In the Art Room: "I Am" Books

Well, welcome back, my fave art teacherin' friends! I know most of y'all are back to schoolin' even if the kids aren't there. My most amazing school district has decided that we ease back into the routine by providing with us three days of professional development before The Return (of the Chillins). Today, one of my favorite art teacherin' buds Daryle Grenead came and demonstrated two awesome projects to bring back to the art room: I Am books (shown in this here post) and 3-D letter making (to come on Thursday, stay tuned). 

These books are a barrel of fun and so easy to make...not to mention they tie in so much literacy, it's enough to make your reading specialist's heart grow three times it's size! Daryle recommended doing this project with the fourth grade and up set. I can't wait to give it a-go with my favorite wee artists.

Let's start with the best part of this here accordion-style book: the cover. We used the same relief-style method that I've shared in this blog post where we used leaves. 

To start, we each had two pieces of square 5 1/2" pieces of matte board. Very thin poster board (or heavy weight paper would work as well) was used and a collaged design was glued into place with good ole Elmers.

Once finished, we used 8" X 8" pieces of foil. DULL SIDE UP (that's super duper importante, hence the ALL CAPZ), spray adhesive was applied to the foil and our collaged piece was placed face down. The edges of the foil were then wrapped around the backside of the matte board. 

Using a cotton ball, the surface was rubbed until our design appeared. To get into those hard-to-reach places, a q-tip was used. 

BOOM, y'all! Because heavy-ish gauge foil was used, designed could then be drawn into the foil with a dull pencil. And no foil was harmed in the process...an art makin' miracle!

Look, maw, no punctured foil! 

Using that super cheapo $1 black matte spray paint from your fave hardware joint, lightly dust those bad boys. 

And buff off the spray paint to reveal your incredible design. Prepare yourself for the oooohhhhssss and ahhhhhhssss, y'all. Cuz they're coming...

 Like, right? I done tole you.

 Now, let's talk about that writing portion. Daryle provided us with an I Am poem prompt that inspired our narratives. 

There are truck loads of examples of I Am poems online. If you ask Mr. Google, he can help you out. 

 Now, prepare yourself as I share my poem-writing soul with you. You're welcome. 

We used heavy duty watercolor paper for this portion. The paper was 5" X 30" (me thinks. Don't quote me on this. I'll deny everything). 

 Read on, my poetry skillz are pretty much unmatched. 

Just got the memo, I've been named Poet Laureate. Who is Laureate, anyways?

And there you have it! Have y'all done these kind of books with your students? I'd love some more ideas. And Happy Back to Art Teacherin'!

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In the Art Room: 4th Grade Snowflakes

So this lil repousse snowflake by my fourth graders just might be the fastest art project we bust out this year. Not that I'm bragging. I do believe those canvases coulda used a lil more work. However, I needed something short, simple and fun after our super long Mexican Sun/Moon weavings and this did the trick nicely. 

Just like this third grade paper cutting project, we discussed Mexico and the art of papel picado. I stumbled upon a couple of prezies on the art form which was great to share with the kids. I also have several examples of papel picado hanging in the art room so they could get the idea. So our first course of action: Cut some paper designs (I hesitate to call these "snowflakes" as they don't exactly meet the criteria but whateves).

Once the kids' designs were cut, they brought them to me where I placed them on a piece of 5" square matte board that I'd ready cut and doused in spray adhesive. Another hit of spray adhesive and a piece of 7" square aluminum foil was placed atop. The kids were instructed to return to their seats, fold the excess foil to the back and massage the surface with their finger tips only (no nails, y'all) until their design appeared. With the long winded chat and all that work, this took us about an hour.

In preparation for the following class, I'd spray painted each of the boards very lightly with the cheapest spray paint I could find (the dollar a can stuff from Home Depot is my jam). When the kids arrived, they were instructed to use 000 steel wool to burnish off the spray paint. They were thrilled when their design started to appear. That took them no more than 7 minutes. If this process looks vaguely familiar, I've done it with leaves as well. If you follow this link, you'll get a better glimpse at the step by step process. 

From there, the kids were each given a 6" square canvas. They traced the placement of their piece (I showed them an example of a diamond placement or a square. Guess which one was more popular?) and then commenced painting. I limited their palette to the cold colors (these are kinda sorta snowflakes, y'all. So we went with a winter palette for that reason). The only instructions I gave was a reminder to clean that brush between color switching and to keep the painting abstract (lines, shapes and color). The last 30 minutes of the second art class were spent quietly painting these canvases. Once dry, I added a touch of hot glue to the back of the repousse and attached. Boom! Done! Ready for hall display.

And now, on to the giveaway! Check out this huge pile of packages that I took to the post today. I hope y'all have been enjoying this giveaway as much as I have. It's been super fun. And, to be honest, what I've loved the most is reading all of your comments. So often, it's hard to leave comments on a blog or, quiet honestly, it's just easier not to (I'm very guilty of this so I totally get it). Which means, at times, I feel like I'm talking to myself because I don't often hear from y'all. So having this exchange with you has really meant a lot to me, thank you so very much for playing along. 

So, what's up for grabbies today...?

All sorts of glorious vintage goodness! Two lovely vintage alteration booklets, two packets of vintage buttons, a little needle booklet and an iron-on embroidery pattern set. So many pretties in one giveaway, ya'll! Vintage-lovers, this is right up your alley!

Here's how you can enter to win...

1. So, it turns out that A LOT of y'all want that needle felting kit! My question to you is...if I were to sell them, would you be interested? Would there be any other artsy kits you'd be interested in?

2. Don't forget to add that email address, kids. Tomorrow is THE LAST of the giveaway goodness, eeee!

And the winner of that needle felting kit?! Tracy Evans! Congrats, buddy!

