UNM Continuing Education is Offering Art Lessons for Children this spring 2016 at the UNM WEST Rio Rancho Campus.

The first offering is a Zentangle Drawing Camp FEB 15 & 16th, 2016 at 9:30 am – 11 am.

The art class offerings will include Watercolor and pastel as an Afterschool instruction on Wednesdays 2pm- 4Pm offering for 6 weeks.

The Saturday Morning children’s, Beginning Drawing, Art Classes will be offered for 6 weeks beginning Feb 20th, 2016 at 11 am – 1 pm.

The classes are taught by Elaine Cimino, a fine-art painter, and has 20 years college-level teaching experience in drawing, painting and art history. She is an advocate for Visual Literacy. She has developed art curicullum for children and has worked in the public schools in Northern New Mexico as an Artist-in-Residence.

This past summer the Toon Time cartooning class was taught to the delight of parents and teachers at the UNM West Campus. Spread the word art classes are being offered Winter Spring and Summer
2016. For Upcoming Workships, classes and camps please browse the workshop menu.

“Born to Draw” iBook Series are viewable on Mac Laptops and Desktops with Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks

What a gift from Apple iBooks

Both iBooks in the Series are now viewable on mac laptops and desktops

Anyone with Mac OSX 10.9 Mavericks installed on their laptop or desktop can now view iBooks right on their computer.

“Born to Draw” and other LIONap iBooks are now viewable on your desktop and laptop!

The MAC OS X 10.9 Mavericks upgrade is a free download that allows you to view iBooks. You can now view, click on the step-by-step illustrations in the Born to Draw iBook and project the assignment in the classroom for your students to draw.

This Common Core aligned drawing program allows teachers the interdisciplinary advantage of offering drawing with their lesson plans via Apple Laptop, Desktop, iPad, Mini iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Read more →

Teaching art for nearly three decades is the best way I have found to give children skills that last a lifetime. I have been hauling around art stuff that amount to a 10’x15’ storage space.  The expense over the years is awesome when it is totaled so I cannot “just throw it away.”

iBook app shares in class

I have to tell you these materials comes in handy now that I am moving my teaching online starting one day a week, Wednesday’s starting September 18^th, 2013.  Registration for classes has started. Many lessons are from the Step by step instruction projects found in the Born to Draw™ iBooks published through iTunes and the LIONap, who specialize in children’s educational books.

You can find all the resources you need to teach drawing and or follow along with the first year’s lessons, all 35 weekly lessons.

Now if you just want to learn art for yourself, your children or teach it in a classroom setting you can enjoy all the benefits of having taken art classes by experiencing the lessons found here. Whatever your needs, this site is sure to keep your creative juices flowing and provide the interactive online training one needs. Read more →

Watch How Smart Can We Get? on PBS. See more from NOVA scienceNOW.

This is a great series about what it means to be smart. What were the circumstances that grew Einstein’s brain?

Nurture creates nature vs. nature creates nurture. The hypothesis is that playing a musical instrument (the Violin in Einstein’s Case) helps to access intuition.

How creativity and creative thought manifests ways of conceptualizations that can be attributed to problem solving. The actual act of creating art and focus on problem solving allows people to enter the “Zone”

Thus allowing for processes to appear, emerge to the top and to access other intelligences and perhaps intuition itself. Musicians that learn to play an Instrument as a young person developed “bumps” on the brain that may increase intuitive thought.

Growing the brain is important and to keep it in shape mandatory.

Schools draw on the community to bring art and music to students.

BY EDUTOPIA STAFF

Almost every one of us can point back to a creative pursuit, in or out of school, that enhanced our skills, knowledge, or understanding. Yet the majority of secondary school students in the United States aren’t required to enroll in arts courses, many elementary schools nationwide lack art classes or activities, and arts and music instruction is often the first thing to go when schools feel the pressure to improve test scores. Read more →

http://www.edutopia.org/stw-arts-integration-resources-lesson-plans#graph1

I suggest that teachers and homeschooling parents check out edutopia if you have not already. there is a wealth of information on integrating art into core studies.

Edutopia’s Schools That Work series profiles K-12 schools, districts, and programs that are dramatically improving the way students learn. Focusing on evidenced-based successes, we create how-to videos and actionable tip lists to help you transform your schools. We get close to the teachers, students, principals, and other administrators who have changed the future of their schools, and show you how they did it.

