Paper Sculptures

Here is our first project of the year!!  The painting/sculpture class has made paper sculptures.  I started with giving them ten different lines that they had to draw on a piece of paper and then I told them to turn those lines into a 3D sculpture out of construction paper.

Joslynne's Drawing

Joslynne's sculpture

Sammy's Drawing

Sammy's sculpture

Cody's drawing and sculpture

Chad's drawing

Chad's sculpture


 

Thinking out loud

Well we are in the last two weeks of summer vacation and I have been trying all summer to come up with a way to use more technology in my classes.  I have debated creating a seperate blog for them, setting up a twitter account, or I have found a couple of sites like edumondo or weebly.  If anyone has some thoughts or ideas I would love to hear them.

My thoughts on using the technology would be to introduce new artists, ask questions, post contests, inform about assignments and whatever else I can come up with. I have played with the idea of making it manditory for them to post a comment once a week or just having it be there and hope they see it.  But that brings me back to what type of technology should I use if I am making it manditory?  What if they don't have a twitter account or have internet at home?  They should be able to get it done during school, but what if they can't.  And then how many points do I make it and do I make it a seperate catagory or would it be in that realm of sketchbook criteria?

Any thoughts?  I would love to know if someone has an idea.

Reading all over the place

I have always wanted a summer where I can be in my garden when I want to and pick up a book and read it when i want to, and this summer my dreams have come true.  My  children are finally old enough to fend for them selves so I can disappear into the garden or a good book and as long as I ignore their brotherly loving (AKA fighting), I can be lost for hours and no one cares.
I have found that I can't read a book fast enough this summer.  I have found a lot of really good books and I wanted to share some of them with you.  Of course none of them have anything to do with art specifically, but some of them are very creative.  I started by of course reading the Hunger games series, and now I am working on the Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare.  That series is not as well known, but I see they are making it into a movie for next summer so I want to be ahead of the curve this year.  I have finished the first two books, and I am about to start City of Glass.  I was a little excited and diappointed that she has added another 3 books to the series.  I was hoping I was getting close to the end and would find out what happens to the characters.  But I was excited to read more, they are really good.

I have also read The Shack by Young, The Line by Teri Hall (which I have discovered there is a second book called The Away) and I have been flying through the Janet Evanovich series about Stephanie Plum.  I just finished book 11 and I am headed to the library for number 12.  In fact, I read book 11 yesterday.  Yes, I started and finished a book in the same day.  I even had to finish book 10 yesterday before I stared book 11.

So if anyone has a suggestion of a book that I need to read let me know, because I still have plenty of summer. 

London, Paris and the Alps

We are HOME!!  I just got back from a wonderful 10 day trip to London, Paris, Lucerne and Munich with 7 great kids.  We hooked up with a group out of Nebraska, who by the way turned out to be a great bunch, and we went through a whirlwind tour that was loads of fun.

We arrived to the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in London.  I don't think I have ever seen so many people or so many British Flags (the Union Jack) in one place.  We even got to see the jets fly over London in her honor. 

This is the view from the London Eye, if you look closely at the bridge you can see all of the people headed towards Buckingham palace for the celebrations.

This is the Olympic Stadium in London.  Not sure what the tower is yet but I think the world will know in a few weeks.

This is Frank, he led our Jack the Ripper tour through London.  He was really good and the kids enjoyed his presentation.

A picture of my group in front of the Louvre Museum

The Lock Bridge in Paris.  A few years ago people started attatching locks to the fencing on a bridge and it has now become a tradition.  Of course every few months the city has to go in and cut the locks off because they are too heavy to all be on there.

My group in front of the Eiffel Tower.  Always a favorite picture to take.

The view from my hotel room in Switzerland.   I could definately wake up to this every morning. It was so beautiful and so peaceful.  Even the bells on the cows became a beautiful sound in the hills.

