cha-cha-Chia!

This was one of those projects that I just decided to wing and cross my fingers that it worked, and so far, it has! In 6th grade, students make sculpture using the pinch method of clay hand-building. The students  in the  first three quarters (one with me and two with my long-term sub), made some kind of animal sculpture. I was trying to think about how I could spice it up and Googled something like "Clay animal" and up popped a Chia Pet, which is merely a hollow ceramic animal with grooves in it to hold the seeds. I thought it would be really fun to try to make them and went for it! So, after sculpting their animal bodies by joining two pinch pots together on the rim and adding a head, legs, tails, etc. students used a ribbon tool to carve out thin grooves on the part of the animal that they wanted to sprout "hair". They had to create a hole in the tops for watering too. Once fired, students glazed only the non-grooved portion of the piece. The ones that are complete at this point have been 'planted' for about four days now and their lush coats are just starting to sprout! :)

Chia "Mother Goose"

Chia Pig

Chia Elephant

Chia Macaroni Penguin (front and back views)

Chia Walrus

Chia Squirrel

Chia Hippo

Chia Lion

Employee Paint Night!

Last night I hosted the first of two paint nights that I opened up to interested employees. Basically, I led the group of about 20 adults through the creation of a painting on canvas and they all did their own interpretations of it. I love how different they all look- every artist has a different style and vision for their work. It was a lot of fun and I am looking forward to next week's session too!

 

UPDATE (6/2/14)! Here is a shot of my group from last Wednesday the 28th. Much fun was had and they turned out beautifully!

One Point Perspective Collages

Prior to the Renaissance (during the Middle Ages) artists were less concerned with the illusion of reality and more concerned with the content and symbolism of their work. The size of each element in the image related much more to its importance, rather than it's placement in a space. By the height of the Renaissance, artists had mastered the mathematics and visual techniques of perspective. Artists like Brunelleschi, Raphael and Da Vinci were using it to great effect, giving their work a stronger illusion depth. The simplest form of perspective is one point perspective. It presumes a single point, which all others move towards, like looking down a straight road as far as you can see and lines which we know are parallel seem to converge on a single point known as the vanishing point. We can see this in the picture of Da Vinci’s Last Supper, pictured here.

In my quarterly Renaissance Art History course, I always do some sort of one point perspective art project, like these names, to give the kids a chance to learn the technique. Wanting to spice it up this quarter, I looked on Pinterest for ideas and found this lesson for inspiration (and I basically totally copied it!). We used chipboard for the perspective shapes and flat cardboard box sides for the collage backing. To give the shapes a little depth, we glued little stacks of cardboard between the collage and shapes (see last photo). While they took a lot longer than the usual projects we do in this course, I am so pleased with the beautiful results!

Selfie :)

My mom recently sent this to me and I think it is awesome!

In the Style Of...

In this project, 8th graders chose an artists' name out of a hat. They spent a few classes researching the artist's life, painting style, subjects, techniques, etc. Students were challenged to create a painting of their own based on their artist's work. They could attempt to copy or alter a master work, or create their own composition using the themes, subjects or style that their artist employed using acrylic paints on 16" x 20" stretched canvas. Students wrote their own descriptive paragraph about their artist and the painting they created for display. I think they're awesome!

After Georgia O'Keeffe

After Henri Matisse

After Jim Dine

After Wayne Thiebaud

After Peter Max

After Frank Stella

After Georges Seurat

After Kara Walker

After Roy Lichtenstein

After Rene Magritte

After Vincent Van Gogh

After Frida Khalo

After Keith Haring 

Koinobori Kites

Children's Day, Kodomo no hi (子供の日), takes place on May 5^th in Japan. It is the last day of Golden Week, a week in which businesses usually close for up to 9–10 days. It became a national holiday in 1948, but it has been a day of celebration in Japan since ancient times. Until 1948, it was called Tango no Sekku (端午の節句), and only honored boys. Now, this holiday is known as "Children's Day” and it is a day to celebrate the health and happiness of all children.

Koinobori (鯉幟), meaning "carp streamer" in Japanese, are carp-shaped wind socks traditionally

flown in Japan to celebrate Children’s Day. The carp, or koi, is considered the strongest and most spirited fish, because it fights its way upstream against strong currents. It is a symbol of strength, courage and success. The tradition of flying Koinobori outside homes began as a way to honor the sons living within so that they would grow up healthy and courageous like a carp. Landscapes across Japan are decorated with koinobori from April to early May, in honor of all children for a good future and in the hope that they will grow up healthy and strong.

For their printmaking project, fifth graders, who are currently learning about Asia in geography, created their own koinobori kites for Children’s Day. For this lesson, I used/adapted this Dick Plan Lesson plan. Students created a scale shape and transferred the design onto a rubber-like material before carving away the negative space using a tool called a gouge. The pattern was printed repeatedly onto fabric using special printing ink until the fish was covered in scales. Students used acrylic paint to embellish the fish with colorful accents and eyes. Tails were cut from scraps of fabric and the fish were assembled to create the final windsock. They are hanging across the Atrium and the display is pretty spectacular!