Upcoming Speaking Engagement

This coming weekend, I'll be a featured artist and presenter at the California Art Educators Conference in Sacramento. My one hour presentation for the art teachers will be about how words inspire my artwork. Illustrations tell stories, but often times the images are a reflection of the story told.

Please visit my Web site for print outs useful to teachers.

Included is a handout that I'm giving to the teachers: a formula to the type of poetry I write in my books.

Changes Alter Camps

Hi Everyone,

I am sorry to say that I have to cancel my three summer art camp sessions this year. I just got offered a full-time job and will be starting in May. It caught me off-guard, but I have to take this opportunity and run with it. It was a really tough decision to make. I'm going to miss doing camps for all of your amazing young artists. I know a few have been waiting a long time just to be old enough to participate. I'll be sure to do a few art workshops after October, because I really enjoy doing them!

Thanks for your understanding and patience. It has been a wonderful adventure teaching young people art.

Please come to my Fine Art Sale and my house on May 23 & 24 from 9am-Noon. I'll have a table set up for kids to do art and would love to chat.

I appreciate that you gave me the opportunity to work with your children!

Rachel

Take a Deep Breath - It's Art

So many adults tell me that they wish they had talent in art. My response? Art isn't about talent, it's about enjoying the process of creating something that isn't right or wrong. We spend so much time judging ourselves. Are we a good parent? Are we doing our job well enough? Do we eat healthy, or look nice? Doing art for ourselves is about stopping everything, if for just a few minutes, and create something that resonates with us. It is individual and no two pieces of art are alike. As every person is different so is every piece of art.

Here is my challenge for anyone looking for a piece of art to do. Grab a blank piece of paper, a pencil, markers or crayons. Now scribble. Let your hand move and don't think. Then randomly start filling in the small sections with color. And as my friend so eloquently put, "I can find beauty in the mess."

A Poem inspired by a Kindergartener

Don't Eat the Crayons!

By: Rachel Dillon

I love to teach art,
art class is so fun,
Except when art parts
became food for one.

“Don’t eat the crayons!”
I told Zack, on Monday.
With crayon in his teeth he told me, “OK.”

“Don’t eat your eraser,”
I told Zack on Tuesday.
He swallowed real hard and then asked to go play.

“Don’t lick the blue paint,”
I screeched on Wednesday.
Paint dripped down his chin which he then wiped away.

“Don’t taste the pastels,”
I begged Zack on Thursday.
He spat out three pieces much to my dismay.

Friday came along
and I was scared to teach art
I walked into class
slowly pushing my cart

And there at a table
sat Zack with a smile.
He gave me a paper
he pulled from a file.

It said, “To my favorite art teacher,
Art stuff tastes like gruel.
I’d rather make art,
cuz art is so cool.”

 

Watercolor Resistance Art Lesson

Greetings!
It has been a while since I entered content on my blog. Crazy busy has sucked my time away. Here is a fun project that I found on Pinterest, of course, and have recreated several times with a variety of elementary school students.

I've attached a power point of the creation of this art lesson that lists Art Fundamentals covered and explained, like:

·    Perspective – What we can see and what we don’t

·    Resistance Watercolor Piece – How water rolls off substances like wax from a crayon.

·    Rule of Three – using three to create a visual balance

·    Variation of Shape and Horizon Line