Harry Takes in the Rain

Here's is one of Art Farm's alpacas, Harry Potter, after the rains yesterday afternoon. Beneath all the hair, Harry is dry and warm. He has a shelter, but he doesn't mind getting wet. Beneath all the fur, Harry is less than 100 pounds. Come May, he and his buddy, Mr. Weasley, will be due for their annual sheering.

Harry is a very friendly alpaca, curious about people. If you stand still and bow down to his level, he will sniff very delicately all about your face. It tickles!

Alpacas are very hardy and easy to care for, but they can live up to 25-years so it is not a pet one should acquire without thinking about the long-term care requirements. Also, they need a companion animal of their own kind to stay healthy and happy. As for diet, they eat orchard hay supplemented with llama pellets (a nutritionally balanced feed), and as a treat some Alfamo, which is shredded alfalfa soaked in molasses.

Harry, like our other farm animals, earn his keep as models for student art work.

Designer Dad Makes Monsterous School Lunches

English Designer Jon Hicks knows how to make a kid look forward to lunch. Imagine opening your lunch box everyday and discovering a new monster along side the P& J sammie.

Starting last May, Hicks has daily penned whimsical monster cards for this son Daniel's lunch boxes. He then posts his illustrations at danielsmonster.tumblr.com. Take a look.

Hicks notes he's, "Not totally sure why I started this, but (Daniel) enjoyed the first one, and it’s become a ritual. Every morning when making his lunch, I give myself 5 minutes to draw a monster on paper from one of those memo pad things, give it a name and quickly photograph it with the iPhone.

"Sometimes they come out OK, sometimes they’re not so great. The important thing is seeing his reaction at the end of the day."

It's wonderful for kids to see parents being creative, making it a part of the fabric of life. As Hicks notes, sometimes they're good and sometimes not, but that's hardly the point. What's wonderful is the sense of fun communicated visually. It's something shared, daily, between parent and child.

One thing I run up against time and again with young artists is a fear of somehow drawing a bad picture. I think this is something telegraphed to them every time a parent says, "Oh, I can't draw!" instead of simply doing it. At some time in our childhoods most of us love to draw and then, somehow, fell out of the habit. It's a reversible loss.

Alpacas Have Arrived at Art Farm

Alpacas have arrived at Carlsbad Art Farm just in time for the summer camp season. They are pictured here with my daughter, Emerson. They are unbelievably cute, like giant stuffed animals. The lighter colored alpaca is six months old. His name is Harry Potter because he has a zig-zagging spot of color on his forehead. The brown alpaca is one-year old. His name is Mr. Weasley.

The natural habitat of an alpaca is the high Andes of South America, but since 1984 they have flourished on farms throughout the United States. They are shorn twice a year. Alpaca hair is very fine and silky, and unlike wool it doesn't itch.

These are huacaya alpacas, which are known for their fine fiber and wooly coats. (There are also suri alpacas with tightly-wound fiber that looks like dreadlocks). A baby alpaca (birth to five months) is called a "cria". Harry Potter will be a "weanling" until his first birthday. Mr. Weasley will be a "yearling" until his second birthday.

Adult alpacas live up to 25 years. Their average height is 36-inches at the whithers. They can weight up to 175 pounds. Alpacas are camelids and are related to llamas and camels. They are much smaller than llamas and are a distinct breed apart. Alpacas are believed to be descended from vicunas, a wild camelid from South America.

Our alpacas will be serving as models for young artists coming to Carlsbad Art Farm this summer. And to answer a question that keeps coming up: No, Alpacas don't spit at people.

Alpacas Coming To Carlsbad Art Farm

Carlsbad Art Farm Summer Camp is all about learning how to draw and paint and otherwise make art rendered from life. At Art Farm, students work in outdoor studios surrounded by 10-acres of rustic, woodsy land where they learn how to draw animals from live models. Last summer our students met Picasso the miniature mule and Kandinsky the goat, plus a host of other visiting animals: horses, burros, baby doll lambs, dogs, and more (but no swine, in case anyone is worried about that).

