Finding Miss Molly

The Silk Road

2011-01-23T21:00:00.000-08:00

We're back! And we're at it again.

Our latest series of projects at FMAA took us along the silk road to learn about the art of Italy, Turkey, India, Tibet and China, to name a few. Marco Polo and Kublai Khan flanked the beginning and end of our adventure as students learned about the largest empire in the history of world.

We began class making pottery and Iznik tiles inspired by Turkey, then traveled along to India where real henna designs and watercolors were explored. In Tibet we studied the art of making pastel mandalas and created drawings that envisioned a greener, healthier planet.

Ending in China, students painted on silk while learning about harvesting silk from silk worms and the intricate skill of painting on this delicate fabric.

Come visit us on Thursdays from 4pm - 5:30pm or on Sundays from 10am -1pm. You are also welcome to visit our website at Flying Machine Art Academy.

Have any questions? Please email mollyleith@me.com or call 510-847-6348.

Happy New Year!!

Molly, Corby and Audrey Leith

Short and Sweet

2010-05-12T16:49:00.000-07:00

Be sure not to miss the latest and greatest mural on display in a few weeks at our One Year Anniversary Art Exhibit! Seen above are Sophie and Ming working on their leopard paintings created by combining simple geometric shapes. Nice work guys!! They are not even in Kindergarten yet and are becoming SO proficient in their drawing and observational skills.

These paintings will be incorporated into the mural, inspired by Henri Rousseau, being created as a unified effort by all of our students here at FMAA.

We are extremely proud of all our students and can't wait to showcase their hard work and creativity! We hope to see you there!!

Details:

Where: Flying Machine Art Academy, 140 Balboa Street

When: Sunday May 23rd, 1-3pm

our website: http://www.flyingmachineartacademy.com

contact information: mollyleith@me.com

Flying Machine Art Academy ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY Student Art Show

2010-04-27T22:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Parents and Dedicated Fans!

Please note!!! Due to a number of art projects that must be included in our ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY Art Show, we are pushing the date of the exhibit forward to Sunday, May 23rd from 1-3pm. We hope you can still make it!!

What: FMAA ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY Student Art Exhibit!!

When: Sunday, May 23rd from 1-3 pm

Where: 140 Balboa St. San Francisco, CA 94118

Thank you for your patience with this important scheduling adjustment. We look forward to seeing you there! Please invite your friends!

Best wishes,

Molly & Corby Leith

Paul Klee, Watercolor and Value

2010-02-08T15:24:00.000-08:00

Paul Klee

Known for his wonderful use of simplified shapes and amplified color, Paul Klee ( 1879 - 1940) was a Swiss painter of German nationality. Both parents were musicians as was he, although his future led him successfully in the field of painting and drawing to become an instructor at the Bauhaus, a famous German art school started in 1919 to initiate the combination of arts and crafts in one institution.

Klee's artwork was widely recognized for two things: color and simplicity. Athough it is hard to categorize precisely what style he used, he was certainly influenced by, and recognized as, one of the original cubists of the cubism/futerist movement.

Below are some of our kindergarten students having fun creating their own simplified portrait inspired by Paul Klee's famous Portrait of a Man.

Experimenting with color's endless possibilities and delicate radiance, we had our older students create graded washes, or a series of colors from their darkest to lightest value, essentially honing their brush control and value with watercolor. This was then applied to a picture of their choice, simplified to its essential compositional elements as in Klee's Tunisian Garden's below...

One of our students was able to create over 32 different greens using only blue and yellow ( ok and a touch of brown) for just one painting. Could you?

For more information about Flying Machine Art Academy, please visit our website at

http://www. flyingmachineartacademy.com

Symbolism in Aboriginal art and Dreamtime painting

2009-10-07T19:07:00.000-07:00

Dreamtime paintings are sacred to Australian Aborigines. They tell a story and communicate to other aboriginal tribe members about the location of animals, watering holes, food and geographical details of their land. Only recently have contemporary art enthusiasts supported the marketing and proliferation of these dream paintings into the resale commercial realm.

