DragonWing Arts Students 'Discover' Treasure!

Our theme for the fall DragonWing Arts session was Discover!  My five students (two 3rd graders, one 4th grader, one 5th grader, and one 6th grader) did three projects - the first was the creation of a treasure map.

And the second was a papier-mache project.  (I'll tell you about the third project later.)  I asked the kids what they'd like to build with papier-mache - perhaps a newly 'discovered' creature, a box of buried treasure, something from outer space, a discovery under the microscope or deep in the sea, etc.  My five students unanimously said "We want to make TREASURE CHESTS!"  So we did.

We began by constructing the boxes and their curved covers, out of cardboard (from shipping cartons).  We covered them with a coat of papier-mache, and when dried, we gave them a base coat of black acrylic.

The students painted their treasure chests and bedazzled them with some jewels.  They used a colorful air-dry clay and made some tentacles and such to be emerging from the their treasure chests, and also added felt and more jewels and strings of beads as desired.  We cut 'hinges' out of sparkly felt and such, and I hot glued them together for the kids.  I think they came out great!

For the treasure maps, I had experimented with dark brews of tea and coffee to stain the paper, but it just didn't 'take' the way I wanted, so we used liquid watercolors.  I mixed brown with green, with orange, with  yellow, and with black, and after they had torn the edges of their paper, they painted them with the watercolors, blotting and wetting as desired to get the effect they wanted. They discovered that dripping water on the papers looked really cool.

 The kids learned how to make a simple 'compass rose', and also how to make a scroll for a key on their maps.  I printed out sheets of typical map symbols and then let them go to work making their maps truly their own inventions. The started with pencil, and then used a combination of fine-tip black markers and India ink with dip pens.  They loved working with the pen and ink!!  Afterward they used tiny amounts of red, white, and gold acrylic ink to embellish.

Somehow I forgot to take pics of the third project, so here's some more views of the treasure chests! 

Keepin' it Easy: Thumbprint Pussywillows!

I was out for a walk today by a local pond and wetland area, and discovered some pussywillows growing, which, at least around here, are the predecessor of all other spring growth.  They are a favorite of mine, and made me recall a favorite one-class art project that I did annually with my kindergartners until I retired.

I think it is important to remember that a good art project doesn't have to be complex and take a long time to do to be worth doing.  There's a lot of value in the simplicity of this project.

  

Each year, I'd bring a batch of pussywillows in to the art room.  I would give my kindergartners time to touch them, feel their softness, and stroke their cheeks with them.  Then we'd look at the shapes of the branches, and how the little soft pussywillows grow along the stems.  The kids would also observe the dark little seed pods at the base of each fuzzy bud.

We looked at various vases I had placed on the tables, and how they were shaped.  Students each chose a sheet of colored construction paper (I usually offered a menu of various springtime colors), and began by choosing a shape for their vase, and drawing it using crayons.  Crayons were also used to add the stems and the little dark seed pods. Each table also had some real pussywillows on it, so the kids could use them for reference as they drew their stems.

Then I lightly mixed a blend of white paint with some silver and a touch of black, that I placed in a shallow dish on each table.  The kindergartners used their thumbs as stampers to stamp pussywillow buds on top of the seed pods.  And that's it!  Cleanup is as easy as a wipe of the thumb with a baby wipe!  Easy-peasy observational project that can be completed in one class period!   

 I did a similar annual one-class project with my first graders, when the lilac tree in my backyard bloomed each year.  Again, we looked at the flowers (and of course we sniffed them, too!).  We noted how they grow in clumps, and we looked at the shape of the lilac leaves.   We drew vases, this time including a table surface, and again we drew stems, adding leaves as well.  I mixed a selection of lilac colors, using varying amounts of white, purple, magenta, and blue, and the students used cotton swabs to paint their flowers.  Disposable paintbrushes = easy cleanup!  For more info, and much better  photos than those below, check out this post from June 2016.

NAEA Boston - my 2 workshops

I taught 2 workshops at this year's NAEA convention - Get Deep Relief with Totally Terrific Tooling Foil and Using the Unexpected. 

The first, Get Deep Relief with Totally Terrific Tooling Foil, was a 1 hour and 50 minute ticketed studio workshop.  I'm amazed that the attendees were able to complete such fabulous pieces in the time allotted.  The time seemed to fly by very quickly! 

 I believe the attendee who made the adorable sheep (or is it a lamb?) below plans to add color to help identify his eyes.  I think it will be really cool!

Here is the class, learning the basics, and getting started.

The pic below is someone looking at some of my samples.

And a few more fabulous pieces made by attendees.

Some attendees didn't have time to do the 'antiquing' process, using ink and steel wool.  I hope that they will send me pics of their pieces when they are complete!