This is the church that was near our hotel in Switzerland.  I thought it was beautiful and I am going to try to paint a picture of it this summer.  I was truely inspired by this place.

My girls at the top of Mt. Pilatus.  We were so disappointed that day because the top of the mountain was covered in heavy clouds, sleet and even a little snow.

But the views coming down the mountain were gorgeous.  I even saw Edelweiss flowers.  Of course by the time I figured out what it looked like it was done growing.  It only grows up very high in the mountains.

Another view of the Swiss Alps.

The memorial Lion Sculpture in Lucerne. This was carved to commemerate the life of the Swiss guards that were killed protecting the French family during the French Revolution.

My group taking a silly picture next to a statue in Lucerne.  We had all been shopping in this store and thought this would be a cute picture.

Neuschweistein Castle in Germany.  This was King Ludwig 2nd's third palace in the Bavarian countryside.  It is built on the side of a mountain and the views from there are breathtaking.  Only about 1/4 of the palace is finished on the inside.  He died before it was done and they quit working on it when he passed away.

This is a memorial sculpture in front of the main building at Dachau Concentration Camp.  While this place was very deep, I am very happy to have seen it and experienced it.

This is the Jewish Chapel in the Dachau camp.  It was built as a memorial to all who perished there.  It was by far my favorite of all of the chapels.  You had to walk down to get into it, and they it was made with all dark stone and marble except for one large piece of white marble that was in the back corner and streched to the ceiling and then out through a small opening at the top.  It was the darkest and yet most beautiful memorial I have ever seen.

The trip was fantastic, a lot of rain but the kids were great and willing to do anything whenever we needed to.  I had a great time and I am now excited for my trip that leaves in 2 years.

Summer Break

I have been home for a week and a half now and I am busy getting ready for my big trip this summer.  This time next week I will be in London, England with 7 students for a 10 day European Vacation.  Of course before I can do that I need to be at Crooks Community Days for a fundraiser with my next Art Club Trip group.  So if your in the area on Saturday, come and have the art club paint your face or help you make a tye-dye shirt or socks.

Art History in a nutshell

To end my Art 1 class I give out the mother  of all Art assignments.  I give my high school students 2 and 1/2 weeks to put together a collage of 12 famous artists.  They have to research these artists, pick out their favorite artwork from these artists and then use one piece of their artwork to create their own art history collage.  They are given a sheet of about 50 artists to choose from plus a couple of blanks in case they find an artist that I have never heard of, but they love their work.  I encourage them to transfer these artwork pieces to photoshop where they can arrange their collage, print it off and use it as a grid to help them create the large 18x24 picture that they have to draw.  I strongly suggest getting the planning stages done in the first 4 days, however they never understand why.  For some reason they never get that it takes a good two weeks to draw the final project.

I do have other criteria.  They need to use at least 4 different mediums.  It needs to be arranged creatively, for instance, put a Degas Dancer on top of the Warhol soup can.  They also needed to write a paragraph per artist.  So that is a 12 paragraph paper, just in case you lost me.  In these papers they need to give the title of the work, the artist, one fact about the artist or painting, where they put the image in their collage and what medium they used to create it.  This year's class did pretty good, but next year I am going to require that they tell me which image they used out of the painting.  There were a few that I don't have a clue what they used.

All in all they did pretty good, and I think they put forth more effort this year than in past years so that is an accomplishment all in itself.

Sabrina L.

Joslynne S.

Kelsey C.

Emma J.

On another note.  I am about to have my last elementary class, and while I know it will be a busy 40 minutes (mostly because they are pumped about the last day) but I am ready to be done.  I am sure it will not hit me until the fall. 

The best for last...

For the end of the year I gave my painting/sculpture class a choice project for their final project.  I let them do anything they wanted, and they didn't disappoint.  Enjoy the last of their artwork.

Summer B.

Logan O.

Shayla B.

Carolyn H.

Chelsea A.

Justin U.