Penguins and winter sports figures, student art display, adult drawing class, 1/29/18

We did exercises of playing with dark shapes colored into imaginary outlines. Circles and teardrops. See if you can see any figures in the groupings. Then make some figures.

Finally, try inventing penguins and maybe work from reference pics.

Pictograms

Fwd: Winter scenes class adult art class student display, 1/22/18

My phone was so out of memory and space that it only gave a black screen and would not let me take a pic. I used a student's device to take the pic.

We did some exercises before the final drawings. A continual line drawing of the scene and a negative shapes outline drawing.

Cat sees crows from the window...

First I see the cat intent on something in the yard. What? Crows and a squirrel, (gone already here), poking around in the thaw. Then a few more crows. Cat crouches. Moments later he whines to go out. Ok. I settle down to my breakfast. A bit later I notice the cat way across the road two yards over and criss-crossing diagonally back towards home. The road has a wet sound. I go down and whistle for him. He comes in from the backyard.

Valentine art, kids' art programs, February 2018

February celebrations art, valentines, Chinese New Year, Presidents' Day, Mardi Gras

A post to collect my images or February's celebrations - some may be doubles. Some can work as coloring pages to download.

I was going nuts trying to find pics for a press release. Perhaps now that I have found some, collecting them together here will help in the future,

Sourdough wholewheat tostini/crostini(?), with grilled sliced hotdog breakfast, 1/25/18

The heel end from this week's bread baking experiment, as breakfast today. ...but why is my phone letting me take a pic - it has run out of memory and I have not been able to free up space? It just has not worked. And, it has interfered with other processes.

I had another bread experiment in the works, a small one. Wanted to take a pic of that in its stage just then. But the phone had turned dead and black. No revival.

Settle down to enjoy breakfast and let the phone throw its blockade fit. Open another device, go online by wifi hotspot, google the two problems.

Learned: 1) how to restart black screened iPhone, (luckily it was not a matter of the worst reason). 2) how to really delete what you thought you had deleted, and thereby free up space/memory in iPhone etc. Good so far. Just no before pics of current bread experiment.

February children's programs 2018

Press Release 

January 24, 2018

"Let's Draw February's Celebrations!" - Children's Drawing Workshops at

Rockland Public Library, 2018

Rockland -  Children will draw images from February's celebrations and

traditions at Rockland Public Library's ongoing drawing workshops led

by artist Catinka Knoth. Participants draw along with Knoth as she

demonstrates how to draw and make motifs for Chinese New Year,Valentine's

Day, President's Day, and Mardi Gras. Each week is a different subject:

2/06    Valentine's Day cards & papercuts

2/13    Mardi Gras

2/20    Presidents Day 

2/27    Chinese New Year Season - Year of the Dog

Sponsored by Wendy and Keith Wellin, the workshops, for age 6 and up,

are free and open to the public, with all materials provided. Knoth

expects participants to be able to work independently for the most

part. Children age 10 and under should be accompanied by an adult.

Ongoing workshops meet every Tuesday, 4-5 pm, Community Room, Rockland

Public Library, 80 Union St., hosted by Friends of Rockland Library. 

FMI - Jean Young, children's librarian, 594-0310.

Young artists will  draw a wide range of motifs. Valentine's Day cards often have motifs such as hearts, birds, cupids, lace, ribbons, and roses.  Mardi Gras motifs include masks, King cakes, doubloons, jazz instruments, jesters, tricorn hats, and beads. In honor of the presidents and Black History Month, students might also explore  classic portraits and scenes. Chinese New Year 2018 is the Year of the Dog. Participants may explore traditional zodiac papercut  designs, Chinese dragons, and Lion Dancers.

Attachments: whiteboard demonstration drawings and art by Catinka Knoth

February Adult Art Program with Catinka Knoth, 2018

Press Release: 

January 24, 2018

February Celebrations Adult Art Workshops with Catinka Knoth at Rockland Library, 2018

Rockland - Catinka Knoth  will lead an art workshop series for adults,

on creating motifs for  celebrations of February:    Valentine's Day, Mardi Gras, 

and Chinese New Year - the Year of the Dog.

Each week will be a different subject.

Classes meet 11 a.m. most Mondays in February, (library closed for Presidents' Day, Feb. 19), in the

Community Room, Rockland Public Library, 80 Union St.  Led by Knoth, participants will  create their own art. 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.

2/05     Valentine's Day roses, papercuts & cards

2/12     Mardi Gras masks and motifs

2/19     Library closed Presidents' Day

2/26     Chinese New Year - Year of the Dog

Knoth will provide instruction and guidance in drawing and creating the

fantasy images of February's celebrations. Participants will work with pencil, colored pencil, crayon, and papercut, 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 - art and photos by Catinka Knoth

Penguins & snowflake papercut, kids' art class, 1/18/18

Snowflake papercuts and my bread just baked, 1/15/18

Snowflakes are only for some kind of background for my bread photo. I mixed the ingredients while I made breakfast Sunday morning. It is almost a no-knead but I used less water so I had to do a bit of kneading. Not really - it was just to mix.

Since I did not want to bake that night, (after a 12 hour rising), it got a 24 hour rise. I did punch it down before bed. Unsure whether that would disturb anything. There is so little yeast to start. I guess the yeast grows. The dough ferments or sours during that time too. Monday morning I turned it over onto its baking pan, on parchment paper and some cornmeal, and it nicely formed this loaf shape.

