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HALLOWEEN HAPPENINGS
Halloween pumpkins painted in one of Picasso’s artistic styles was the prompt for our day, but our actual mission was to be present for a neighbor in need of a place to rest and recover her sense of self. Art affirms the makers, but we need to put our needs aside for the needs of…
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Two Types of Color Wheels
Two lessons using the color wheel: the first is to mix the colors around the wheel. The students who’ve done this exercise before get to mix the same colors, but create an image from their own imagination.
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Solid Geometric Perspective
An introductory lesson in perspective and shading using solid geometric objects for determining the skill level of students in a first art class. This lesson allows the teacher to modify the future lesson plans to build on the students’ noted strengths and weaknesses. It also allows for making several levels of the same lesson, if…
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Picasso’s African Masks and Inner Mysteries
What is the key to open the door to the hidden mysteries? For Frodo and his fellow travelers in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, they needed to know the elvish answer to the riddle, “Speak friend and enter.” Gandalf knows this language, so they enter with ease. For years, the Egyptian hieroglyphics were unintelligible…
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Pumpkins and Gourds
Sometimes I can work for hours and end up with nothing to show for it. In grammar school, I could use the excuse, “The dog ate my diorama.” Today my primary reason is “The latest iOS upgrade sent my file into the far realms of the cloud and smashed it to smithereens while it was…
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Creating a Picasso Still Life
Einstein never said, “If we do the same thing every time, but expect a different result, this is the definition of insanity.” So why do artists return over and over to the still life? For that matter, why do preachers repeatedly use the same scripture texts for their sermons? Some of my former congregation members…