New this summer are two young Alpacas. They are arriving in May and will be ready to model for students coming to Carlsbad Art Farm Summer Camp starting June 15. These alpacas (photo by Mehgan Murphy) were photographed at the Smithsonian National Zoo in January. As soon as we get pictures of our alpacas I will post them (I neglected to bring my camera when I traveled to California Criations in Temecula to purchase them, but these two look very similar). One alpaca is coming prenamed "Harry Potter" because he has coloring on his forehead that looks like the boy wizard's famous lightening bolt scar. The other has yet to be named, so if anyone has a name that sounds like a good fit for a brown alpaca then reply to this post.

Where Do Artists in San Diego Get Their Supplies?

This is not a comprehensive list (in fact I'm listing all of two locations). But parents ask me all the time where to go to get art supplies for their kids and I'd like to keep it simple, and I'd like to wean them off of Michael's Art Supplies.

I have nothing against Michael's, except that when it comes to fine arts supplies their prices are horribly jacked-up, their section is limited, and they don't have knowledgeable staff on hand to answer questions about the supplies they do have. If you have a child who is truly showing an interest in drawing and painting, then take them to a real fine arts supply store and encourage them to ask questions of the staff. And be ready to make a small but worthwhile investment because there comes a time when making art requires better materials (yes, that means not buying the Value Pack of one trillion paint brushes for $9.99).

A young student with a passion for drawing and painting absolutely should be introduced to and have familiarity with good quality art materials and their functions, in the same way that a promising young violinist should have access to a decent violin. Better materials handle better and get better results.That's why grown-up artists use them.

One of the things I really enjoy about teaching foundation drawing classes to middle school students is introducing them to basic art materials and then showing them the effects they can get with these materials. I issue each student a small tool box filled with a variety of charcoals, pencils, erasers, a limited range of Nupastel, white and black chalks, Conte Crayon, etc., and then set about showing them how to use these on different types of surfaces and papers.

We talk about different brands, soft and hard leads, vine versus willow charcoal, what type of charcoal pencil gets the darkest line, why different pencils come in different shapes and how to use them, what the different erasers do, etc. I want my students to be knowledgeable so that they can go into an art supply store and ask for the materials they need.

When I shop for drawing and painting supplies in San Diego County, I go to one of two places: Rhino Art Supply or Dick Blick. Since I live in North County, I usually shop at Rhino Art Supply, at 97 N Coast Highway 101 in Encinitas (at the corner of Encinitas Blvd.), an independently owned and operated art supply store that is well stocked and staffed. It also looks like actual art gets made there, which, if I were a kid, would be fascinating. But be warned, if you're a Thomas Kinkade fan you might want to stick to Michael's.

For parents in South County, Dick Blick, 1844 India St., in San Diego (in the Little Italy district), is a huge art supply store. (Dick Blick is also where I shop online for art supplies. If you're buying in quantity and can wait a week or so, that's where the best prices are.) Dick Blick is a supermarket of art supplies. Fine art students from the UCSD and San Diego State go there for their art supplies. Dick Blick also has a knowledgeable and large staff, but you need to work a little harder to get their attention.

At both stores, the prices for materials are fair. Both stores have websites (see my "Links") where you can check for discounts, coupons, etc.

Art Work from Art Farm

I'm just now starting to sift through three-years worth of student art work with the daunting task of trying to choose what to put on my website gallery. I've photographed so many images. The work posted there will eventually represents a range of ages from students entering second-grade through middle school.

Seen here is a lovely charcoal rendering of a horse by a second-grader. Students at Art Farm work from live animal models in outdoor studios on our 10-acre reserve. By the time this student rendered this horse, she had spent studio time learning how to use charcoal media and studying some basic horse anatomy. Her class was shown a diagram of a horse skeleton, and we went over how the horse moves and why. We watched a short film clip showing a horse in motion, and another illustrating how artists through the ages have depicted horses.

By the time we brought in a live horse to draw, this student was well prepared to tackle her subject. One obstacle to overcome when drawing a live animal is that animal models tend to move. That is why having a good sense of how the animal is put together to begin with helps in the drawing of it.

In our studio classes at Art Farm, students work at special easels called "art horses" (familiar to anyone who has ever gone to an art college or university) which allow them to sit down while drawing from a model. The art horse also allows them to draw at a tilt with a good range of arm and hand motion while closely observing the model. This is incredibly important for many types of drawing.

