Happy New Year, hats 2018

Wishing You Sweet Holidays, 2017 Christmas card and poem.

Wishing You Sweet Holidays

For the holidays so sweet,

May you have such a tasty treat

That life will feel complete,

Like a moment when you meet

A friendly stranger in the street

And you give them your special seat

Because you know this be the very meat

Which sends our lives it's heat,

And grows our corn and wheat

For Us and Future's feet, 

For always to repeat,

But ever a varied feat.

As we turn the freshest sheet,

We remember all hearts forever beat.

Catinka Knoth

12/25/2017

Holiday paper cut tree cards, adult & kids' art classes, 12/18-19/17

This version of the papercut was a new experiment. Could we make a tree papercut for the card front and another for the inside? Yes tho it is discombobulating to figure out how to cut this French fold card. We did not always get it but we always got some kind of tree and some kind of card!

We had a little fellow who quick as a flash stuck his barely drawn sheet up on the wall. I assumed it was on the whiteboard behind me sticking by static electricity. Wait, how did you get that to stay? I used the 'purple glue!' Yikes! Nooo - that can't be there!!!! So he pulled it down and stuck it to the lectern. The rest of that display joined his art on the lectern. He did have to learn to burnish the sheet where the glue patch is rather than on any random spot. That is ok - plenty of adults burnish where there is no glue...

Happy Holidays and have fun making one just for the fun of it!

Calligraphy style holiday cards, adult art class display, 12/4/17

Tape two colored pencils together, with one point a bit higher than the other. Tape should be around the middle of the pencils and on the diagonal so pencils stay stationary.

Experiment with drawing lines and marks holding the 'pencil' at various angles. The more you can learn to keep it at a consistent angle, the more you can make strokes that flow evenly from thick to thin. You may see from practice sheets here how to play w this. It needs practice tho.

After the practice we did cards. Not everyone used the 'lesson' though!

Gingerbread house drawing demo, house paper cut-out template

The images may be out of order. This house model shows that you can use those side tabs as interlocking cut slot joins. You can also glue together on the inside. I don't think there is a proper way to attach the roof here. You can improvise I'm sure!

Decorate as you wish. Probably better to do that before you cut it out.

Now to find a nice set of origami instructions.

Gingerbread house drawings, children's art class, work by kids and adults, 12/5/17

We also made little cutout models from a template I had made. The template needs more tabs and instructions tho. Students will finish those models at home, since we ran out of time. ..One student had colored her roof as a rainbow - luscious!

Advice from a friend - 

See wild modernist gingerbread houses here:

http://blog.presentandcorrect.com/modernistmas-2

No Knead whole wheat bread, 12/4/17

Apparently the inside dark color must come from the long rising time. I used straight whole wheat flour but it somehow colored during baking. Caramelization? I did not add any coloring. I think it was the fermenting process.

I watched the Jim Lahey Mark Birman videos and recipes but wound up with my own version. You might understand something from the notes I wrote up towards the end. I'm thrilled to have made this happen. Crust is right, inside is a texture and flavor I like.

Now to decide whether to slice and freeze. I usually reheat bread slices in my cast iron fry pan on the stove top...
The oatmeal is just there to keep things from sticking.

My measurements are all eyeballed and somewhat described in my notes.

Nature walk around the block, Saturday, 12/02/17

Happy Birthday!

What is that attachment?......

I wrote on this picture using the the phone's image editor. Finger writing does not go exactly where you want it to go. So it's running off the sail. I hope it shows. Happy birthday dear sister!
Love,
Catinka

Dried leaves etc pickings from afternoon walk around the block.

Left the house around 3:11 PM
Temperature 44 to 46° gray out

Cat sees me leave the house and ponders whether to to follow me. But the Broadway traffic is so loud he doesn't try. I had south to go down Walker place.

The mailman greets me, 'Enjoy your afternoon!'. 'You too!'

I find several old leaves to maybe ID or take a picture of as an arrangement. There's also an interesting weed, which I tried to break off but it only came out with the root attached.

The workmen renovating a building there are winding up for the day. Some are laughing in the distance.

The big puddle is really big. I can hardly get around it.

