A Creative Challenge

(random photo)

I have responded to a challenge posted on the blog Created 2B Creative, and part of the challenge is to continue it forward. Here's how it works.

• I will create something (I don't know what yet!) for the first three people who say (in the comments below) they would like to participate.
• If you say you would like to participate, you must issue the challenge somewhere (on your own blog, on facebook or twitter -- wherever you want) and personally make something in 2012 (don't wait too long and then forget - I actually would suggest you do it in the next month) for at least three people, who will pledge to make something for three more people . . .
• If you're one of the first three respondents, send me your address in a private message (my email address is listed on my profile) so that I can mail you my creation -- no matter where in the world you live! :)

So, who's in?

My art room is like a cat hospital

A cat hospital filled with unfinished kitties - waiting for whiskers and noses,
eyes, and some patterns, and a little TLC.
It's kind of like Edward Scissorhands - their Creators have gone home for the weekend and left them incomplete, banding together to fend for themselves against the elements. Poor kitties.

Or maybe just waiting for a pat on the head or a rub on the tummy.
But this one is not made out of papier-mache.

And now for a little more art room crazies - here's the next step with that shredded paper I showed you. We are mixing it with papier-mache goo ("dog drool") till the paper breaks down and becomes clay-like. Fun, fun, fun....

And a tower of teddy bear chairs in-progress obliterating my word wall. On Monday 2nd graders will complete their construction so we can begin painting them later in the week.

And then, today, Saturday, I poured OJ and milk at our annual Teachers Association sponsored free community pancake breakfast, and then helped direct kids to transform an old flat into something useable for the grade 5-8 musical production of Cinderella, coming soon. I'll add something that looks like framing on the window when the stones are dry. The kids did a good job, but boy oh boy, the kids looked like a mess when they were done!

A few more cats and a little more insanity

Nancy's colorful cat. The collar will be getting bedazzled with jewels.


Connor's cat has a wistful expression.


Jeff's camoflage cat. Not exactly Laurel Burch, but he loves it, so I do too.


Chelsea's Glamour Puss got a necklace and earrings today and I think will be getting jewels on her collar too.


Anna and Grant have rainbow cats in progress.

And what's this below? Shredded paper - lots of it - three full garbage bags - I poured in a couple of buckets of warm water to break it down a bit, and tomorrow it will get a bunch of papier-mache goo mixed in, because my 4th graders will be building hunks of CAVE WALLS and I want them to be bigger than last year. Check out here to see what I'm planning with this glop.


As if I don't have enough stuff in my room, I have a tower of teddy bear chairs stacked practically to the ceiling on my counter, and 18" square paintings in the drying rack, and clay pinch pot clusters on a shelf, and... and... and... INSANITY.

I must be insane.

It is taking FOREVER for the 5th grade kiddos to finish their Laurel Burch style papier-mache "fantastic felines", but I thought I'd show you a few that are almost done. I should have a bunch more to show you next week. I'm loving Olivia's glamorous kitty on the left above, and the one on the right, proudly built by a sweet Down syndrome child, has personality plus.
And Chelsea's cat has the most gorgeous whiskers, and I think it will be getting a jeweled collar. The dots that are all over its body have sparkly (with glitter-glue) outlines.

And here's a couple of views of Colton's dramatic black, white, and gold cat. He hasn't done the facial features yet.


So why am I insane? Because, with the cats still filling my cabinets and counter-tops, and the 6th grade Darumas all still in the art room, today my 3rd graders starting the armature for THEIR papier-mache project. Can you guess what they will be? (answer below the photo)

No, not robots, not rocket ships. They are going to become garden gnomes! (they don't have arms added on as of yet) and the kids are very excited. Yeah to my custodian who left me a carton filled wit Gatorade bottles.

Meanwhile, things are INSANE in my school this week, as some jobs cuts were made public and nobody is happy.

Inspired by Klee and Sinbad the Sailor

What can be better for 3rd graders than stories of giant birds, sea monsters, and whales that look like islands? Why, the chance to paint, to mix colors, and to interpret the stories their own way, of course! (Note the sheep in the mouth of the giant bird above!)

We began by looking at Paul Klee's painting Sinbad the Sailor, pictured here:

We noted the values of blue in the water. Students folded up papers to make many rectangles, and were given various blue paints, along with white and black. They merrily mixed away, creating as many different blues as they could. NO BRUSH WASHING NECESSARY! If their brush had too much paint, they wiped the excess on a paper towel.

This photo below showed what happened when one brand of white was dipped into a thinner brand of blue. The kids were very excited by this and even more so when I took a photo of the magic in the paint dish.