These paintings reveal the sacred creation story believed by aborigine people of how the spirits formed all the mountains, rivers and valleys. "Found" in a trans-like state the paintings are done on the ground revealing a bird's eye view of the land and used as maps among other tribe members. Covered in dots, the surfaces resemble a celestial image of patterns and symbols arranged like constellations that reveal camp sites, fires, grass, kangaroos and endless detailed information in the night sky.

FMAA students studied many of the symbols and styles used by aboriginal artists to create a dreamtime painting of their own. First priming the canvas with a mid tone color to resemble the earth, students then drew their design with oil pastel and completed the painting in acrylic. The stories below tell of campsites and campfires with kangaroos and watering holes under the midnight stars. See if you can find them all!

Rhythm and Movement with Louise Nevelson

2009-09-16T19:28:00.000-07:00

Louise Berliawsky Nevelson

was born in Russia in 1899. She spent the majority of her years as an artist in New York City (1920 - 1988) working in metal, wood, and cast paper creating "assemblages", or assemblies of discarded objects, redefining their purpose and meaning by giving them new lives as a work of art. This new genre of assemblage was formally recognized in the 1950's although Louise had been creating her found wood sculptures since the early 1930's!

"When you put together things that other people have thrown out, you’re really bringing them to life – a spiritual life that surpasses the life for which they were originally created."

Shallow relief, monochromatically toned, her sculptures are an organization of forms that create rhythm and movement through positive and shadowed space. Massive installations of organized forms, her work is monumental in size and feeling. Having studied with famous artists such as Hans Hofmann, George Grosz and Diego Rivera, her work is a mixture of styles that transcends categorical descriptions and is associated with as many art movements as Cubism, Dada, Minimalism, Abstract Expressionism, Surrealism and she is also known as the pioneering dame of Installation art. She received several honorary doctorates and awards from schools including Harvard, Columbia and the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Below are some examples of Louise Nevelson's work that strongly reveal a dynamic sense of pattern, taking on a life of their own in elegant silence. After studying several images of her work, students at FMAA were each given vast amounts of wood scraps recycled from lumber yards and local studios throughout the city to create an inspired composition that captured rhythm and movement. At the end you will see the first stages of these fantastic assemblages being built:

To find out more about the art classes at Flying Machine Art Academy, please visit our website at www.flyingmachineartacademy.com

Monoprints

2009-09-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

Monoprinting!

A monoprint is a really great way to create a loose, painterly feel to an otherwise meticulously precise method of printing. It's a form of printmaking that can include collage, hand-painted editions and series of images that relate by reusing the same printing plate without washing it inbetween prints, therefore retaining the shadow image of the previous print ( and less cleaning!).

Monoprint's unique process creates only one of each print, thus its name. Typically executed on clear plexiglass, the artist can lift the clear plate to see what her image looks like before printing . Painting directly onto the plate, the process is immediate, visceral and unpredictable, often capturing the texture of the original brush strokes.

FMAA students studied the wonderful artist Georgia O'Keefe, famous for her desert skull paintings and intricate, oversized depictions of flowers. We brought in a vase of sunflowers to use as inspiration for color, texture, shape and composition. After perusing many O'Keefe images, the students painted directly onto plexiglass plates with the option of using the sunflowers as inspriation. It was great to see their faces after each print and witness the confidence and curiosity build with each successful attempt. The first image you see below is a portrait of Georgia O'Keefe followed by a few images of her paintings.

www.flyingmachineartacademy.com

Andy Warhol, Printmaking

2009-08-18T18:42:00.000-07:00

Capturing the personality, brilliance and ingenuity of Andy Warhol is no small task. Known originally as the talented illustrator for the I. Miller and Sons shoe company, Andy Warhol's bold, graphic style developed into his now iconic style seen below that has come to define Pop Art.

Even beginning to understand the mastery in the art of Hokusai, carefully carving multiple woodblocks to register each color, layer upon layer and create this...

masterpiece where each color applied requires a separate block of ink. Again, no small task.

This week our artist's at FMAA explored the art of printmaking and the many skilled steps involved, including: 1. drawing, 2. transferring the drawing 3. carving 4. inking 5. burnishing 6. centering/registering the paper and finally...printing. Phew! Line quality, composition and a great facility for fine motor skills are developed as seen in the pictures below.