These educators also share their resources — rubrics, lesson plans, assessments, and training tools that will help you build your own successes.

And one more thing: We connect you with teachers and administrators from around the country who are collaborating to make similar improvements in education.

Are you using mLearning to present core studies to your Classrooms? If so, you should check out the Born To Draw digital learning resources. Our program includes professional development training and offers a website membership subscription that gives secure access to all the resources on the Born To Draw website. This helps integrate art education into core studies and gives children a chance to learn to draw.

Mobile devices such as the Apple iPad, iPhone, are an investment into the achievement gap by offering digital educational curriculum, presentation and interaction into the learning environment. More digital learning resources are now being offered, such as my products for integrating art education for common core learning or offering art education as required.

The Born To Draw digital learning products are definitely a niche offering. I cannot begins to compete with the likes of Scholastic or other the corporations. Read more →

I would like to preface this editorial by saying that Terrance Pratt could just as well be talking about the state of education in America. Education is being corroded by extreme right wing tax policies that are literally cutting the budgets of schools to the point of even closing schools. These ideological policies are destroying the foundations and principals that built a strong educational and Democratic system. Today reform is the hot topic and exactly what ideology prevails in the short and long term is what will determine the building of a strong social society or one that plunges our children into poverty and all the misery associated with it.

We have a moral responsibility to give our children the strongest education we can.  The Born to Draw art education platform advocates visual literacy, integrates art into core curriculum and it gives children and adults the permission to express the creativity of the Human Mind.  As Terrance Pratt so rightly states,

We study art, not because it will get us a job at Atlantis, but because it shows us and allows us to express the creativity of the human mind. In short, a good education system awakens in its students a sense of awe and wonder and engenders in its students a love of learning for learning’s sake.

I am a life-long learner working on the third, maybe fourth, act in my life which is allowing me to give back to a system, that when it was strong, gave me the tools to help change children’s lives. Let us develop a common core value for a future of critical thinkers who will pass the torch and allow light to shine on our Democratic principals on keeping our society strong in all the correct ways. Read more →

We are working to pin down time and dates of two 6 week Session

Born to Draw Saturday Mornings

Jacob age 11 completed charcoal drawing is the Summer Session of Born to Draw

2 sessions:  Total length of class time 2 hours including set up and clean up

Session 1: January 26 – March 2, 2012 10 am – 12 noon

Session 2: March 23            – April 27, 2012 10 am – 12 noon

Course Proposal and Syllabus: 

Session 1

Born to Draw: A Children’s Drawing Program

The Born to Draw program is designed for children k-6^th Grade. The Children’s Spring Workshop will for children 7-11 years of age. The course is designed to teach observational drawing though Shape Relationships. The students learn formal elements of drawing such as mark making, line, shape, placement, angels, textures, value, color, and perspective.

Each class is geared for the child to complete a drawing within the allotted 40-50 min or less time frame. The Born to Draw Step by Step Drawing program features animals and still life. Children should know basic shapes of the square, triangle, circle and oval. I encourage parents to have their children attend both sessions.

The classes will be offered for two 50 min sessions with a five-minute break and time for set up and clean up included in the class.  Total length of class time 2 hours.

Drawing and Art Techniques

Depending on the age and the child’s development and skill levels. If children want to continue for another session we will continue to working on developing drawing skills.  Throughout the class the children will experiment with different medium Color pastels, watercolor, charcoal, pen and ink.

Painting by Cezanne Still Life – 1890-94 oil on canvas

Session 2

Drawing Still Life

Drawing from 3D objects increases your children’s knowledge of the effects of light on form, volume and line. Observational drawing teaches one to learn to see. Students will work with still-life setups, start with simple materials and compositions, then move to more complicated media exploring textures and concepts. This is a great class to begin studies in art or to improve drawing skills.

Painting of Giorgio Morandi Modern still life

In this session the students will be introduced to great master artists like Cezanne, Matisse, Morandi, O’Keeffe and Steir.

The second session builds on the first session, however, all beginning drawers are welcome.  Beginners who have not had the Born to Draw classes’ prior will start with the curriculum of the first session.