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)