x-ray style stuffies

Well I may not be posting much but my classroom is creating like crazy. Part of why I haven't posted is because I am in mourning  the loss of Picknik photo editing. I can not find a program I like as much, or find easy enough to use while also playing with my son. I am not pleased with the editing of these photos but they will have to do.

 So onto the project. During our Australia unit this year I wanted to try something different with x-ray and dot style art. I had the students do dot paintings and x-ray style animal drawings as always but then I wanted to see how our drawings would translate into 3-D. I gave the students several Australian animal shapes to choose from and taught them how to sew and embroider. They got really into this lesson and begged to work on them before school even started. Each student learned to straight stitch, back stitch, chain stitch, satin stitch, blanket stitch and some student's learned to make french knots. Other students used puffy paint to add the dot aspect of their design. These took quite a while and I didn't really find a good way to display them but the kids sure loved them and were very proud. Good work 6th grade!

attach those caps...

I'm all take and no give these days. We have almost collected enough bottle caps to do a mural...so much for having enough by earth day...oh well. Anyway the mural is going to be inside, hanging on the upper wall of the library and will hang for at least one year. We are looking at about a 6ft x 5ft mural. So I need your experience in choosing the base for the mural and the attachment method. I think I have ruled out foam core as being too flimsy but I worry that plywood will be really heavy. Is there an in-between material we can use? Do we really need to drill each cap in or can we use hot glue...how about gorilla glue or liquid nails? Did you assemble the mural or have adult volunteers or have student's do it? What types of attachment materials did you let the students use (hot glue gun, power drill?) I will have 6th-8th graders who can work on this project. Thanks so much for you ideas. I know there are tons of posts about this topic out there but honestly with baby demanding all my attention I don't have time to search through everything!

Have you tried these?

Yes so I'm absent from my blog, I'm not even going to make excuses.  I have a baby, I'm tired.

Anyway I recently came upon a box of Prismacolor art stix...the woodless colored pencils. Needless to say there were awesome and I really want to get a bunch for my classroom. However, I can NOT afford to buy more than two sets of them for my classroom and I need 6-7 sets. So I am looking at the Crayola woodless colored pencil sticks as an alternative. I know they will never have the soft blend-ablity of a prismacolor but has anyone tried them and what did you think? Are they worth the money...do they last a while, would they work well in the middle school classroom? What are your thoughts?

How do you teach Rothko?!

Ok I know I have been AWOL. I'm finding my day of wake up, feed baby, get baby ready for day, drive to work while pumping, teach, do lunch duty, eat lunch while pumping for 17 min, do lunch duty, drive home while pumping, care for baby, do lesson plans, repeat....to leave little time for blog posting.

However, I need the help of the art blogging world as I have been asked to teach about an artist that I can't really figure out how to make a lesson for.

Mark Rothko was born in Russia but his family moved to Oregon when he was 10. He went to high school in Portland at one of the schools in my district. Right now the Portland Art Museum is hosting a show of his work and I have been asked to do a unit on him. I want to take the kids to see the exhibit and it is easy to teach about is life and look at his art...but I'm struggling with the studio lesson aspect. I have never had luck in the past when it comes to Color Field lessons. I find my 6-8th graders don't really "get it" (honestly I'm not sure I really "get it" sometimes...but they look nice).

My last attempt at a color field lesson what also a color theory lesson about color families. We did some paintings with blocks of color but they ended up looking very early elementary school and quite uninspired. I am at a loss at how to make something more interesting that my kids will connect with. I can't really find anything online...even the MoMA lesson on his has no studio aspect, only a compare and contrast.

HELP! I need your ideas. How would you/do you approach something like color field painting in your room?

I'm back! with a bug lesson

Ok I'm back in my classroom in two weeks and have our first lesson of the new term ready to go. I always like starting the term with a lesson that requires very few materials and let's me assess student's ability to follow multi-step directions. We had a lot of success with our pattern letters at the start of the year and my sub did a great job repeating the lesson while I was on leave. But it's a new year and time for a new first lesson.

This lesson comes from Monument Valley Regional Middle School...a blog I have been following a while that has great photos of middle school lessons. I have seen her post images of this lesson several times but she doesn't give directions on her blog so I had to break it down for myself. Out of respect for the owner of the original lesson I am not going to post the steps here. I will put a link to the google doc that has my step by step directions and pictures when I post student samples.

But here is my sample:
looks like blogger is rotating images today
I think this is a fun way to think about positive/negative space and use those problem solving skills. I predict this lesson will take 5-7 class sessions if done well. For my class that meets every day I want to extend this lesson a bit further and got to thinking how we could add a 3-D element. I decided this would be a good time to use the box of polymer clay that was left by the last art teacher.
Each student will need to make a copy of their insect in polymer clay and then they have two choices. They can either use their black and white design on it and then "hide" it their 2-D work. OR
They can use color to decorate their insect and make a paper origami box to put the insect in like a collectors specimen and display the clay insect alongside the 2-D artwork. I need to get little pins to put through the clay before we bake it so it looks like we have pinned the insect into the specimen box and a little label with the name of the insect.

How we will make the clay insect:
Here is my template for the 2-D lesson. We will use it for the clay insect (ignore the triangle)

trace around the insect template onto a square of wax or parchment paper

now using polymer clay (I really like Bake Shop by Sculpty ...its less expensive, is soft and doesn't crumble) start building your insect by adding clay inside the template shape. Smooth the pieces add you add them together.

keep building till you have your completed insect. Originally I carved the design into the soft clay
but this ended up being a BAD idea. Just leave the insect blank and smooth. Have the kids put their name on the parchment or wax paper and pop the whole thing in the oven to bake.
YES NO
When I carved the design into the clay it was way to hard to color/paint it after baking.
Here is my version colored with sharpie
blogger arrgggg!!!!
and the clay insect "hidden" in the 2-D artwork


ok and now the color version:
a new smooth version
draw your design with sharpie and start to paint
painted
and outlined with sharpie when dry...now to make the box to put the little bug in and decided if some puffy paint is called for. I look forward to seeing what the students do with this lesson. More to come later.