrealist movment. 

Above is a little hint of what we have been building throughout this term. No more :)

Above is a beautiful frame made during one of our family art sessions. You are so welcome to book a slot and bring your family to share in art. 

On Tuesday mornings I visit a school in Mitchels Plain to do art with a small group of teens. We are exploring Surrealism too by creating collages which we will paint. 

Adults jind me for a morning of design and free work. This person took an old jacket and created this beautiful work reflecting HOPE. 

 f

If you are wanting to develope more of a purposeful art practice, then do follow The Studio on social media for idea and prompts. 

Below is a beautiful work done by a student this term. Most students have been able to manage 3 projects , which have all been on the go at the same time. Awesome. 

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Painting these wonderful creations is the very last part of this huge project. I am so proud of each child. 

Thank you for this opportunity to share art with all of your children as well as the adults who join and the families who have joined too. It is such a joy for me. 

Artist exploration - This term we have learnt about South African artist, Helen martins and her 'Owl House". Helen was born in 1897 and diesd in 1976. She lived most of her life in the little town of Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo of South Africa. She was quite and interesting person who , along with her hellow artist and helper, Koos Malgas built the wonders in her garden which can be visited today. 

https://www.graaffreinet.co.za/listing/owl_house_nieu_bethesda

This holiday, I am going to visit The Owl House with my family. I am extremely excited as this has been a life wish for me. I will let you know how this journey goes. 

Exhibition - please diariase the date of 28th October in the afternoon which will be our annual art exhibition. 

Yours, in art Caren

Please do not hestiate to contact Caren.Falconer - art@carensartstudio.co.za