Monday, May 7, 2012

Class 7: Body Silhouettes/ Today I Feel Like...

We read Eric Carle's Head To Toe and then the students worked with partners to draw each others' silhouettes keeping in mind a particular animal or thing they might feel like today. It was ok for them to just feel like themselves, too, as many chose to create self-portraits. Here they used their drawn silhouette as a jumping off point and/or inspiration. Some had in mind the animal or creature they wanted to be beforehand and their partner helped them get their body into a good shape. Others chose a position they wanted to be in, then thought of what they wanted to be and elaborated afterwards...



















Class 6: Rhythm + Pattern Prints

We talked about pattern, as a repetition of predictable shapes, lines, colors, etc. we looked at african masks and talked about symmetrical pattern, we looked at the patterns of the waxing and waning moon. we looked at the repetition and rhythm of shapes and colors in Piet Mondrian's work. We looked at the pattern of flight of birds. We looked at houses with symmetrical and assymetrical rhythms of windows. We looked at the patterns of veins in leaves and the pattern of leaves off a stem. We looked at tiles that are individual, but fit together in a rhythmic way to create a pattern. We looked at fabric patterns that repeat shapes and lines in a regular way. Then the students used scratchboard to draw their own patterns/rhythms and we printed them on paper and/or tea towels. ** students can reprint using their original scratchboards. just use a roller to roll out acrylic paint at home (we used both a brayer and a paint roller) then coat the scratchboard with a thin layer of paint then press to paper. you can use styrofoam food containers to make the same kind of prints with recycleables at home.

albina


aoife



camilla



dashiell



elaine june



jacqueline



john



niamh



nicholas



ruby



Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Class 5: Texture Restaurant

Today we talked about texture, and the children took turns putting their hand in a "feely box" and discussing different textures they felt. then they pretended to be master chefs who owned their own restaurant. their task- to create a mouthwatering dish that would offer a variety of textures for their diners' palates.
jacqueline: there's a place in here. that's a tunnel. it's a pumpkin pie.
sophia: i made some pasta called fettuccine alfredo with meatballs. meatballs have sauce on them, noodles have a little bit of cheese.
john: pancakes with a juicebox [what you don't see off camera- john sculpted a juice box complete with straw, then asked for a cup so he could squeeze it into the cup. so he physically transformed his drink from one form to another]. pancakes are smooth. juice box is rough outside, wet inside. syrup (to be painted on later) is sticky.
dashiell: shiskabob is bumpy outside, chewy inside. hot dog is smooth to touch, chewy to taste. bun is bumpy on inside, smooth on outside.
albina- crust is rough. medium texture, between crunchy and soft. dog cookies and bones on blue plate [this restaurant serves dog too!] the dog cookie is crusty and rough. the bone for the dog is rough on the end.
nicholas: i made pancakes and bacon (ridgey cardboard) at my restaurant. And ice cream (in bon bon plastic container) and i've created a pancake skewer.
aoife's restaurant: the pizza is cheesy and slimy. crust is rough and hard and crunchy. salad is wet and smooth and crumply (lettuce). salad dressing is wet. dessert- two cookies and a slice of cherry pie.
elaine june: i'm making a pizza. i made smooth shapes for the vegetables. the stick is for cutting the pizza and i'm making lines (that includes writing) on the crust so you can write notes like "i love you" on the crust.
niamh's restaurant: spoon is smooth. cookie is lumpy, crunchy. apple is smooth outside, bumpy inside. stem is smooth. strawberry is bumpy on outside, soft inside.
camilla: i'm making meatballs and mac n cheese. the bubble texture keeps the food from getting too hot and burning!
katie: i'm making an oreo cookie crumble pie. it's really sweet. the dots are the crumbs and i want to make it look good enough to eat! olivia: i'm making oreo cheesecake pie. i like to cut the crust to put it on the top and put dots on it.
ruby: ice cream cone is smooth and wet. chicken nugget is bumpy. the cookie and the pretzel are dry and crunchy. that big ball with the skewers in it is a "cootatta". it's bumpy, lumpy, humpy and chewy.