To find out more about art classes at Flying Machine Art Academy, contact us at http:www.flyingmachineartacademy.com or call 510-847-6248. Flying Machine Art Academy, where imaginations soar!

Observing technique

2009-08-05T08:35:00.000-07:00

Watching the array of talent at Flying Machine Art Academy this month has been sensational. Starting at age 3 and moving all the way up to age 13, our students are producing some incredible works of art with careful skill, observation and top notch creativity.

Portrait painting, and landscape painting have been the focus this summer with an emphasis on drawing technique and observation; shape and placement of the eyes, ears, nose and so on in relation to each another with portraits. Depth perspective and establishing a sense of space between objects were established in the landscape paintings. The emphasis was LESS on realism and perfection, MORE on capturing a genuine likeness and personality.

Students mix all their own colors here at Flying Machine Art Academy, tints and shades to create volume, depth and variation. That's a lot of mixing! Our students are working hard, and it shows!

To contact us for a drop in/ trial class, please go to www.flyingmachineartacademy.com for class times and registration information or call 510-847-6248 and ask for Molly or Corby Leith.

Enjoy!

All Ages! Flying Machine Art Academy

2009-05-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

Flying Machine Art Academy 140 Balboa St, San Francisco Art classes for all ages!

Flying Machine Art Academy specializes in working with all ages in drawing, painting and pottery. The photos above were taken over the past month during our Tuesday/ Thursday afternoon and Saturday morning classes.

Our highlight earlier this week from our Tuesday class, ages 7-12; student's pottery after the final kiln firing (top image). See for yourself the amazing range of skill being developed at Flying Machine Art Academy at 14o Balboa St., San Francisco.

Our Summer schedule starts June 13th!!

Check it out at:

http://www.flyingmachineartacademy.com

510-847-6248

Huichol Indain Yarn paintings created by Flying Machine Art Academy's Kindergarten class

2009-04-20T22:01:00.000-07:00

The Huichol Indians of Northern Mexico (190-mexico-s-huichol-resource-page-their-culture-symbolism-art )created these amazingly colorful yarn and beaded paintings, seen directly above, and were the inspiration for last weeks project that led them to create different concentric lined compositions. The Huichol people are descendents of the Aztecs and are related to their Uto-Aztecan speaking cousin, the Hopi of Arizona. The people, numbered to be about 18,00, still inspire many artists today and are admired by many more for their beautiful, skilled work.

Incorporating this concept in their art, Flying Machine Art Academy's Saturday morning kindergarten class focused on shape, contour and concentric lines for their weekly project. The first three images seen above were created by three and four year olds after learning about the Mexican artist's amazingly detailed use of line and color to depict animal forms, plant forms and people. This work was completed in just one hour! This lesson was part of a unit on Mexican art.

Saturday morning Kindergarten classes are from 9-10am and introduces key concepts of art history and design techniques. visit us at http://www.flyingmachineartacadmy.com and come join in the fun of learning!

2008-12-17T13:24:00.000-08:00

PUTTING THE FUN IN FUNDEMENTAL

Welcome to a series of my thoughts, ideas and opinions about creativity and the creative process. My intention is to build awareness in developing and nurturing more highly functional, creative children who know how to thrive in any environment. After teaching for 7 years I slowly noticed a developing pattern, or trend, in the amount of time I liked to sit down durning the day in relationship to the amount of time students liked being seated. As an artist and an art teacher, you are always on your feet, grabbing supplies, moving canvases, stepping away from the art, getting in close to it, jumping, sitting, leaning...rarely sitting for hours at a time. I love this about art, it allows and demands that I move around.

Here's another observation. Children LOVE moving around. Fidgeting, running, tapping their toes, scratching their head, flinging their pencil, changing seats, opening the window, go to the bathroom, scooting their chairs in, scooting it out again...all in 5 minutes time. And as an art teacher I've observed that young children, in general, are the MOST uncensored, uninhibited, energetic, creative and abstract thinking out of all of us. Coincidence that they love to move?

