By John A. Barry And Bill Carmel
E-mail John A. Barry And Bill Carmel
About this blog: John Barry is the creator of trAction Painting, a process/performance genre in which he applies paint to large surfaces with bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled conveyances. With Bill Carmel and other associates, he has bro...
(More)About this blog: John Barry is the creator of trAction Painting, a process/performance genre in which he applies paint to large surfaces with bicycles, roller skates, and other wheeled conveyances. With Bill Carmel and other associates, he has brought trAction Painting events to local schools and summer camps. He also creates visual puns. His works are included in several private collections. John has authored/coauthored a dozen books, including Technobabble and Sunburst: The Ascent of Sun Microsystems. John can be contacted at jobarry33@comcast.net or 925-918-7882.
Bill Carmel has 35 years' experience as a professional artist. His fine art paintings, sculptures, and designs are included in private, corporate, and public art collections in the United States, Europe, and Australia. After teaching at Humboldt State University and Southern Illinois University, he returned to the Bay Area, where he remains active in the arts by serving as a co-curator for the Lamorinda Arts Council's Orinda Gallery and by exhibiting throughout the Bay Area. Bill reviews exhibits at SFMOMA, the De Young and Palace of Fine Arts museums, and other Bay Area exhibition venues. Bill can be contacted at billcarmel3@yahoo.com.
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We start painting in earnest tomorrow. Today was preliminaries: asking 14 kids in attendance about art in general; showing them some examples?e.g., landscapes by van Gogh, Constable, and Wyeth; then eliciting thoughts about the differences in style, appearance, palette. The kids, who range in grade level from first to sixth, spent most of the time drawing whatever they wanted. I gave each a notebook and encouraged them to draw, journal, doodle whenever the mood strikes.
Due to age differences, I plan to split them into age-differentiated groups. Because of the inherent slipperiness of acrylic-slathered wheels on canvas, I mixed sand in with the third coat of gesso for the canvas, to create more friction, or traction (as can be seen in the accompanying photo). The sand will add dimensionality to the final result.
Part of the curriculum agenda tomorrow will be creation and measurement of geometric shapes, blending of primary colors to form secondaries, and, of course, coefficient of friction. It's going to be hot, so we won't have to wait long between each layer for drying.
These posts have by necessity to be ex post facto?no time to type in the short time available to set up and paint.
