Painting without hands

About this time of year I get sick of the complaining about what we are doing, how we are doing it and why are we doing it.  I call it 3rd quarteritis also known as L -A- Z -Y disease.  And it is a contagious disease that even affects my 3rd graders.

So to show them that they need to be appreciative of what they have I have them draw anything they want on a piece of paper.  I then hand out watercolor paints and tell them to load the brush, put the end of the brush in their mouth and paint their picture.  You should see the looks on their faces when I give the last instruction, and after a moment of complaint they usually get into it.

After about 10 minutes of them painting this way I pull up pictures that have been painted by other handicap artists and tell them to be greatful for what they have.

I didn't take pictures of the end results, they are never very good, but I did take pictures of the painting process which is alot more fun anyways.

I wish I could tell you that the room is quiet while they do this, but somehow they still manage to talk with a paintbrush in their mouth.  They truly are magicians.

$22 flower lamps

Like most art teachers I also volunteer to be in charge of prom.  So much easier to do it yourself instead of watching others try.  Anyways, this year is "Alice in Wonderland," and I refused to pay $75 for a flower lamp.  So I made mine for $22, and mine even has two lights per stem while the one in the catalog was one lamp.

They look better at night, which works well for a dark gym, but I thought I would show you.

Bringing back the old

What is that saying "What is old will be new again"?  Well for my sculpture class I found string art.  Which is a popular art that was made big in the 70s and 80s.  I thought this would be a great, time consuming project for my advanced class.  The project is coming out good, but my thoughts of 2 weeks of work is again failing.  Of course some of them are already done and looking for the next project.

Here are the first few.  I will have more in a few days.

Logan O.

Cody H.

Logan H.

Chelsea A.

Opportunities

Ok in truth my day is having issues and not opportunities, but I am trying to use the positive wording that we learned about earlier this year.

I have discovered today that I have had it to easy when it came to my computer.  Due to some technical difficulties I had to have my computer re-imaged today. (Thank you Misty)  Of course then I discover that all of my automatically saved accounts are now lost.  Trying just to remember how to get into this blog has been a 15 minute challenge.  If I was smart I would have everything written down somewhere, but I am not that smart.

Tetrahedrons

I have been lucky enough to have taken two classes from the man who invented this crazy project called Tetrahedrons.  He is an incredibly talented and unique individual who makes these incredible spinning spheres called Termespheres.  If you want to learn more about him and his unique art check out his website.
http://termespheres.com/

As for the tetrahedrons, this is one of those great short projects that can be done while you are waiting for others to finish the last project.  Basically I hand out a pattern page, and then have the kids draw shapes or lines on the page.  If they want something specific we talk about how the page will fold so you need to draw half of the object on the top and the other half upside down on the bottom.  After they draw the first one, I send them to the copy machine to get 3 more copies.  Then they color all of them and cut them out at the tabs.  Then they fold on the dotted lines and attach the tabs into shapes.  This is always the fun part because everyone is going to get a different shape in the end.

Garrison's pyramid

Jacob K.

Jacob K. from different view

Kaci

Kaci from other view

Jacob glueing

Devin coloring

Skylar coloring

Damaris

Damaris from another view

As you can see some are adding strings so that they can be hung from the ceiling.  If you want the tetrahedron pattern let me know and I will email it to you.

Travel with Matisse

Art 1 did a quick study of Henri Matisse's paper cut-outs.  We looked at how he used colored paper to cut out images from his favorite location, which happen to be the ocean, and then glued them to paper in almost an abstract way.

After discussing him, I had the students think about a favorite place where they have been or a place that they would like to visit since they are so young and really haven't been anywhere yet.  Then they started with a large piece of construction paper and were told to create a sort of travel poster of the area that they picked.  I of course had a few rules.

1.  No pencil lines.  You could use a pencil to draw before cutting, but then either erase or flip over so I don't see the lines.
2. Everything out of construction paper.
3.  Try not to do any words.  Let us figure out your location from the images.  (Of course, not everyone followed this direction very well, but they tried).
4.  There had to be 10 different concepts in the picture.  That didn't mean only 10 pieces of paper.  Making two palm trees doesn't count for two items.  They count as one concept.  And the sun does not count as a concept.  You can see that at home just like anywhere else.  Also some images might be needed to get a point across that doesn't mean they count.   I know I am a slave driver.

I am curious if you can guess the places they want to visit or encourage you to visit.  The answers will be at the bottom.

Sammy

Joslynne

Daniel

Raechel

Maggie

Sabrina L.

Landen

Brooke

Kelsey

Sabrina M.

Got any good idea of where you are traveling to????

Sammy - Florence
Joslynne - New York
Daniel - Hawaii
Raechel - Disney
Maggie - Mexico
Sabrina L. - Paris
Landen - Wyoming
Brooke - South Dakota
Kelsey - California
Sabrina M. - Antartica

How did you do??  I know, some were easier than others.

More Owls

My Friday class just finished their owls the other day, so I am showing them off today.  They came out cute.