The idea, that I'd like to further develop and explore, is that movement, kinetic activity, physical motion, stirs that reptilian, intuitive mind body connection, further fueling the imagination, the brain and thus the whole body system as a creative source of energy and genius.

The question I have is...why are there so few opportunities in the average classroom and even the exceptional classroom, for a student to be physically engaged in a way that will fuel their physical system, give the cerebral brain a rest and tap into the experiential body intelligence that feeds the immagination?

Hall passes, water breaks, messengers, these are not solutions for children who need significant windows of physical acitvity to help them focus, nor are they the exception to normal classroom routine. Their desire and need for movement needs, and is slowly getting, more consideration for the overall needs of all students, and adults alike.

Please post any thoughts or comments you may have and share your ideas.

Cheers!

Introducing New work!!

2008-09-04T23:09:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone. Hopefully the art I'm about to share with you will compensate for the delinquent entries in the last few weeks. I've been designing a new art website and it's playfully consumed all of my time. Moving on...I introduced you to Corbett Leith, an amazing abstract artist, in one of my earlier entries and I'm introducing his new work and new web site to you again today. His work is not to be missed so Kick back, relax and take just a minute to enjoy his inspiring work at http://www.corbettbleith.com

When you're done, this spiral drawing video is a taste of a few drawings you'll find at http://www.petersengallery.com

Enjoy!!

music by Doc Watson

New chapter

2008-08-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

Summer. The season we wait for every year and others chase around the globe. Beautiful places, beautiful people...and summer brings all it's fun and memories to keep us going... 'til the next time. There's been mention of the painful sadness of summer ending among my friends who are educators, trying to slowly shift gears between rest and racing. Before it passes I suggested we gather some photos of friends and family to mark the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. Sometimes it helps to let one season go and allow the next to begin and avoid the clinging to wanting more of the past. Clear the energy, clear the mind, and open up to what's about to happen. Gather a few photos of friends and family and take a moment to say thank you for what has been and all that still awaits you.

Featuring Colette Crutcher, Mosaic artist

2008-07-26T22:02:00.000-07:00

Among the many inspiring murals throughout San Francisco, Tonantzin Renace is not to be missed. This sensational mosaic relief mural of the fiery red Lady , unparalleled anywhere in the city, can be seen at 3495 16th St. and Sanchez. Colette Crutcher lives and works in San Francisco, creating several mosaic masterpieces around the city including this incredible Mayan Quetzalcoatl ( seen above) sculpture located in the Mission district at 24th St. and York. One of her latest feats is the astounding community steps project located at 16th Avenue and Moraga in the Sunset district. Aileen Barr, also a local artist who creates her own tiles, shared her skills with Colette to help create the hand made tiles and worked with Colette to design the steps. With Aileen's ceramic knowledge and Colette's mosaic experience, the two artists work were wed. Jessie Audette and Alice Yee Xavier are responsible for proposing the idea and helped organize the project. Together, everyone raised enough money, $120,000, to create and complete the 163 steps mosaic design. (left image just below)

WOW!!!

I previously had the privilege of living in the same neighborhood as Colette and could visit her Lion, Wise and Furry, at whim. We can see more of Colette's incredible work on her website at www.colettecrutcher.com. You can also purchase a book about the 163 steps recently completed in the city to support their work and cover the cost of the publishing. Also noted and not to be missed here is the detailed relief sculpture created by her artist husband, Mark Roller ( circular relief seen below). The two have worked on several projects together, most easily seen on the Quetzalcoatl sculpture mentioned earlier.

Finally, to learn more about the murals of San Francisco, visit www.cityhikes.com. OR www.precitaeyes.org.

Nature

2008-07-25T15:28:00.000-07:00

Among the amazing, magical formations that nature reveals to us every day, there are always some exceptions that defy any sort of explanation. Like this tree growth I encountered while hiking the Dipsea trail in Marin, CA....

I never cease to be amazed at the endless creativity around me. Please post your most amazing experience in nature and remember... keep your eyes peeled.

recent drawings and paintings

2008-07-25T07:41:00.000-07:00

Please post your thoughts...

