Friday, May 4, 2012

Day 4 of the '29 Face' May Challenge: WIP Art Journal Entry

My WIP Guest Entry in my Student's Art Journal:


Day 4 of the '29 Faces' May Challenge brings with it another student Art Journal guest entry for me.  25 more Faces to go.....

As mentioned in this post, I have a number of private art students with whom I've been leading activities in art journal making.  The kids have been working on their journals now for months (we meet once a week), creating entries for themselves, as well as guest entries in each others' journals.  It is now time for me to take my turn creating entries in my students' journals, and so I brought home with me quite a stack of them to work on.  It is my intention to create these guest journal entries with FACES, drawing upon the books we've been reading as a class as inspiration, so as to have images that I can count towards the '29 Faces' Challenge. 

One of the books we read in our literature class this year was "Babette's Feast" (which is also a wonderful movie that folks might actually be more familiar with), and so I chose it as my inspiration to draw upon.   As such here we have a portrait of 'Babette', a french female chef and political refugee (the book is set before the turn of the LAST century) living with and working for two elderly, plain-and-simple, sisterly spinsters in Denmark.  The sisters are unaware of Babette's supreme talent for gourmet cuisine until she wins a lottery and ends up using the winnings to whip up a remarkably sophisticated and sumptuous feast for her astonished employers and their flock.  A lovely story -- as one can see, I still have a ways to go with this two-page journal spread, but I do at least have my Babette tribute portrait to feature as my Face for Day 4 here as I stop painting for the night....

13 comments:

Unknown said...

Such a interesting idea. I love that your drawing upon literature for inspiration. These student artist sound like amazing little creators :):)

Diane said...

Love everything here--she's beautiful, and what you're doing with your students is such a great idea.

rose AKA Walk in the Woods - she/her said...

What a gift you must be to your students!

Patience said...

Thanks April! I really do love using literature as inspiration -- books speak to me so much, and creating art based upon them really helps me process my experience and feelings! I might have to continue even after my little project here is over -- I've long wanted to do a series based on Shakespeare, plus more modern feminine characters such as 'Blanche DuBois' and 'Ruth' from the 'Book of Ruth', etc etc. As for my students, half of them are high school age (those are the ones for whom I'm doing the literature-based entries) -- one of them is 6'-4", so not so 'little', lol! But really, they have done a wonderful job in class and so it's truly been a joy working with them.... :-)

Patience said...

Thank you so much, Diane! The art journal project really has worked out so well! They really seemed to 'get it' -- seemed to appreciate the re-purposing aspect to it (they all brought in old discarded books to create their journals), plus it's been useful for when students finish earlier with projects than others -- they always have their journal to fall back on so that they aren't just sitting around bored with nothing to do. So it's been practical as well as creative! ;-) In any case, thanks again!

Patience said...

Thank you so much, Rose! At any rate I do hope they have enjoyed it (and I think they have :-)...)....

valeri blossom said...

very nice! love the concept of "guest pages" in each other's journals - and babette is lovely ;)

artlover said...

Beautiful portrait!

nancye williams said...

I too went through cancer in 2010. I hope you felling wonderful. I see that we are so much alike. Maybe I am your mother. haha. I love your work and just wanted to say hello and wish you the best with your remission. peace.
nancye

Patience said...

Thank you for the nice comment, Valeri! Indeed, I'm hoping these art journals will become keepsakes for the kids, to recall our class and their classmates -- and I want to gift them each with a special art piece of my own just for them -- just a little something to always remember me by :-).

Patience said...

Dear Artlover, a pleasure to meet you, fellow Lover of Art :-) -- thanks so much for visiting my blog and leaving the lovely feedback for me -- much appreciated! :-)

Patience said...

Dear Nancye, so sorry to hear we have to share such a yucky thing in common :-( -- my heart always sinks to hear of anyone else having to go through all that. Here's sincerely hoping all is well for you on your end and that you have come out on the other side and today finds you strong and as well as can be under the circumstances. I did try to visit your blog, but it's not letting me look. If I may I would love to though -- do I need to join your site or otherwise somehow get around your security settings? Let me know :-). In any case, thanks so much for the note and all your kind words, Nancye -- here's wishing all my very best in health and wellness to you... <3

denthe said...

Beautiful lady.