Cassie Stephens: in the art room

Showing posts with label in the art room. Show all posts

Thursday, January 14, 2016

In the Art Room: First Grade LOVE Prints!

Thank you so much for the positive feedback on the printmaking videos, y'all! I'm so glad you liked them, found them helpful and, most importantly, had tips and tricks of your own to add. I love our great, big, fat hairy art teacherin' sharing-is-caring community! To keep up with more videos, feel free to subscribe here. Today my first grade students wrapped up their printmaking adventure with these LOVE-ly lil Robert Indiana-inspired printed and collaged pieces.

Y'all. It's January. I cannot even believe that I've gotten a Valentines-esque project knocked out already. I know some folks are all, "I don't do holiday themed projects" and I usually go ahead and nod my head but not cuz I agree (honestly, Ima go all Switzerland on that debate and stay neutral)...but cuz I can NEVER get my act together early enough to have anything ready! I mean, 'member that big We Have Heart mural we made last year? Dudes. We, like, started that on Feb 10th.

But not this time...

CONFESSION: I had no idea what the kids were going to do with the piles of prints they were making...until seeing this piece again recently. And then I was all, yaaaazzzzz! Which, by the way, is the new Eureka!

It's gotten around the school that the firsties have been printing maniacs in the art room. We spent two 30 minute art classes making at least 4 printed pieces. One day we worked with blue inks and the following, yellow and red.

I told the kids "at least" because some of them just enjoyed the printing process so much that they wanted to print again and again. It's so magical! Others were well over it after the fourth print on the second day and they moved on to greener, less print-ier, pastures.

Now, I will say, I hustled today to get the prints to the point that they could be created into these collages. I have jury duty for the next two weeks (can you hear the excitement in my typed voice? Me neither) and I didn't want any UFO's lingering around for me to return to (UFO: Un-Finished Objects). So today I trimmed all the prints at the paper cutter, organized them by kiddo and prepped the LOVE letters...

Normally I wouldn't do that much work on behalf of the kids (and my sanity...right now is the first time I've sat down all day) but, like I said, I don't like me no UFO's. To prep the letters, I made them in such a way that the kids would have minimal amount of cutting (thirty minutes, people. Thirty. Minutes). I wrote the letters in reverse so the kids could cut along those lines...but put the glue on the back (we did a little ditty: The Lines are in Black and That's the Back!). The reason behind this was I didn't want the black lines to show...but clean, crisp white letters.

The kids also had to hustle. They had to lay out their prints and decide upon a good design, glue those down, cut out their letters and glue that as well. We might have been 3 minutes late to P.E. (sorry, ladies!).

But, oohhhhhh, the results. I mean, is it just me or are these not the most swoon-worthy thing ever?

(Shhh, don't tell: this is my personal fave).

And now I can go off on my jury duty adventure knowing that I don't have any UFO's in first grade floating around! Love to hear about your printmaking adventures, y'all!
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In the Art Room: Troubleshooting Printmaking with the Littles

Hey, y'all! It's Printmaking Season in my art room currently and it's been a big fat hairy success. Mostly because, let's face it, printmaking is super mysterious, magical and mega-awesome. The kids are always surprised and thrilled by their result and pulled prints always elicit the biggest oooohhh's and ahhhhh's.

BUT. There is the Dark Side of printing as well. Y'all know what I'm talking about. Poorly inked plates. Smeary prints. An inked and printed on body part (um, that was today, in fact. See below). However, I think I've got some tipz -n- trickz for y'all that might make life in Printmaking Town a lil easier. So click the sideways triangle below and I'll walk y'all thru some steps!

By the way, since my room tour video, I've seen a nice jump in my youtube channel subscribers. Thanks, y'all! My goal is to share more videos like the one above and the instructional videos I create for the kids. If you are interested, please feel free to subscribe, I'd love to have ya!

So, those marker prints...where have they been all my life?! They are super fun, easy to do and a great way to introduce kids to the magic of printmaking. I got the idea from one of my fave art ed bloggers, Don Masse (thanks, bruh!). You can find his awesomeness here.