Class 4: Shape (shifting)

In today's class we focussed on SHAPE. we quickly discussed a variety of terms to describe shapes and looked at images of shapes in the world and in art: geometric, organic, heart, spiral, asymmetrical, symmetrical. we looked at matisse's 'snail' which is made up of squares organized in a spiral. we did a quick scavenger hunt in the beginning of class and students tagged items around the room that had shape. i asked them to find something that had a 2-dimensional shape and something that had a 3-dimensional shape and if they could (this was a tricky one) to find something that changed it's shape when moved, used, or over time. Then I asked them to imagine something in their life, in their bedroom perhaps, that they might like to change the shape of. They used ripped and cut paper to make collages of this shape-shifted thing. As they progressed, some of them started thinking about how once they changed the shape of one thing, it inspired them to change the shape of something else related or in the picture. We talked a little about this- if you were changing a dog's head to a block instead of a sphere, what would its neck look like? its collar? or if you changed the shape of a basketball hoop, what would that mean about the ball?


olivia: i made a head that’s a rock, a rectangle mouth and a triangle nose

elaine june: this is a house, a ball, and a twisty person i’m still working on


sophia: it’s called a crazy sun and it has all different kind of shapes around it... the middle is a square and it’s gonna have a lot of crazy shapes around to make a shape sky!

katie: a sun shaped like a triangle with rays shaped like skinny rectangles (note feathering too on interior rays of sun)




john: a basketball hoop shaped like a triangle. the backboard is shaped like a triangle. the net is normal-shaped. the rim is a circle. the ball is a square shape.


niamh: my house is in the shape of a circle. the door is a square. the roof is a half-circle

owen: it’s a pool that has a very blobby shape and the hot tub is the same thing. i’m swimming in the deep end and my brother is in the shallow.

albina- i made a flower. the center is a rectangle instead of a circle. the petals are half-circles and triangles. the grass is a part-circle. (the orange figure on the mound of grass and the red square/diamond appeared after her story was transcribed)

ruby: i made a duck out of circles and triangles and rectangles hidden behind a door.


aoife: i made a bird (white) with triangle feet and a rectangle wing and a square sun!




nicholas: a house shaped like an upside down banana (3 dimensional)


