Summer Art Fix: All invited to log on for sketchbook idea
Art teacher aims to keep creative juices flowing through summer
Feeling creative? Feeling the summer hours seeping away with nothing to pique your interests but television and the odd beach day?
Ashley Norman has your fix that involves nothing but checking the web and allowing your mind to wander.
It’s call the Summer Sketchbook Spectacular, which Norman herself started at first as a means to connect with friends creatively but then spiraled into something more. Norman is an arts teacher at Costal Ridge Elementary School in York, and has decided that art shouldn’t end with the school year.
As Norman says: “It [art] doesn’t have to be purely academic. I feel like everyone can have an artistic experience.”
As a free art initiative, the project reaches out to participants both young and old. There is a sketchbook prompt on Norman’s blog that allows for participation and interaction as well as freedom to do with the prompt as you wish.
For example, Sunday’s prompt was: “Take an adventure into your backyard. Try to find one thing that you have never noticed before. Make a piece of work about that object or your experience finding it.” On Aug. 17, Norman wrote “What does the color “red” mean to you? What does it remind you of? How does it make you feel?”
Another recent prompt on Norman’s blog was to use the complementary colors yellow and purple and to make a piece of art. She then went on to explain what the term “complementary” means in the artistic jargon, managing to educate while giving artists something to do.
The topics vary in subject matter from idioms to “bad hair days” — all in the hope of broadening people’s perspective of art.
“It’s not just for the visual artists,” Norman said in regards to who should be interested in this project.
“The seacoast has a lot of artists, and they don’t always know the opportunities they have. There is an established community, a lot of which is traditional art as well. My hope is that maybe this will help people break out and also want to reach out.”
Norman isn’t new to the social media means of creating context to work. After college she’d stay in touch with friends and fellow artists with another similar blog that had word prompts instead. She says that she recognizes the helpfulness of networking.
However, her greatest followers may be the students she’ll soon see back in her classroom.
“I have students participating but I want more people to realize it’s out there. I’m just excited to return to the school year in the fall and see the students’ works.”
It’s the difference in the age groups that creates such an all-inclusive nature to this project, like the difference between a 7-year-old’s reaction to the “bad hair day” prompt vs. the 40-year-old’s.
She notes that despite the variety of ideas, she hopes to be all-inclusive.
“It’s really the prompt and how the person is going to take it. I want it to be accessible from 7 to 100 years old.”
Norman herself is trying to keep up with the prompts, too, but finds some more difficult with the schedule she’s juggling.
With two weeks left in the project, she’s already thinking ahead to next summer. “I think I’ll have more of an outreach ahead of time and getting the word out earlier,” she said.
The Sketchbook Spectacular runs until Sept. 2 with an exhibit to celebrate and showcase the art done at Chases Garage opening in October.
Young and old, boys and girls, artistically gifted or creatively stunted, the summer is drawing to a close so why not preserve your thoughts and memories on paper with a little helping hand? Scrapbooks capture time, and the prompts help lay them on the paper.
http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130821/ENTERTAIN/308210334