I run into a family I know - the three younger kids. They are there to play soccer. These kids have grown amazingly just in one year. The middle child looks like a dad. The next youngest is suddenly practically grown up. And the youngest still looks somewhat the same. We visit just a little bit. 

As I turn toward the hill that I usually go down  I now see it is not as big as I thought. It is level for a longer stretch and the steep part is really quite short.

I thought I heard geese or ducks overhead. No, it was the little dog in one of the houses barking like crazy!

I round the corner onto the busy street. There are two squirrels on the lawn around the big oak trees. They run  up one of the trees. 

I start whistling for the cat. He appears as  I climb up onto the porch. He is followed by his rival. The rival wants my handout of some dry kibble food. I herd my cat into the house, and get some cat food for the cat waiting downstairs. I go down and give it to him.

Native American designs and motifs - student art display, kids and adults, children's drawing class, 11/28/17

Native American Heritage Month. We did eagles, totem poles, ceremonial eagle dancers, birchbark tipis, a birchbark canoes, and painted ponies

Native American designs for November is a commemorative month. Adult drawing class, 11/27/17

November is Native American Heritage Month
Student art display: 

We started with several design or graph color play exercises. 

Four panes. Divide them into graphs of equal sized squares in the following divisions

#1. 8x8  create a symmetrical design in one darkish color

#2. 6x6  do as #1

#3. 7x7.  Create a symmetrical design, touch each edge. (Two colors ok - I don't remember)

#4. 5x5. As #3

Full sheet - set up a 12 x15 graph, leaving a border or margin around it.

Create 4-6 free standing designs or motifs in this sheet. Use colors as you wish.

Final piece:

Fold a sheet of paper so you have as large a square as you can out of it. Cut away that excess paper. (Assuming all know how to find a square in a rectangular sheet of paper). Fold in half each way, and then again both ways. You should have 16 squares in the overall square. Fold in half on the diagonals as well. (You should already have one from making the large square.) Create a two color design in your big square by coloring in the folded boxes and triangles as you wish. 

How does this apply to Native American design? Just imagine their bead and quill work.... All based on cell and graph design. The Seminole and Miccosukee Native Americans made cloth and clothing by sewing long strips of cotton together then cutting these and piecing together to make repetitious cloths to sew together as larger materials. 

My google searches and some resulting links:

seminole indians skirts cloth patchwork quilt

miccosukee clothes

http://ushistoryimages.com/seminole-indians.shtm

https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/sflarch/collections/seminoledoll/patchwork/

Thanksgiving cornucopia crayon demo drawing to color

Happy Thanksgiving! Cornucopia

Black Crayon demo drawing, digitally colored
Next post you will find the black crayon drawing to color!

December Adult Art Workshops with Catinka Knoth, at Rockland Library, 2017

Holiday Cards, Ornaments, & Scenes December Adult Art Workshops with Catinka Knoth, at Rockland
Library, 2017

Press Release:
Rockland - Catinka Knoth will  lead an art workshop series for adults,
on drawing and making holiday cards, scenes, and ornaments,  11 a.m., most Mondays, December 4-18, (no class 12/25) in the Community Room, Rockland
Public Library, 80 Union St.  Led by Knoth, participants will  create
their own art for the holidays. Knoth provides the  classes  free of
charge, with materials supplied. Friends of Rockland Library host the
workshops, which are open to the public. FMI Knoth at 691-5544 or
Rockland Library at 594-0310.

Knoth will provide instruction and guidance in drawing and creating
December's holiday  themes. Participants will work with colored pencil,
crayon, and paper cutting, with a focus on drawing in color.

Knoth paints watercolors of Maine and whimsical animal scenes, which
she offers as cards and prints. She teaches a free weekly children's
drawing class at Rockland Public Library, sponsored by Wendy and Keith
Wellin. For more information about Knoth's work visit
www.catinkacards.com.

Attachments: Holiday art by Catinka Knoth

December Children's Drawing Workshops at Rockland Library, with Catinka Knoth, 2017

December Children's Drawing Workshops at Rockland Library, with Catinka Knoth, 2017

December Children's Drawing Workshops at Rockland Library, with Catinka Knoth, 2017

"Let's Draw Pictures and Cards for the Holiday Season!" 
 