julie:i’m making a heart-shaped person, a ripped moon and a tiny bed

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

Class 3: Line in 2D and 3D

Today's class we worked on LINE. We read The Dot & The Line and discussed different qualities of line as told in the story- squiggly, straight, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, curvy, jagged, angular, zig zag, spiral light, dark, thick, thin... the students played with string while we read, recreating some of the lines in the book as well as some originals of their own. then the students got to work with their choice of paint or modeling clay and straws, trying out different lines. some students went to work dissecting an organized "list" of a variety of lines. other students quickly gravitated towards lines that makes shapes. some chose only clay and went to work illustrating their idea of "line" with sculpture.
niamh methodically played out all sorts of different shapes and graphic designs using a variety of marker lines on accordion paper (there are so many different kinds of lines you can create, almost like an alphabet!)
ruby made huge swashes of color, using a few lines with a big paintbrush to form some abstract shapes (big thick lines stacked on top of each other and butting up against each other can begin to look like shapes)
ruby then made a sculpture using a few pipe cleaners and straws to create some broad 3-d shapes with straight, curvy and diagonal lines.
nicholas was also interested in hiding and concealing and painting over his lines, making lines, then nonlines, then lines again. using muddier colors to reveal brighter ones underneath. (lines might not always have very clear beginning and ends!)
elaine june explored how lines can create and define shapes. she chose a limited paint palette and set her shapes out in an orderly way on her paper (lines can create shapes)
owen was interested in working with modeling clay and popsicle sticks. he rolled some of the clay to create lines, then recognized the straight lines in the chunks of clay he was using. he created diagonal height and horizontal breadth in his line sculpture using popsicle sticks, grounding them in his solid base (one thick line can be made up of other lines. many lines can come in different directions from the same 'base')
katie, like niamh, chose to create an organized 'list' of lines, moving from the top to the bottom of her paper and from left to right. short different colored lines on the right of the page combine to include one longer line. (lines can become softer and fade in some areas then become bold again. short lines can rally to create one longer line. dots or dashes in succession can simulate a line and/or movement)
katie then moved onto clay and though challenged to keep her piece upright, she stuck with it and ended up building a free standing rectangle (almost a house silhouette) using lines (pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks) and clay dot joints (clay). then she tied a piece of string to the top of her piece, the two lines from the knot hanging down into her rectangle (lines can be rigid like straws and pipe cleaners, soft and floppy like yarn)
john, like owen, was excited to play with clay. i apologize if i had to recreate a few sections from memory- this is an extensive fairground of a piece. at the base, john had a square made of clay corners and straw lines, with a diagonal popsicle stick for support. pipe cleaners moved up, down and around, passing through the clay corners. his sculptural lines so overlapped and tangled that i found it hard to put it back together when a few pieces fell apart in the car- each piece seems to hinge on the next for support, and the pipe cleaners seemed to move like a mobius strip throughout his piece. straws with clay dots on top created punctuated height. and like the curves they helped his sculpture beyond the square confines of the base. (curvy lines make your eyes move around and around. curvy lines are emphasized by the presence of straight lines. dots on the top of lines give them weight- literally and figuratively!)
sophia first painted a variety of different lines, a rhythm of diagonals curving and angling and weaving through each other mostly through a central axis on her paper. since sophia's lines were more transparent (compare camilla's and jacqueline's) it is hard to tell which lines she painted first and which ones last. (many lines can intersect/travel through the same point. lines made with paint and water versus thick paint look more transparent and blend where they overlap)
she then went on to create a triangular sculpture with three clay dots and three straw lines, again, more pointy edges and angles. i enjoy how the three colors and the shape she chose here relate to her painting. (lines can criss-cross, creating structure and pattern)
olivia chose to paint a thick squiggly lined border or frame along her painting, and then filled it it with entangled lines entangling with each other, and used her brush to write her name in line along the bottom of her paper. there is also a symmetry here, with the outermost vertical lines flanked by curvy ones and then more dotted blobby ones in the middle (lines can create borders! and letters of the alphabet!)
dashiell took a unique stance in this project. he used accordion paper and markers and he drew on the paper both when it was folded and unfolded. her drew dotted vertical lines on the crests of the paper, solid lines in the ravines, and horizontal lines crossing the lengths of paper. other bundles of thin lines clump in arcs, seeming to take flight from one side of the folds. the nature of the folds alone create interruptions in his line, like dotted and dashed-lines (lines can come in a rhythm of waves, clumps, dots. lines can hide between regular pauses, breaks or folds)
camilla's painted lines started out going top to bottom in a regular, non-overlapping way. she left some negative space in the center, and then intersected her mostly vertical lines with some full diagonals moving from left to right and a last swoop or two from left to right. i love with camilla's piece that because her lines are so opaque we can trace where she started her line, and which line was painted on top of which. it'd be fun to pretend to peel back from the last line to the first. (when lines are opaque and laid on top of each other, we can tell a little bit about how the lines were laid down, and in which order)
jacqueline chose to repeat an interesting shape of line, an arc, over and over on her paper. it's almost a diagonal but then, there, it curves! like camilla, jacqueline used thick paint and so we see some of the order in which she painted the lines. it looks like she started with a yellow line and green line in two corners and then painted blue, red, black and purple lines swooping between and around them. i also like the way her lines feather on the paper- and the intensity of the thick lines combined with a few lighter surprises either made with a lighter touch on the same brush or a thinner brush. (lines repeating shape but slightly changing direction can create an interesting rhythm and relationship between both sides of the page)