During the next two thirty minute art classes, the first graders printed with ink. Each student made a minimum of 5 prints which will be used in an upcoming project. By the end of the printing process, they were experts at covering their plates completely and pulling clean-ish prints. I mean, their fingerprints all over the background are prints as well, right?! Just say yes, there's no point in arguing with me.

Give that paper a back rub, kid.

Pulling only part of the way up and checking the print was encouraged. This way the kids could lay the paper back down and rub some more if need be.

I have found that printing on copy paper works the best. I also have the kids use Speedball washable ink. Names are written on the back of the paper before printing is started.

The kids were allowed to go to another table to use more ink. However, this will result in blended colors...which is cool if you use analogous colors. We had red and yellow out which created these lovely blended prints.

Love how it pops on this blue paper!

The kids really enjoyed these prints!

Printing limbs was not encouraged...but super funny when it happens. This sweet girl leaned onto her plate accidentally and did a lil body printing. It's a new trend. She's totes cutting edge.

Y'all saw these last week. These were created by my third grade after watching my lil demo video...

This week they'll watch this video. I hope it is as successful at explaining the process as the first one!

I'd love to hear your printing tips and tricks, y'all! Please feel free to share 'em in the comments. Until next time...

In the Art Room: 3-D Letters!

Hey, y'all! I'm back, as promised, with the other awesome project I did during my fab-o art teacherin' PD this week! In case you missed the "I Am" books post, let your fingers do the clicking and check it here. In the afternoon, the leader of our PD, Daryle Grenead, taught us how to make these super fun 3-D letters!

Full disclosure: a good buddy took Daryle's class a while back and gifted me her half-finished ART sign (thanks, Deb!). So I got to skip several steps and fly straight to the papier-mâché and painting. You know, the fun stuff. But don't you worry, I took several photos of my friend Jennifer's hands while she worked away on creating her letter so I could share them here with y'all. She's a glorious hand model, that Jennifer. You'll see. But first!

Check out the inspiration that Daryle created and shared with us! He recommended doing this project with middle schoolers. He also mentioned that if they do something like their name, each letter takes about one art class to tape and papier-mâché. For our time's sake, each of us did one letter (well, except for me).

To start, Daryle recommended using stencils to help the kids cut out their initial. We simply laid the stencils over the cardboard and traced. Two will need to be cut out with box cutters, one for the front and the back. Daryle said he cut the letters out for his younger students to save on instructional time and for safely issues. If you are doing an entire word as I have, you simply lay out the letters of your word on a large sheet of cardboard. Make sure each letter is touching, tape the letters together and trace onto the cardboard. This way, when you cut it out, it is one solid piece of cardboard, not multiple pieces.

Once you've cut out your two letters (or your complete word, cut twice), lay a piece of heavy duty poster board beside your letter. The width of the board will determine the depth of your letter. As you lay the board beside the letter, add tick marks as each corner of the letter. This is where you will fold the poster board.

As my friend Jennifer's lovely hands are demonstrating.

Once that is complete, fold the paper along your tick marks.

Which is easier to do if you score the board first with a dull pencil and then fold over matte board.

Ta-da! You can start to see the shape of the letter!

Using masking tape, start taping the edge of the letter to the poster board. You'll need to use a couple pieces of poster board to complete the letter so be ready.

And have tape ready.

While Jen was taping away, I started snapping pics of my buddy David working on his R. Notice that when he was done with one side, he fitted the other cut out into place and started taping that down. Also, don't forget to create that super fun inside piece!

And bring on the snotty papier-mâché! Layer the whole stinkin' thing. Now you see it would take the kids multiple days to do just a letter. A great art club/after school/summer camp kind of project, says moi.

I love that some folks skipped the letter idea and did things like this and symbol and we even had a dollar sign!

Of course, you can see here, I was pretty spoiled by my friend's half finished efforts. I just had a lil work to do and let it dry over night.

For the more advanced set, Daryle had created these amazing pieces for our TN football team.

Before painting, Daryle suggested painting everything with a coat of white acrylic. Then add color and seal with a clear coat.

I couldn't wait to get to school the next morning and finish my sign! The best part was splatter painting it. Seriously, y'all. I now know why ole Jackson had a thing for paint slinging, it was a blast!

And now it hangs proudly at my Art Supply Store. The kids loved seeing it today!

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...