Press Release
Rockland - Children will explore motifs from the traditional
celebrations of December in the free drawing classes at Rockland Public Library led by Catinka Knoth. Classes meet every Tuesday, 4-5pm, in the Community Room, Rockland Public Library, 80 Union St. Children 10 and under need adult accompaniment. The program, sponsored by Wendy & Keith Wellin, is free with all materials supplied, and hosted by Friends of Rockland Library. Contact Jean Young, children's librarian, at 594-0310 for more information.
 
Christmas, Winter solstice, Chanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the New Year offer lots of imagery for creative fun. Students will create images such as holiday wreaths, trees, gingerbread houses, ornaments and decorations; Santa Claus, toys, & elves; reindeer and sleighs; gift giving and more.

12/05    Gingerbread houses & holiday decorations
12/12    Christmas & holiday cards
12/19    Holiday cards & winter solstice
12/26    New Year's, Kwanzaa


Class often starts with a period of guessing and brainstorming ideas 
for the session's drawing. Knoth then leads children age 6 and up in "follow along" drawings.  She expects children to work independently and encourages adults to participate by making their own drawings. If time allows, Knoth takes group photos of the students' work at the end of class.
 
Holiday Motif Demonstration Drawings  by Catinka Knoth

Turkeys and Cornucopias for Thanksgiving - adult and kids' drawing classes, student art displays, 11/20-21/17

Both classes started w looping and 'penmanship' style exercises. Then we created the turkeys using that calligraphy style. It is wonderful fun to do. Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey drawing for Thanksgiving!

'Script' loops practice.
Turkey drawn in loops.
Turkey line drawing in orange - just the basic areas from the reference art, a Victorian 'scrap' from Dover publications.
Then color in the line drawing as desired. Be as wild or as realistic as you want! Have fun.

Woodland animals 2017 demo drawing to color

Mouse, chipmunk, raccoon, fox, lynx, bear, snowy owl - have fun coloring! Its a big mouse and a small coon in this scene. The small bear we can get away with - he is in the distance!

Woodland Animals art classes - squirrels, chipmunks raccoons foxes Canada links LYNX, student art, kids and adult art classes, 11/13– 14/17

Adult art classes started with exercises of interpreting photos as spiral figures like slinkies just to get a feel for the form. Then we did a page of continuous line drawings of four different animals. At last the students drew as they wished working from the reference photos.

The kids' class followed along with
with me. We had brainstormed a list of woodland animals. We got a lot of them. We even got a snowy owl in there, and tried a badger, which really had to be from imagination because we didn't know what it looks like.


Bobcats and candida links are very similar The Canada lynx has a tail that is completely black at the end of it. The bobcat tail is white underneath .our reference picture was of a Canada Lynx judging by the tail.

Deer drawings and exercises, student art display from kids' and adult drawing classes, 11/6 &7/2017

Both adults and kids drawing classes started with the same exercises. We made four rectangles on a sheet of paper.

1) crisscross perpendicular lines, 11 lines. 

2) crisscross diagonal lines, 13 of them
3) crisscross arcs, seven of them
4) draw overlapping triangles of varying sizes - nine of them.

Now, in each of those rectangles see if you can create or find some kind of figure. Color in in one color. Use a different color for each figure. You can either find a figure or make something up as you go along -doesn't matter. You might want to mark it with an eye or dark spot for an eyeball. Also good to make a note on each box of what the parameters were – i.e. how many lines, what kind of lines.

Then we turned to the drawings of   KEN HULTGREN as references for 
drawing deer running in the fields. 

Kenneth Hultgren was an animator for Disney. He wrote a book on drawing animals which is a wonderful reference for practicing animal drawings. The book was written around 1951.

https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Art_of_Animal_Drawing.html?id=BBt4OzW_wV4C&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button

I do a follow along drawing and the students draw with me. 

Quickie apple dessert with corn tortillas, 11/2/17

Oh my - can't believe I only today thought of this combo. The other day a friend brought me some large corn based cookies. Got me wondering how one could adapt corn tortillas into something similar.

