Though I haven’t been trained in using Think Blocks yet, I am anxious to learn. My colleagues are very excited about using them. Here is a short tutorial for using them in art:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldWRJ-ZNnRY
The Pollen Was Bad that Day” is the title of this little piece.
It’s summer and that means it’s Artist Trading Card time with art teachers. My ArtEducation2.0 Ning group is doing their annual swap. I have to make five cards.
I’ve been watching every grade stitch and weave this quarter. Weeks upon weeks of watching kids having fun with needle and thread. Finally, it’s my turn. I’ll do my ATCs with embroidery.
This particular card was first colored with a freezer paper print and then embroidered. I like the idea of printing first. It gives me good guidelines to follow while filling in empty spaces between stitches. The insect motif is a favorite of mine and was an easy choice to start off the process, but I think I will base the next one on a design from a masterpiece.
Looking at photos of my work, I always see errors that I don’t see in person. The eyes need to be darkened or outlined and I forgot to stitch an antennae. After that, I’ll be happy with it.
The weekend’s here. Finally. And it is the last one of the school year.
In a little over 2 weeks I will have all the time in the world to do whatever I like. Probably I will be snipping away. I did this paper snip for a friend in Italy.
Weaving is a part of my county’s kindergarten curriculum. It is a tricky skill for kindergartners. Most of the get the idea of “over, under, over, under” pretty easily. It’s the next row of weaving that gets them. They have to do the opposite of what they did in the first row. Usually I save the lesson for the end of the year when they have had a year of learning under their belts.
Since they are studying ants in their classrooms, I combine the two areas. We weave a picnic tablecloth; make a sculptural lunch; and print the whole thing with fingerprint ants.
Last week my kiddies wove the cloth. Today they made the food and ants. Before they even started, we watched the video from Sesame Street of The Count having a picnic. He counts as the ants carry away his food. The kids loved it! They were excited too when I showed them the examples of work done by kids in past years.
This lesson filled up the entire hour of their art time today and everyone seemed to enjoy it.
Today was the last day of Art Club for the year. The group I worked with this semester was pretty motivated. Last semester I had more kids who were more interested in the social part of the club. The current group was more fun to work with.
I had the kids look at art made from found objects. (Flickr was a rich resource for this.) Then they used egg cartons, cardboard boxes, cardboard strips, and odd cardboard packing materials.
Some kids made machine constructions like this “air jet.”
Others did constructions resembling robots.
Art Club gives the kids more of an opportunity to take media in the direction of their own choosing than they have in class. I think I stand back a bit more and give them more “space.” Of course, there are usually less than 15 at a time in Art Club. That’s at least 10 less than in their regular class. It makes a difference.
A friend sent me a pack of beautiful origami paper. For the life of me, I can’t do origami. So I did the old switcheroo and combined my papercutting with pysanky. I’ll call it “papersanky.”
I’m so ready for school to end. There are so many things I want to do both in my own art and in ideas for kid art. This summer I want to get more videos done. I hope I can get to where I can practically crank them out. When I don’t use the software often, I forget how to use it and how to make the whole process easier.
Possibly my Christmas card for this year……..
These are most of the pysanky eggs I’ve been working on since Spring Break. I’ve lost a lot of eggs through careless handling. At this point I have a much better respect for their fragile nature. Odd that I’m working on these since I feel like such a bull in a china shop.
This whole pysanky experimenting has been an interesting experience for me. The learning curve has been a lot steeper than I originally thought it would be. I think I will remain interested in this craft at least until I reach an upper intermediate level.