Spirals

2008-07-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

You will see spirals everywhere if you look very closely. I see spirals in every day life all the time. Raining, dreaming, walking, sunshine, they are everywhere.

Nature creates the most amazing examples every day if we take the time to look.

The Fibonacci sequence ( spiral created by a specific, mathematical growth pattern found in nature) and the Golden mean have been

studied by artists, mathematicians, and scientists alike who have been fascinated with it's nature for thousands of years.

Renaissance artists applied the Golden mean when creating the perfect composition. The images here are examples of architecture, pottery, jewelry, photography as well as some of my paintings, and drawings inspired by nature's spiral.

Where do you see spirals?

color shifting

2008-07-21T14:06:00.000-07:00

While back East visiting my family, we all decided to go for a walk and find a new place to eat. Stonington borough is a beautiful, quaint town in Connecticut, close to the border of Rhode Island with old cape houses with gardens that line narrow, meandering streets. Taken by this beautiful cornflower blue house as we walked by, I remembered I hadn't been practicing my color shifting lately.

One skill an artist should always work on is their inherent feel and understanding of color. When mixing pigment on your palette, one should try and become the color, absorb yourself into it, feel the richness of it or its quiet shade so that you know where it wants to be on the canvas. This will help your process flow naturally.

I'll walk you through the steps of color shifting and I hope you find this will remarkably improve your color sensitivity as you create.

1. Stand in as close proximity to the color you would like to shift into. You may find articles of your clothing start shifting right away. This is normal.

2. Close your eyes and envision the color, how it feels (cool, warm, intense, weak, kinetic, still...). It is important not to overthink it.

3. Envision yourself as that color. Your skin, hair, toenails, everything must shift to this new color. When you are ready, slowly walk away from the color you have been standing next to, holding the vision of yourself as this color in your mind.

note: It is best to walk away from the color at first in order to strengthen your independent color nature. Eventually this will not be necessary and you may be able to eliminate step 3. ALso, it is helpful to have a buddy* so they can critique how accurate your shifting is. You may find that you shift a few shades too light at first. This is natural.

4. Shift!

*I was lucky enough to have Corby there to get a picture of me. This was my first time color AND shape shifting. When I realized the color shifting was happening quite easily , I decided to try and take it one step further and became a hose. Sometimes you never know what you might become so it's a little risky. You can see me in the last picture there. But that's a very advanced state of shifting.

To unshift just simply think of another color radically different and you will pop right back to normal. The more you practice the stronger your color sense becomes.

Have fun!

The pinwheel

2008-07-21T10:46:00.000-07:00

This is a true story that took place at one of the Saturday afternoon lectures, or dharma talks, at the San Francisco Zen center in San Francisco, CA. I love the simplicity of it and I hope you like it too. That's Corby and I in the pictures on our way home from NY. He took very good care of his 4th of July pinwheel from Aunt Jane's and carried it in his pocket the entire way home. He let me borrow it when I got bored. Those are some of Aunt Jane's painted twigs in his pocket too.

The room was filled with about 50 people, slowly shifting, straightening out their legs as the gong sounded to end the meditation. As we rearranged our bodies, preparing for the teaching, the head monk turned our attention to the children present before he began his lecture. Each child had been given a pinwheel as they entered the meditation room that afternoon, a brilliant idea and a hugely successful one at providing the children a quiet way to relax and play. There was a calmness in the room as we gathered ourselves, focused, intent to listen and learn from the monk about the buddha nature; compassion and the union of wisdom and emptiness. There was a tangible intensity to the silence as we patiently waited to hear what he would say.

"What do think about the pinwheels?" he asked. The children each shouted out their discoveries enthusiastically..."They're fun!" "They're beautiful" " They go 'round and 'round".

One child shared less excited, "sometimes they break".

The monk was nodding and smiling as he listened to each of them share their pinwheel wisdom. We adults, dutifully still, waited patiently on our pillows, waiting for the lecture.

One child held his pinwheel up high and shouted "You know, if you don't blow on it, it doesn't go!"

Suddenly the silence in the room plunged a little deeper. The monk smiled as he refocused his attention to all the adults in the room and paused, letting the child's statement sink in.

