ARTIST'S STATEMENT I have always loved color, shape, and texture. As a child, I made puppets by piecing together scraps of bright-colored material, and I created plays for them with my family and friends as audiences. I loved the way the fabric I used looked and felt and what would happen when I cut it in pieces and put it back together. The work I do now still reflects my early fascination with making things out of fabric. Now I work with simple materials--mat board and crayons. I took up crayons when I found myself on the road, traveling to schools around Kentucky to do art with kids. Crayons are very portable and if I forgot them, kids would always loan me some. I'm still interested in making pictures by coloring and cutting. In the crayon drawing below, I layered colors and images on top of one another and then scratched out what was underneath my fingernail. Catherine Rubin, artist

©1995 Catherine Rubin

CATHERINE RUBIN is a technical assistant/art consultant for the Collaborative for Elementary Learning, a practicing artist, and a former artist-in-residence for the Kentucky Arts Council. During the past 10 years, she has conducted residences in 15 Kentucky schools. Since 1986, she has also developed and conducted workshops on multiple intelligences theory.

Catherine has a B.F.A. in printed/painted textiles and paper making from the National School for Decorative Arts in Kolding, Denmark. She has also studied at the Arrowmont School of Crafts in Gatlinburg; the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Deer Isle, Maine; the Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina; the Skals School of Crafts in Skals, Denmark; the Hindman Settlement School; the Vestbirk Folk School in Vestbirk, Denmark; and the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina.

In her Art On-Air lesson, Catherine introduces children to the concept of warm and cool colors and encourages them to use contrasting colors in the creation of cut-paper collages.

Teacher's Guide for Color

Related Links

• Student Artwork

• Arts Alive for 6 - 9th grade - First three programs deal with visual arts:
  1. "Alive with the Arts" - the power and appeal of the arts
  2. "Elements of Visual Arts" - line, shape, color, and texture
  3. "Creating Visual Arts" - expressing an idea
• The Big A for primary grades - Program 6. Lines, Shapes, Colors and Textures
• Doodle for K-12 - Program 3. Color and Light
• Art History 1: A Century of Modern Art for grades 6-12 - Program 2 shows artists who used similar techniques.

Catherine Rubin
The Collaborative for Elementary Learning
(502) 451-3131