Terry Taylor Studio

JFK Students working hard!

2012-01-30T08:25:00.000-08:00

Painting, painting, and more painting!

2012-01-30T08:01:00.001-08:00

Images Taking shape

2012-01-19T10:20:00.001-08:00

There are a about 150 JFK students in grades 2-5 working on the mural project with me. The mural is 32 feet in length and 8 feet high. Students learned how images are enlarged using a grid method. They worked on drawing exercises and practiced enlarging line images on paper while I was enlarging the sketch for the mural on the wall. The students then help me paint in all the areas like a large coloring book. They are doing a great job! Stop back for new photos of our progress.

NEW JFK Mural in Progress

2012-01-18T11:22:00.000-08:00

The John F. Kennedy School is getting a new mural this year. I start the process with the students by "brainstorming" what they would like to see in their mural. Many of the character ideas and the park setting for the mural came from the students during these sessions. They also came up with the quote "JFK Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated" which will be a focal point of the mural. JFK students in grades 2-5 will be helping paint the mural. Many thanks to the OASIS after school program for inviting me back to work with the students this year.

King Street Mural Completed

2012-01-18T11:13:00.001-08:00

Here some final pictures of the completed mural at the King Street School.

King Street Mural

2012-01-18T10:44:00.000-08:00

I had a great time creating this mural for the King Street School. Students in the OASIS after school program learned how a mural is created, and brush skills as they helped me paint in all the characters. The mural shows a fanciful daytime scene of a park like setting with animals playing instruments, dancing and having fun. The scene changes to NYC at night with all the buildings in bright colors and Lady Liberty in neon green. I tried to incorporate a lot of fun images into the scene which decorates the hallway with grades 3-5 classrooms. I completed the detail work on the mural in July 2011.

Clay heart project!

2011-07-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

I love this project because it is really good for very young children. These little hearts were created by Kindergarten students after I did a illustration presentation with them. I use this project to go along with my book "Meet Genna and Russ, The Generous Kids." www.gennarusskids.com The story is about these two little goats who give, care and share and I designed this project to go along with one of the messages of the book, which is "giving makes your heart smile." All you need is some polymer clay in different colors, a heart cookie cutter, rolling pin, wax paper, drinking straw. To make this project: Choose the heart color, roll out clay to 1/4" thickness, cut heart shape with cutter. Put on wax paper, add two little balls of different color clay for eyes, add small coil for mouth. Mix different colors together to make the candy stripe coil that frames the hearts. Use drinking straw to punch hole for string to pass through. Bake according to manufacturer directions in your oven. Enjoy!

Ice Cream Ornaments

2011-07-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

Looking for something fun to do with the kids? How about making some ice cream ornaments. All you need is some sculpey clay in fun colors and off you go!

The Final Mural the other 50 feet!

2011-07-18T11:28:00.000-07:00

This is the other end of the wall mural all completed.

In this undersea part of the mural fish dance to the tunes coming out of the coral.

The Final Mural

2011-07-18T11:08:00.000-07:00

These are pictures of the finished mural.
It is about 100' long so it is hard to get it in one picture.
I am putting a series of pictures of the sections.

The mural wall starts out with a garden of huge flowers and the school banner. The focus of the school teaching is reflected in all of the imagery that went into the mural. We included a quote, "Children are the world's most valuable resource and its best hope for the future" by John F. Kennedy. One of my favorite things I incorporated in the mural design was that every student who worked on the mural "signed" it with their hand print in the grass. While I was helping them put their hand print on the wall I asked them to remember what was around their hand print so that when they grew up they could find their hand print. I hope it is on the wall a long time!

One of the funny things that happened with the garden part of the mural is that even though the students wanted broccoli in their garden. No one wanted to paint it!

Wall Mural painting in progress

2011-07-18T10:39:00.000-07:00

Whew!!! The major school mural project took 6 months total to complete. Along the way I taught the students Gr 2-5) how to enlarge drawings using the grid method and ratio. They delighted in being able to be a part of the planning, brainstorming and painting. It was a great experience for the students, teachers and myself. This community project included over 200 people pitching in to paint and be a part of creating this work of art for the school. In the end it took a couple of months of detail painting on my own to make the final artwork sparkle. I hope you enjoy the murap progress pictures.

Thanksgiving Turkeys!

2010-11-29T09:24:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving would not be complete without the turkey! These little clay turkeys were done by some of the artist's at JFK Magnet School.

The project is easy to do in a classroom setting and the resulting birds are as unique as the students who created them.

Great work Mrs. Squillace's Class!!

Wall Mural in Progress

2010-11-29T09:15:00.001-08:00

I am currently working on a mural project with the after school program at the JFK Magnet School. Working with 135 kids from Grade 2- Grade 5. The mural is about 100' long.

How I work with Sculpey clay

2007-03-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

I am an illustrator creating images with polymer clay.
I wanted to talk a little bit about how I create my images. I start with a sketch and then the process is a little different. This is a rough sketch I did for a book. I mix the colors and roll out the Sculpey clay colors I want to use in the artwork. Sculpey clay mixes like you would mix paint. I cut out all of the different color clay and put it between wax paper until I am ready to model the artwork. I sometimes do this right after I submit the sketches since this part of the process can take the most time.

The different colors of clay are then put together and pressed firmly to make them stick. The darker green bush/trees behind the church building extends under the light green clay and is press together. All of the elements in the back ground are layered this way one piece of clay on top of the other. I add textures to the clay for the grass, bricks, bush, etc. and then bake the clay in my oven to make it hard. The stone like clay used for the path and the steps is called Graintex also made by Sculpey.

The fly and the bumble bee figures were made separately, baked and then attached at a height of 4 inches on top of the background to make the nice "flying shadows." The bug antenna are made from a huge bunch of color coated wires I found on a sidewalk once a long time ago. I knew they would come in handy some day! The final baked clay artwork is assembled and attached to foam-core board to transport to the photography studio. The artwork is lighted and photographed digitally. I love this part of the process working with the photographer to get the right look. The image can change dramatically based on the lighting, since it is a dimensional thing. I then bring the image into photoshop and "fluff it up" I added the blush on the flys cheeks, highlights in the eyes, additional music notes and hearts. The flight path was also created in as a shape in photoshop and made transparent. VIOLA!

Now the KILLER: The final artwork for this piece is 30" wide!!! I did the piece this big to keep the tool marks from looking like huge gouges when the book was printed at the big book size.