New addition to the blog “My works”

People often tell me: “You make it sound as if art is the most important thing in the world”. Well, of course it is! Will you ever say that it is not to my students who run home with passion in their eyes to show their parents what they drew in class today? Or will you ever tell that to a kid who is a bit older and has already convinced himself  that he cannot draw? 

You will show him how to work with paint, teach him little tricks with a brush or even fingers, while drawing on paper, cardboard or canvas. You will go from simple things to complicated ones.

“It is all about how you feel materials and drawing tools, and also your understanding how it works and what you want to do with it. You have learned a lot, keep growing! Play with the material – it is fun!”

 At this very moment tell him that it does not really matter, it is not important.  Will you be able to?

There is so much information in our world nowadays, and it is constantly changing making it very hard to keep everything in mind and understand profoundly. How do you manage that?  It is simple. Stop and think about what YOU feel…It is just as important as strategic and calculative thinking. You can read a lot of interesting information on the topic on Betty Edwards’ website about drawing using your right brain hemisphere (http://www.drawright.com/). I like the idea that in order to be happy and successful, one should not only have the ability to think rationally, logically and mathematically, but also have an ability to feel.

I have always admired people like Boris Rauschenbach. He was not only a great scientist, physical-engineer and a person who played an important role in Russian astronautics, but he was also a respected paintings specialist who wrote a lot about building perspective in art. Boris used to say that feeling is just as important as thinking and calculating. (http://www.peoples.ru/technics/rocket/raushenbah/)

One of my favorite authors Antoine de Saint-Exupéry was a well-rounded individual. Everyone knows that he was a writer, a pilot and a good artist. There are not many people aware that in addition to all that he was also a successful engineer who patented a number of his own inventions. Once when he was still a child, he was on a train ride. It had such a great influence on him that the very next day he started drawing trains and soon after was able to replicate trains' mechanisms on paper with astonishing accuracy. Drawing is a natural need for anyone. It is not just a way for us to express ourselves, it is also an opportunity to explore the world around us. It is a way to live in the world and see it through the prisms of ourselves.

Make art and let your children experience it. Give them this inspiring opportunity! And please make sure that you and your kids have real paint, paper, etc. 

I have created a new tab in my blog called “My works”. The pictures there are the result of my preparations done before the lessons. Many art teachers have encountered a very interesting problem: when you draw – you stop explaining what you are doing to others, but when you start explaining – you stop drawing.  I am no exception. That is why I draw the pictures according to the lesson’s topics beforehand.

You can also find there the icons I drew.

The icon of St. Barbara was drawn by the late Alyona Martynova (May she rest in peace).

http://alenamartynova.blogspot.ca/

I was working with her as a student and as an apprentice. At the same time, I was also working on an icon of St. Irina in order to independently try out and practice new techniques. 

After Alyona’s death I was the one who finished the Theotokos of Kursk she left behind. The icon is currently at The All Saints Church, Calgary (http://www.allsaintsroc.org/All_Saints_Roc/Glavnaa.html)

I will post all my works  in the blog’s gallery. Please leave your comments, opinions and critique.  I am hoping to update the gallery with new works on the regular basis.

Children’s art exhibition at the “Spring Birds” fair

On May 11, there was a spring fair, which took place by the St. John Chrysostom church, Calgary. The fair was organized to help and support the church. Our parish has a great historic building, which nevertheless requires maintenance, this is why, from time to time, the parishioners organize these charity fairs. You can take a look at the history of our parish and the photo gallery, as well as the article about the spring fair at this website: http://calgary-orthodox.ca/events/ptichij-dvor-11-maya-2013g/

There was a concert and traditional Russian food. Aside from a plethora of other things, there was also an arts exhibition of kid’s works. Since the theme for the fair was “Spring Birds”, the children of course drew birds and their interpretations of spring. For some of the kids this was their first experience with art exhibitions, however all of the works presented there were all beautiful without exception. I would like to thank the church’s priest Father Stan as well as to the Sisterhood of St. Barbara for the opportunity to exhibit children’s works and for the organization of such a great event. I will put all of the kid’s artwork in my blog’s gallery. 

“Let’s Draw Happiness”

Spring finally made it to Calgary as well. With the sun shining bright, the flowers started springing up, everything turns green. I have only been living in Calgary for 5 years now, and I still can’t get used to the swiftness of its spring. Piles of snow coupled with cold wind, overnight turn into green grass and hot summer sun and all of a sudden everyone is wearing shorts. Only a couple of days ago there wasn’t even a sign of any leaves on trees and now they are rustling on every branch there is. Everything is growing and springing to life so fast, you can almost hear it. 

There is so much that happened over spring, that I don’t even know where to start…First I would like to talk about the international arts exhibition called “Let’s Draw Happiness”.

Everything began when I first stumbled upon the website of Mila Naumova and…I got sucked in. http://www.mogut-vse.ru/ludy/ She is great! Working on the program of my art lessons, I sometimes peek at what other teachers do to solve a certain type of problem. When I saw the consistency and the presentation of the materials, the amount of passion and love Mila puts in her work, I thought “That’s how it is done” and became a constant visitor on her website. I took a couple of her lessons to teach to my students and even bought her book to lend to those people, who has the wrong impression about their inability to draw, even though they have always dreamed of it. 

I have always admired people that love what they do and are willing to share that passion and energy with others and this is precisely what Mila Naumova does. As a regular visitor of her website I was given the opportunity to send my student’s works to participate in an international art contest “Let’s Draw Happiness”. And now I’m sharing this happiness with you. All this certificates are in Russian language, sorry about that. The site is new http://art-grd.com , but very interesting.