Week Six: Drawing 1

I was absent this week (cross-country skiing in king's canyon; don't feel sorry), but I hear that everyone visited an art gallery in Capitola Village for inspiration, then went to Capitola Beach to build forts out of driftwood, and finally headed to Seabright Beach to draw.  Nick was really impressed with the drawings that came out of that process.  Hope it was fun.  See you all next week!

(If anyone has any pictures of the day, feel free to upload them.  I'd love to see what went down!)

Week Five: Rainy Day

Today we avoided the deluge and played games at a local coffee shop.  To support our community of artists we then went to Andre's play (which Cayden helped in the production of) at the Louden Nelson Community Center.

Week Four: Pictures from Ken

Handmade Katana from redwood splinters the week before!

Week Four: Gary Snyder, Poetry

For week four we turned our artistic minds to nature poetry.  Armed with two anthologies from the poet laureate of deep ecology, Gary Snyder, we set off for a historic cabin at Wilder Ranch to find a dry place to write.  A contemporary of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, Snyder excels at capturing moments and using his words to take readers on journeys through the Sierra Nevada foothills he calls home.  Before embarking on our own journeys through the present, we began by exercising our poetic minds with an observation and description game.  When we finished, we read a few of Snyder's poems for inspiration.  The rain was still holding off, so we chose individual sit spots outside each other's line of vision and wrote for 10 minutes.  One student wrote his poem using Snyder's anthology for a writer's table; I'm confident Snyder would have approved!

Week Three: Pictures from Ken

                                                    top of a fallen tree at Fall Creek

Week Three: Fall Creek

This week we went for a hike along Fall Creek in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park.  The recent storms have passed through this area and left a wake of natural carnage - eroded trails, fallen trees, redwood splinters the size of cars, a roaring river.  It was easy to get distracted playing with the raw power of the forest that day.  We rolled and levered numerous logs into the river and watched as they spun and danced, making their own art in the flow.  Today was a little heavier on nature and a little lighter on art, but as nature is the medium we are seeking to work with, every exploration of wood, water, and rock is an artistic act.

                                                           
                                                             wild flowers!!

Week Two: Pictures from Ken

 Vista Point

Thunderhead 

Deer Stalking 

 Artist Conk on Bay Laurel

The Artist at Work 

Crepuscular Rays 

Thunderhead from Vista Point 

 Lunch

Week Two: Ansel Adams, Photography

Our topic for this week was nature photography, so we chose to study the life, legacy, and work of Ansel Adams.  We went to the library and learned how to do research on both photography and Adams.  We then chose our favorite of his photographs from the internet and each posted one to the blog (after a quick computer literacy tutorial).  The rain played nice and we traveled to Upper Campus to take our own nature photographs.  With instructions to imagine that they were attempting to preserve the beauty of Upper Campus the way Adams's work was critical for the preservation of Yosemite, we split into teams with a camera in each group and set off on a hike.  Immediately I saw students climbing trees to get better angles on their targets and racing the sun to capture moments of crepuscular rays peaking through the clouds.  Ansel would have been proud!

We snuck up on a small herd of deer to get some startled portraits.  After a while we got sidetracked eating prickly pear cactus (with only a few sore paws) and playing games of camouflage on a hill top.  We ended our day with a trip to Vista Point where we could see the forest, the ocean, and the thunderheads all in one shot.  I took a free mental trip to Inspiration Point in Yosemite where Adams took perhaps his most iconic photograph and made it back to the bus on time.  Just another beautiful day in Santa Cruz!


Homework: Upload your best photo from Upper Campus!  Title it: "Week Two: Photo from Your Name"

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Cayden

i like this because of the reflection

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Dylan

I like how beautiful the ice is.

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Seth

I like this picture because of the icicles and the background of yosemite.

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Andre

i like this photo because it looks like the water even though its rock.

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Ben

I  think this picture is cool because of the lighting on the water, the sea anemones in a row, and the bubble formation.

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Anthony

I like this photo because it shows the icy cliff.

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Nolan

I like this photo because it is cool!!!

Week Two: Ansel Adams Picture chosen by Finny

the clouds are really billowy   and awesome and puffy

Week One: Homework

Yeah, I bet you didn't see this coming :)

We won't have homework every week, but homework for this week is to find a picture taken by Ansel Adams and upload it to the blog!

We will be discussing Ansel Adams' life and work next week, and I'd like to see if you can figure out how to make a blog post. You should each receive an email from me adding you as an author to the blog.  Happy researching!

(p.s. Definitely bring a camera next week because we will be focusing on nature photography)

Here's my homework:

Week One: Pictures from Ken

Hey guys, here are the best of the pictures I took from week one:

Week One: Andy Goldsworthy

This week we highlighted the work of Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy.  Perhaps more than any other artist he helped expand my idea of what art could be.  We went to an old cabin in Wilder Ranch State Park and watched the documentary about his life and work:

Rivers and Tides 

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YneW7xksBHY).

We then went to the Bonny Doon Ecological Reserve to make art.  Armed with inspiration, and with no more instructions than the hint to look for what is in abundance around you, we wandered off into the forest.  Simultaneously everyone stopped and started working on projects that evolved as they went.  By the end we had radically transformed a section of the trail.  A number of students commented that they wish they could hide in the bushes and see the reactions of hikers passing our art.  I am confident that anyone who passed that way after us would be forced to slow down, wonder, and reflect.


Please upload any pictures you have of that day (Title posts: "Week One: Pictures from Your Name"), and remember to bring a camera (or phone!) next week...