You can see from this charcoal drawing that there is looseness and charm to the line style and smudging that is moving away from simple contour or "coloring book"-style drawing toward a greater sophistication of expression. Not every line has been erased because it was "imperfect" (in fact I often ban erasers from class). You can see the anatomy under the surface: the bones supporting the animal. There is a sense of volume in the belly. This student has been given a high-grade piece of charcoal paper that allows the texture of the rubbings to take hold on the surface in a way that cheap construction paper cannot. The horse looks alive because the drawing technique is fluid and alive. Also, it has the look of an object rendered from a live model.

This second-grader, like many students her age, was very excited to be taught how to observe an animal like an artist and then how to go about getting it down on paper.

Surfing Links On the Art Farm Blog

As noted in an earlier post, I divide my blog lists into one suitable for younger artist and a second that comes under a "PG-13" heading, with the commonsense disclaimer that blogs are constantly morphing and parents need to monitor usage as they see fit.

All my listings, whether they come under blogs or links, are here because I believe they are great compendiums of information and creative talent. The links are not separated by age category, so parents may want to visit a site first to see if it is appropriate for any given child.

In listing links and blogs for parents and kids interested in art, my goal is to sift the wheat from the chaff that's floating about on the Internet. Today I hit upon an upstart publishing house, Drawn and Quarterly, that publishes literary comics and graphic novels. It is supported in part by the Canadian government. It's founding publisher, Chris Oliveros, pictured right from the biography page at D & W's website, set out in 1989 to convince the world's top literary comic artists to publish with with D & Q. D& Q also has a blog.

Today, with cartoonists that have been instrumental in defining the literary comics medium for the past twenty years, and a willingness to experiment with formats and concepts, the website notes that "Drawn & Quarterly has become one of the most influential art and literary comics publishers in North America, if not the whole world."

Looking through a few of the artist biographies, this boast seems to have some foundation in fact. To read the artists' biographies, visit the site, click on "artists" and then click on the image of the book sitting on the desk top of each artist. One example is Cartoonist/Illustrator Raymond Briggs who has been writing and drawing children’s books and graphic novels for 40 years. Some of his best-loved books include Father Christmas and The Snowman.

For high school students interested in the art of the literary graphic novel or something much more sophisticated than Manga or superhero-style comics story lines, this is a great site. The quality here is along the lines of Art Spiegleman's Pulitzer Prize-winning "Maus", or the more recent "Persepolis".

A Blog for People Who Like to Draw

Drawn! is a collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw. The blog listings at Drawn! are a treasure-trove of talent. It's addictive. I keep telling myself I'm just going to visit one more blog entry at Drawn! and then go get some "real" work done. Every day there's something new to look at.

I've posted a link to Drawn! under my "PG-13" blog list because this is a blog that has listings with adult themes and content, but Drawn! is also chock-a-block with stuff that is wonderful for young people. So I suggest that parents go to Drawn! and start bookmarking blogs to share with their kids.

One example is the wonderful illustrated literary blog, "Boogie Woogie" (see owls above), maintained by a dad and his kids, listed under my "Blog List for Young Artists." I found this at Drawn!. Not only is Boogie Woogie charming, but the idea itself is one that can be replicated by any family wanting to share family time, books, and art.

Drawn! is also a wonderful resource for art teachers. If you have a Smart Board in your classroom, there are many avenues for using these blogs to supplement instruction.

Introducing Art Farm Instructor Kris Finch

Carlsbad Art Farm has assembled some great talent for our Summer Camp program this year (to learn more about our staff, follow this link and click on instructors. Visit frequently for updates on visiting instructors).

Kris Finch will be teaching drawing and oil painting this summer. He has a wonderful low-key style of instruction that is appealing to students. Kris and I sat down one afternoon to paint my mini-Mule, Picasso, and I was fascinated by his technique and how simply he explained it while whipping up this spot-on portrait of my mule. Kris is a classically trained portrait artist, but as you can see from the painting here he’s adept in the barnyard as well.

To see more of Kris’ work, visit his website.