My original plan for this lesson had a step of creating a second paper using orange, black, white, and blue to create a variety of browns to mimic the sky of Klee's painting. I changed the plan when I realized that it would take too much time that we didn't have.

We looked at a book with the stories of the 7 voyages of Sinbad. I didn't share them all. (For example, I left out the island filled with cannibals, and another island where an old man forced Sinbad to carry him around on his back for days. Just too weird.) We focused on these tales:

• the story of a beautiful island that seemed to be having an earthquake but turned out to be a whale with beautiful foliage growing on its back;
  
• the tale of seeing a a glowing orb in the distance that turned out to be the egg of a huge bird called a rookh, which was overlooking a valley filled with diamonds and snakes - Sinbad tied a rope to the rookh's leg and was hoisted into the valley when the rookh went down to feed, and came back with a heap of diamonds in his pockets;
  
• the story of the island of the apes, which included an ogre;
  
• and of course the tale of a sea monster, which we decided was depicted in Klee's painting.

Students drew and colored parts of their story on 9"x12" paper - some kids used more than one piece of paper if they had lots to depict - and then cut them out. The blue paper was cut across to create a wave or many waves, and the students used both pieces to create water. A construction paper sky was chosen, and then the parts were all glued together.

The whale was a popular story to draw:

But so were sea monsters and ogres,

and of course the rookh and the giant egg.

I think they are each imaginative and terrific; don't you?

Here's one of the two bulletin boards where these paintings are currently on display.

Looking down from above

Yes, that is a flying pizza zooming in above the city on the left. Those are superheros flying above the other two cities. Wait till you see what other things are in the skies above my 4th graders' cities!!

I always give my 4th graders a basic introduction to one-point perspective. I've done "flying boxes" for years, and the 4th graders are always so excited to try out this new skill. But we all know it's a struggle; not all kids will 'get' it right away, and some (particularly those who struggle at math, it seems), may NEVER truly grasp the nuances of the process. Anyhow, I saw a lesson version of perspective cities viewed from above at a post on Sarah's Art Room. I used her idea of keeping the cities in black and white, but changed my approach to the rest of the lesson.

We all worked together to begin, with me using an old-fashioned overhead projector to demonstrate! Our Vanishing Point was at the bottom center of the 12"x15" paper, and everyone used rulers to draw a minimum of 6 rectangles, all parallel to the sides of the paper. Starting from the bottoms of the bottom rectangle, we began connecting all corners to the VP, with the following rules: NEVER draw through one of your rectangles, and if you BUMP into another rectangle on the way to the VP, you STOP and don't pick up the line again on the other side of the rectangle. Easy peasy!!

We traced with Sharpies, and made light pencil guidelines aiming toward the VP down the walls of the buildings to use for windows and more. This is where it gets pretty challenging for 1st timers, so I didn't stress out when some were less successful in this part of the lesson. The buildings would look like buildings no matter what! They loved writing words on the roofs so that airplanes could see them: everything from the sign that said "Reptile House - P.S. Don't Buy the Cobra!" to the "Pot Belly Deli"to the "Haunted County Jail" which included "Ghost Place". And of course there's schools, art museums, police stations, amusement places, stores, restaurants, and more. The cities were cut out to place on a background that was created separately.

The backgrounds were a lot of fun, and done in about 10 minutes. On an 12"x18" sheet of white paper, the curvature of a planet was drawn with oil pastel. Still using the oil pastels, some kids added lots of design and texture to the planet at this point, others added stars and other celestial details, and others were pretty minimal with the oil pastel.

Then, we painted with liquid watercolor, but all I had was blue, turquoise, red, and sparkly 'black'. The other colors - greens, violets, oranges and yellows - all were paint that I had previously created by soaking the tips of those dead markers. We've all seen that done, right? I have a box in the art room labeled "DEAD MARKER GRAVEYARD" and the dried out markers all get tossed there for me to periodically soak. (By the way - the paints I made this way are getting a gelatinous skin on them. Do you know how to prevent this from happening?)


The last step was the silliest. After gluing down the city, the students used a separate (smaller; I think it was 6"x9") sheet of paper and some markers to create something that could be flying above the city. In the 3 photos above, there's a UFO, a dragon, and a flying fish. Below is someone seated on a magic carpet, a mutant bumble bee, and someone with jet packs.

And then, below, is a flying submarine, another superhero of some sort, and an airplane.
Some other ones that I didn't post in these photos (it was hard to choose but I just had too many to post them all) included a flying pig, a butterfly, a dragonfly, a helicopter, a flying pickup truck, an alien, another UFO, a flying heart, and a hot air balloon.

I think this may be the most fun my 4th graders EVER had doing perspective, and I think they are very proud of their success.