Oohh so much better:
Heat the cast-iron frypan.
Two corn tortillas together.
Dab thin slices of butter on to the corn tortillas.
Cover with plain slices of tart apples.
I keep the skin on them but that's personal preference, (and it is better for you).
Sprinkle apples with a teaspoon of sugar.
Sprinkle cinnamon.
Transfer this tart onto the frying pan. No fat needed in the pan.
This is pan baking or roasting essentially - cover the pan, and let it cook.
I don't know how long I let it cook. I was off getting washed up and ready to dive into my new dessert.
Once I saw that the apples had been affected by heat, I turned the heat off and let it sit in its own heat some mor.e
Then I took the pictures.
Once I had pictures I could take a taste.
The two tortilla crust is crackly. Yhe apples and the tortillas together taste really good. What an easy way to make a fruit dessert! Didn't even need any salt. Usually these corn tortillas need some salt but this was fine.

Now, I want a Spanish name for this -
Manzanilla con maiz tortillas

Happy Halloween! Crayon drawing to color!

Autumn walk around my block, Saturday, 10/28/17 - squirrel, acorns, leaves, little buddy....

(Dictated - so lots of doozies and just a few edits!...)

Afternoon walk something I haven't done in ages I somewhat  went out with out any real agenda. Maybe I would find something's to bring home maybe I would remember somethings it was justto start myself giving out there for a walk. Right off the bat a squirrel seem to be hollering at me yeah that's right I was poking around at the acorns I was finding on the ground and then I heard the squirrel . I did wonder if he was cock hollering about me or about something else I tried to get pictures of him I hadn't realized how hard it would be to use the iPhone for pictures on a walk because there's so much potential for dropping it it doesn't have strep hanger. And doesn't like cold fingers when you're trying to take a picture. So I kept finding things on the ground it up in the tree with the squirrel I turned the corner. And there was a beautiful red Maple leaf on the ground. So again I had to stop and take a picture of that leaf and then Who? comes along my cat! He had found me on my walk! It wasn't that good about posing for the camera though because he was nervous about the Broadway noise and also the work being done at the first building on the other side street. That's right I had stopped and asked the workmen what they were building. They were making a kitchen bigger or something like that. OK cat kept following me - we went through the parking lot behind the old schools oh and the first thing is I saw as we turn the corner was patches of dandelion greens new ones! So I had to pull one out a big handful of one out because it look like it would be can make good sautéed greens. And that wasn't going to be able to stuff in my pocket I was going to have to hold onto that until I got home. I took pictures of the drying out Angel what are they called cats . Period. Period… at the end of the parking lot is a small oak tree with more not red but a nice color leaves and those were still on the tree as I had remembered they were a few winters past - I took some pictures of them. And then that driveway that comes down into the parking lot was quite filled with the luggage puddle. There was room to walk along it but it was still in it had wonderful reflections in it so I took pictures of the reflections.

Before I could take the picture though I heard a car behind me and the driver did not want to get in the way of my picture and was prepared to wait for me I told her just go ahead because otherwise I'll be rushed OK so she went through the puddle

 and the puddle rippled up, but quickly enough was smooth. I wanted to get a picture of the school building as it reflected in the puddle. I got that. All along I could hear crows in the distance calling each other as they often do at that hour right before the sun sets. Cat kept coming along being a little bit edgy with whenever you heard sounds that worried him and he was always on the lookout of course as we got closer to Broadway there were sirens and several ambulances went by. Will have to find out where that was. On Broadway the busy street at the traffic zooming by the cat was not happy he even yelled in distress when we got to our house you went across the lawn to get to safety – our porch rather than go going to the back, and he came I didn't with me. I had intentions of writing this perhaps in pencil into my notebook that I did this with a few years back, but I couldn't find it that's enough I've no idea where I put that. So I'm just dictating whatever I remember of my little Jonte. It is really fun to take a walk to see what you will see, to see what you can remember to know things on the way. I also got ideas for their is missions that you can set for yourself I'm such a walk– I'll make a list of some ideas later. I also had the idea that I could do some sketches or drawings of this stuff that I brought back with me no old equals a couple of C wings what are they call those helicopter things the very skinny lobed Oakleaf that I found. My wad of dandelion greens is at least sitting in some water. Later I'll figure out how to clean it. Earlier I was looking forThe name of that plant that I saw her simple queen in place of a burger that one. Queen Anne's lace the plant thank you! Lots of this writing won't make as much sense as I would like it too because it's dictation I did a few corrections long way but there's some doozies in there. I leave them for their humor.