This little project was in response to “Beautiful Blackbird” by Ashley Bryan. Kids wove colors over black and white fabrics, markered a bird and made a pom-pom! 🧶 ...

For Black History Month, AFTERSCHOOL STUDIO looked at quilts made by Elizabeth Talford Scott, a Baltimore fiber artist and the mother of the celebrated artist Joyce Scott. Talford-Scott grew up in South Carolina and “was trained by family members to repurpose scrapped materials into usable resources in the interest of basic survival needs. She honed quilting skills at a young age, though her invention within the medium would develop over many years, moving away from domestic function into improvisational, sculptural wall hangings that live squarely within the vernacular of fine art.”

Her elegant quilt “Water Lilies” features a handful of floating start-shaped patterns resting on a green background. Before heading to their easels, artists created water lilies and other natural objects like sunflowers, honeycombs, and stars with pattern blocks and magnatiles. Artists created their own water lilies with tempera paint, using small brushes to fill in the pointed petal shapes with focused precision. They also created backgrounds with tempera paint and paint sticks.

Artists then created fabric scrap lilies based off of their paintings.

Swipe through to see the fabric lilies, the painted lilies, Elizabeth Talford Scott's quilt is in the last slide. Photo credit for this piece is from the Goya Contemporary. ...

OPEN STUDIO moments of joy and growth! ...

3M (Mixed Media Modules) made their second Flora & Fauna book using accordion sides and picture element slides. They made a map of South America using texture and color to show geographically terrain and political domain. They drew animals and plants from the rainforest biome using colored pencils, markers, and watercolor and layered them over the map. Each plant and animal drawing session includes learning about the species and how it fits into the complex diversity and layered sustainability of the rainforest ecology. More to come, they are spectacular results from grades 3-5 that meet once or twice a week at the art bar for afterschool class. 🐆🦜🐸 ...

Layered abstract beaded banners made by Wednesday cohort of PROCESS ART. These are two sided material explorations that started with long paper collaborative drawings. Kids are working both with a variety of materials and processes and art language: the art elements and principles of design. 💥 ...

Kids made Greek vessels in PROCESS ART with mythological creatures they made up drawn using sgraffito (acrylic over crayon). 🖍️ ...

WEEKEND WORKSHOP was all about drawing animals in charcoal today! Next week is watercolor painting! Sign up at socialstudioart.com for a 2hour session for ages 9. And up! ...

PAINT & PLAY printed birds in different colors then added black details to each the same way “Beautiful Blackbird” gave black to all the colorful birds in Africa. “Black is beautiful, uh-huh!” Story and illustrations by Ashley Bryan. ...

Awesome “explore” session for the INTENSIVE: PAINTED PORTRAITS! The artist’s works with color to make faces. Over 6 weeks they will make a series of painted portraits ranging from abstract to realistic. These adult intensives delve into a medium and genre using the Creative Process Framework - this framework is what makes Social Studio special. 🎨 ...

Rag weaving “mug rugs” was this month’s WINE & ART experience! Rag rugs have history all over the world and as of tonight are back are back in fashion! Swedish immigrants made rag rugs a popular home essential in the US and Japanese have a tradition called sakiori, from the word saku (to tear or rip) and oru (to weave). Check out the other WIBE & ART events… there are a few spots on some months! ...

Great HAPPY HOUR with Mike Molina who read from his book in process “Emergence” and from his other original works “The Misbelief Tree” and “No Such Thing as a Slave”. Powerful prose and captivating ideas shared! ...