I'm not going to go into process details here, because they are posted previously on this blog.  You can find my video tutorials for working with tooling foil HERE, and you can find a link to a handout called "Oh What a Relief" on my Document Weblinks tab, HERE.  To see pics from last year's tooling foil workshop at NAEA, go HERE.

Tons of samples / examples!

My second workshop, Using the Unexpected, was a slide presentation, where I talked about using materials such as toothpaste for an imitation batik resist (example in the pic below), roofing felt as a painting surface, Sheetrock for relief carving, sand as a textural medium for paint, shaving cream for marbling, and more. 

It was a nice big room with most of the seats filled.  I didn't count, but based on the number of rows of chairs, I think there were about 150 people there!!  To access the handout and a PDF of my slide presentation, you can again find them on my Documents Weblinks tab on this blog, HERE.

I really enjoyed teaching the workshops this year, and I think my attendees were mostly quite happy!  But unfortunately there is always a downside, and I want to share that with you as well.  In my tooling foil workshop, during the hectic closing minutes, some visitors stopped in and looked around, and took some pictures.  I should have chased them out, but I thought perhaps they had friends in the workshop.  Unfortunately, I learned the next day that one of them had stolen the kit of materials from one of my attendees.  How awful!  With 6 or 7 thousand art teachers at the convention, there'd be no way to ever find or identify them. 

Then, the next day, someone placed a recording device on the front table in my workshop, to record my presentation, and forgot to pick it up at the end.  It's usually me that leaves things behind and loses them at conventions, so I feel very badly for the gentleman who was recording my presentation to bring back to the rest of his department.  I hope he is able to recover it!

Colorful Leafless Trees!

My DragonWing Arts students recently completed these paintings of trees.  We began with this simple method: 

First, draw a land line, dividing ground and sky.  

Second, draw a trunk that extends from land line to top of paper.  

Third, add branches coming from the trunk, extending to the edges of the paper.  More smaller branches could be added coming from these branches.   

Details could be added as desired.  Some of the girls decided they should have branches that were shaped like hearts.  And of course they wanted to add swings, too!  I left these decisions up to them.  

When the drawings were done, painting began.  The kids each selected two colors to use to paint their skies, mixing as desired.  

In the pic on the right below, you can see the the student making use of an 'ugly sponge' when mixing colors.  We use these for keeping paintbrushes clean with minimal water.  The excess paint is wiped off the brush onto the sponge, and the brush can then be dipped into the other color the student is using.  When changing to a completely different pair of colors, the brush is first wiped on the ugly sponge, then washed in the water, and then wiped again on the sponge to remove excess moisture.  The paints stay exceptionally clean with this method!

 

Then another two colors were selected to paint the ground, and finally, another two colors were used for the tree itself.  White could be used as desired, and other colors were used for various details. 

 

When the paint was dry, some of the kids chose to use black Sharpies to outline and make their colors 'pop'. 

Originally, the plan was to add a few leaves as desired, cutting them from sheets of colored foam, adding vein lines with Sharpies, and gluing onto the trees or ground.  We ran out of time, so the trees stayed leafless!  I think they look great!

Our Collages are Out of This World!!

.

My DragonWing Art students have been experimenting with various paint techniques, with the results being made into planets for colorful "out of this world" collages. 

We began by painting large (18x24") pieces of paper with black ink, leaving unpainted borders about the thickness of a ruler. We also used some glittery purple paint on the ink, to add some sparkle.  When dry, white paint was spattered on with a toothbrush, to make more stars in space.

On small sheets of white paper, we used liquid watercolors in several ways to achieve interesting surface texture.

We used the watercolors with salt, 

With saran wrap,

And with bubble wrap.

 plus liquid watercolor and shaving cream for marbling.

We also used bleeding tissue paper applied with water, removing the tissue paper when dry, to create colorful blends.

 And finally, we printed some papers with slices of pool noodles and tempera paint.

 Often, our hands ended up getting printed, too!

 All the papers that were created were used to make into planets and more for our collages. 

We used various bottles, caps, bowls, cd's, rolls of tape, and more as circle tracers for planets.

We used black crayons to add shadows to our planets to make them look round.  This was easy for some of the students, and more challenging for others.

 I showed the students how to cut rings for planets if they desired. 

 And the students began merrily cutting planets for their collages, to glue onto their painted and spattered background papers.

I gave the students strips of holographic contact paper, that they used to create fancy borders for their papers.

I also had strips of glow-in-the-dark contact paper, which was used on the sides of the collage pictured below.

 Finally, I also offered the students some glitter glue.  The bottles hadn't been used in a while, and the glue often squirted out in wonky and unexpected ways, but still, the sparkle really jazzes up the skies!

There are currently 5 students in my DragonWing Arts class; I unfortunately neglected to photograph one of the final collages.  I'll photograph it in a few days, and then add the pic to this post.  In the meantime, here's one last pic.