A hot oven, a pan of water on the bottom shelf, then the loaf on its pan with a loose foil tent. After 1/2 hour, I removed the tent, turned down the oven a bit, put more water in the water pan, and baked another 1/2 hour.

Out of the oven and onto a raised surface to cool. (So it won't sweat and loose its crustiness.) This is an all wholewheat flour so it is a very dense loaf, like a peasant bread. Chewy, again like those Westphalian breads. I cut thin slices as I go. I will try a white bread with this method at some point. But yes, you can make bread with straight wholewheat flour. It just won't be light and fluffy.

I am so thrilled to be making bread again, (in loaves). There was a short period years ago when I made bread and tried selling them in my apartment building in NYC, going door to door! That did not last long but I learned from it.

No recipes or methods I have seen use the method I use. Because mine is unmeasured and relies on feel, and recipes nowadays need exact measurements. Mine is an easier mixing process and less messy. Hands don't get goopy even though you use hands to mix, and the mixing vessel is practically clean once the dough is mixed.

Martin Luther King Jr, tablet drawing and peace on earth MLK quote, CK

Frost grows in my large window this frozen morning...

I see fish, eyes, feathers, faces, forests. Such miracle formations won't happen in modern replacement windows. ....Is there an f word for 'eye'?

Origami houses ....still learning

I have been battling the instructions trying to understand them. Today I think I got it.

I did not like that one is to give it such a low first story just to keep the ends locked in place. So I think I used a different made up lock. My chimney is smaller than instructed because I just used a scrap for it. So it does not like to stay inside the insertion point.

Chocolate stovetop pan cookie and papercut snowflakes invention

Sorry, no exact measurements

Ingredients
1 (?) T butter
Two heaping spoons sugar
Dash of salt
3 to 4 heaping spoons of flour
Cinnamon
Cocoa powder

Directions
Combine butter, sugar, salt
Cream together well.
Add flour, cinnamon, and cocoa powder
Mix well with a fork
till it's like a fine crumb to altogether you line
Splash water or coffee into the mixture.
Just a few spoons at a time - mix quickly
Gather with your fingers until it makes a ball of dough.
You don't want to over mix.
On a piece of parchment baking paper, lay the ball of dough and
flatten it into a large cookie shape.
Break the cookie in anyway you want that you would want to break apart later.
You can do it in pie wedges
You can do it in strips
'Bake' in cast-iron frypan on the stove top that has been preheating.

Use aluminum pie plates as a kind of oven inside the frypan.
Cover the frypan and 'bake' about 25 to 30 minutes.
Remove from heat, cut the cookie shapes while your cookie is still soft, otherwise it could break.
Let it cool before you eat!
And don't eat it all at once unless you have others with you to share it.

More papercut snowflakes, student display, kids' art class, 1/9/18

We got it back to 6 points, or less! It can be so mind boggling to fold the largest square possible in a given rectangle. One must also figure out how to make a precise paper fold working out from the exact corner of the sheet.

Line up the short side of the sheet onto the long side, with the corner being the radius point. Fold back the excess exactly where the short side lies along the long side. Remember, a 'square' has sides of equal length, at right angles to each other.

Paper, however, has physical properties that you must attend to. It does not like to fold against its grain. The grain of paper, its fibers, usually run with the long side of a sheet. So a sheet acts unruly when you try to make it do what it does not want to.

You must hold it in place very carefully as you go to fold your crease. You need to do that against a flat surface rather than up in the air.

Snowflake papercut, How to cut a six sided snowflake; art display, children's drawing class, 1/2/18

How to cut a six sided snowflake:

We managed cutting thru the multiple folds needed for 6 pointed flakes. Start with a square sheet, (assuming you know how to get a square?) Fold in half diagonally and again, so your sheet is now in a triangle shape, (like a kerchief or napkin). Now, how to divvy that into 3 equal sections? From the central corner, (from which the folds radiate), roll(?) the two perpendicular folds as if to make a cone. You are trying to arrive at the spots/lines that will create 3 equal angles at the radiation line. Once you think you have it you can bear down and press the crease. I prefer doing this divvying or finding process as an accordion fold, rather than roll up. Roll up at that thickness adds too much thickness to your assessment, and skews the balance.

Make this V-shape into a triangle. Cut off those wings by cutting straight across the intersection of the folds. This will make each panel equal. If you were to open the sheet you would have an equal faceted circular shape, a hexagon.

To turn it into a snow flake having six more pronounced points, fold your sheet back up, cut dipping down between the two outer points and back out. As long as you are doing this thru all the thicknesses, any design will be interesting because it will repeat. The just start cutting away paper as you want. You can't only cut slits though. They must have some width so that they show. Experiment! Lay your flakes against colored backgrounds so they will show, or not! Make garlands. Hanging strings of them. Big flakes, little flakes.

The student had never made them - from the snowless west coast. Instead had followed the Mexican tradition of papercuts for the Dia des los Muertos. Turns out these are called papel picante, (pricked paper). They are cut from multi layers of colored tissue paper and hung fluttering from long banners, like pennant festoons. (I will confirm these terms later.)