"I think we've heard our lecture for today..."he smiled and beamed proudly at how easily the children had grasped a simple yet profound concept. "...if you don't blow on it...it doesn't go". And he quietly, slowly stood up and left the room.

Finding your Rhythm

2008-07-21T08:22:00.000-07:00

Creating a fun, interesting, quality composition in art requires only a few ingredients. One of these concepts is the proverbial element of finding the rhythm, or pattern that carries through your image. Whether it's the focal point of your drawing, photograph, sculpture, dance, poem, Italian aria or whether it holds the composition together in a subtle, gentle, style like the sound of the earth rotating around the sun; rhythm is the dance.

The photos above were taken in the gloriously romantic city of Rome, Italy. One of these photographs is an unusual perspective of the famous Pantheon, taken by Corbett B. Leith. Can you tell which one ( Hint: the Pantheon's main structure is cylindrical and you maaaaayyyyy be able to make out the 125 AD stamps on the bricks)? Any masterful surmising as to what those triangular slices of light and shadow are? In each one of these photographs at least one or more shapes have been repeated throughout the image to create a sense of rhythm. This repetition holds the photograph together the same way a beat holds you and moves you when listening to music. It draws you in.

Is there rhythm in the silhouette of the chandelier? You can decide for yourself, but the strong vertical and horizontal stripes of the window panes offset the graceful curves of the iron frame that curl and bend in its own rhythmical style. Following suit, the columns in the far right image, taken in front of the Vatican, establish depth and rhythm, the bottom image ( the back wall of the Pantheon taken from a rear alley) reveals a beautiful brick pattern that zips horizontally across the curved wall while subtle arch like patterns offset it vertically. Finally, the descending, curvilinear stone steps in the center photograph, taken in front of a Bernini chapel, suggest rhythm and movement in its simplest form, changing a seemingly mundane subject into a curious, abstract composition.

Ciao! Ciao!

Introducing Corbett Browning Leith

2008-07-20T14:57:00.001-07:00

I would like to introduce to you Corbett Browning Leith, my studio partner, partner in crime an amazing artist and unquestionably, my favorite. His artwork speaks as powerfully for itself as he does. For now I will simply share with you some of his finished work. Enjoy!

Finding the edge

2008-07-20T11:27:00.000-07:00

Finding the edge is about finding and redefining the boundries of space, shape, and potential.

It's about finding the zone between what exists and what can exist, the threshold of creativity. It can be applied to different concepts like finding the edge between the tree limb I am drawing here, and the sky that appears behind it. It can also be the edge of what you think you can do and what you actually can do, exploring new territory of yourself and your imagination.

While on a trip to visit family in Stonington, Ct. I discovered this writhing, hand-like tree that seemed to be reaching straight out of the ground. In this painting I tried to capture the wiggly, human, limb-like personality of the tree by defining its hard, winding edges and set it against a loose, aquatic background to further capture its magical quality. The contrast between the dark background and white limbs clearly defines its shape and presence. The stark line that builds and wanes as it carves around the edge of the tree also defines it in a very deliberate approach, leading the eye in and around the spaces that dip and turn while exposing its texture, contour and volume.

Another way to create an edge, ironicly, is to blurr parts of the edge. Having soft areas of color that are less defined helps emphasize striking edges and ultimately appear more dynamic in contrast.

So to re-cap, finding the edge helps to define space, shape and movement to create a more dynamic presence.

Day 1 in the studio

2008-07-11T06:53:00.000-07:00

Welcome to "Finding Miss Molly", a site where you can witness and learn about live art in the making. This is intended to be a fun, interactive site that will focus on art process, art history and travel.

I spent my first day at the studio, back in San Francisco, after a month long trip back East thankfully realizing that painting is like riding a bike. It's something you don't forget. These are studies (sketches or visual notes) of a Lake in upstate New York, can you guess which Lake it is?

Georgia O'Keefe did a painting of Lake George that is part of the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern art, SFMOMA. There is presently an excellent show of Frida Kahlo's work on display that is sensational. I hope you have fun exploring different ideas, techniques and concepts with me while learning more about art history and real live art in the making.