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In the Art Room: Mexican Sun/Moon Weavings

You know, as an art teacher, I just can't seem to teach short and simple lessons. I ain't braggin'. It's a real problem. I mean, what you are looking at here took us 4 weeks of art class to complete (that'd be 4 hours). What with the metal relief, the coloring, the puffy painting, plate painting and weaving, I thought the entire thing would never end. However. Looking through the stacks of these masterpieces and reading the kid's artist statements about their work (as well as the sweet notes that my second grade kids wrote them about their artwork), I like to think it was all worth it. That being said, you had better believe our next project is gonna be, well, less than four weeks. Like, maybe three and a half.

So just how did this whole project come to be? Well, I go the idea for the metal design from Denise Logan in her book and on her website, she shares the lesson of creating a Mexican sun. I love her lesson but decided to take the process one step further by adding the woven edge. This is the same group of fourth graders that created these stitched creations. Their fingers were itching for more fibers arts so I thought, why not give the kids what they want?

The process for the sun/moon plate was much like the one my third grade students created for their dots. To begin the project, on our first day, we reviewed what we new about Mexico with this prezi. Then, I introduced the ceramic work of the artists in Metepec, Mexico with this prezi. 

After that intro, the kids were given this sketching sheet to hash out some ideas. I set my Time Timer for 7 minutes and told them to meet with me again when the timer went off. 

 By the way, here's a lil shopping list for you:

• Cheapo Styro Plates. I mean the really cheap kind. Two for each kid.
• Cheapo Foil.
• Spray Glue. 3M's my jam.
• Ink Pens. They work best on styro as they don't cut into it like pencils.
• Face Template. Hate me if you wanna, we used facial parts to trace for those who didn't feel confident in drawing their own facial pieces.
• Circle Temple. 

Once the timer went off, we met again to talk about how to make our sketch a reality. First step, cut out two circles. One will be for the face the other, the parts.

Trace template pieces or create your own template pieces on your sketch paper. Cut those out and trace around them. I discouraged the kids from sketching directly on the styro as they couldn't erase those lines.

 Start gluing those pieces in place. By the way, I don't use glue bottles in my art room as they are the Root of All Evil (I remember the moment I saw a child attempt to use the blade of a brand new pair of scissors to unclog a bottle whilst another proceeded to bust off the tip of his pencil lead during his stabbing/unclogging attempt. Forever after that, it's been glue in a cup and paint it on.) 

This was about all we managed on that first day. Each kid was given an envelope to put their pieces in for the following art class.

 During our second art class, the kids finished cutting out and gluing pieces. The kids could decide if they wanted to make a sun, a moon or a combo of both. When they were finished, they came to see me at the Super Amazing Spray Glue Table where I spray glued their work and placed foil atop. IF they wanted a sun/moon, I sprayed their styro face and gave them yarn to lay on top however they wanted it.

Massage the plate but do not use your fingernails. That will tear the foil and make for a super sad art teacher. 

From there, color was added with Sharpie. Now, I did have to make one muy importante rule: The background of the face needs to be ONE color (unless it's a sun/moon). Here's why I did that: I noticed the kids were picking colors at random and they were losing the face completely. I told them that the raised pieces could be any color they wanted but that the background was to be one solid color. No one's creativity appeared to be crushed during the enforcement of that thar rule. 

Once coloring was complete, the kids entered Puffy Paint land. WHICH they loved, according to their artist statements. 

 During our next art class, the kids painted the outer edge of a large Chinet plate (I suppose if you wanted a shorter project, have the kids create smaller faces and use smaller Chinet plates? Just a thought). That only took them 15 minutes which gave them more time to finish their coloring and puffy painting from the previous class. I did have a couple early finishers who began our next project: Ojos de Dios!

 The following class, the paint had dried so the kids cut their plates and started weaving. I gave the kids a template with 19 notches cut into it. They laid the template on their plate, cut the notches and started to weave. I do a weaving project every year with my students so a quick reminder that weaving is over and under and they were off running.

Me: Oh my goodness, I love your sun/moon! Can I ask what's on her lip?

Student: She has one of those sores that I get in the winter.

Me: Um, like, a cold sore? 

Student: Yeah, that's it! I wanted her to have a cold sore.

(OMG, I die.)

Once the kids wrapped up their weaving, they were to write an artist statement. We chatted about how we could either write about the process, the product or something we learned. Once those were complete, they were glued to the back of the weavings. Reading those statements was hilariously enlightening.

So apparently the kids like puffy paint. I did have several kids write about something called "puppy paint". Um, what?! Do they think I'm so cruel that puppies were harmed in the making of said paint?! Guess we need to have a chat. OR I need to do a better job enunciating. 

My school district is joining in on a Be Nice Campaign. The kick off was this week. So I decided to have a weekly Give Nice a Try post in my art room. Sometimes we'll have time to give it a go in the art room...however, often times, I'll be counting on the kids to do this on their own time. This week, it worked out for my sweet second graders to write a nice note to the fourth grade about their finished pieces. 

Here are the second graders writing their nice notes to the fourth grade.

 
I double checked all notes before giving them out to the fourth grade. I wanted to be sure they were nice. This one was especially sweet.

The fourth graders were pretty stoked to get feedback about their artwork. I had them write thank-you notes to their new second grade friends. This note really showed the impact of our letter writing campaign. 

And there you have it! Even though this project took us forever, did involve relief sculpting, Sharpie coloring, painting and weaving (oh, and puppy paint, ha!) all while learning the history of the Metepec suns of Mexico. What's your fave long-winded art project? Please tell me I'm not the only one with million-year art projects, y'all!

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