Mini "Monets"

Impressionism

Today we made "mini Monets" as we tried our hand at Impressionism. We discussed how Impressionists made small marks of color next to each other and instead of blending colors on the canvas, the viewer's eye blends the colors.

We used chalk pastels on roughly 4" x 5" pieces of shrink film. Students chose a landscape photo that they wanted to reproduce in an impressionist style. They really had to work hard to build up layers of color on the glossy surface. Not only did they have to use multiple colors, but were thinking about contrasting colors and value as well. True impressionists did not use black, but rather contrasting colors to create the impression of darker areas.

They all did a great job at this initial step, but the real fun was just starting! We fired up the toaster oven to around 325 or 350 degrees and placed the art inside on a sheet of tin foil. In moments the shrink film came alive - twisting and bubbling as it got smaller and smaller! It flattened out (sometimes with a bit of help) within a minute or two and was ready to come out and cool off. It never gets old to watch this process and the final art is tiny, hard, and so much more vibrant and beautiful than when it went into the oven. 

This is a video of my shrink film in the oven. I did stop part way and flatten it out a bit as it was curling over onto itself. Supposedly it will straighten out on its own, but I get too worried!

Here are the students' original landscape photos, pastel covered shrink film before, and after baking:

I sent everyone home with a couple of blank sheets to play with. This can be done in your oven on a cookie sheet covered with tin foil. They can draw on it with marker, pastels, whatever! Part of the fun is experimenting. If you want more, you can order Grafix shrink film from dickblick.com in different colors and surfaces (I found this idea for Mini Monets on their website, if you want to check it out). It costs roughly $5 for 6 letter sized sheets.

I was curious how this would work with different mediums, so below you can see my different versions. I think the chalk pastels work best of those I tried. Sharpie was my least favorite.

Indonesian "Batik" - Thanksgiving Table Runners

Indonesian "Batik" Table Runners

Batik originated in Indonesia. It is a beautiful art form, traditionally using hot wax and dyes on fabric. 

For safety reasons, students can't use wax, so this is the closest we can get, with similar results.

We used fall and Thanksgiving as inspiration for our batik table runners. The students spent one class drawing their designs onto the white muslin fabric with a pencil. It was important to note that the more simple the design, the better it ends up. Any large, empty areas were places where the students were encouraged to add even simple, organic lines or patterns.

The next step was to trace over the pencil marks with Elmer's school glue gel.

Because the gel spreads a bit after application, intricate designs don't work as well. Once finished, these were allowed to dry overnight. Don't worry that the gel is blue. Everywhere that the gel goes will end up as white when the project is finished.

During our next class, students painted their fabric with acrylic paint. We stayed with a warm color palette - using fall colors such as brown, red, yellow and orange. Its ok to paint over the dried gel.

 Every bit of the fabric should be painted - and covered completely with paint. Be sure to really saturate the fabric. I was impressed that one of my students tried mixing colors right on the fabric - with beautiful results! The fabric should be allowed to dry completely.

Because this was our last class, we didn't have time to do the final, and most fun step, in class. Once the fabric is completely dry, the last step is to wash the fabric out by hand. Fill a sink with warm water and submerge the fabric completely. Let it sit for 5 minutes or so. This will soften and loosen the dried gel. Use your hands to gently rub the remaining gel off the fabric. In the process, the paint will soften and come off as well. Be sure to work your way across the entire piece of fabric to loosen all gel and paint. Rinse in cold water, and repeat for any areas that may still have bits of gel or paint. And don't worry - you can't mess this up!

Fill sink with warm/hot water, immerse fabric completely and let sit for 5 minutes

Rub fabric and pick any stubborn bits of glue off. Rinse in cold water.

Left - before washing. Right - after washing - the white really pops now!

The final piece of fabric will be soft with bright colors and striking areas of white designs. Perfect for the Thanksgiving table!

Mexican "Dia de los Muertos" Skull Art

I love the Mexican celebration "Dia de los Muertos" or "Day of the Dead." It happens every year on October 31-November 2 and is the time of year when family and friends gather to remember and pray for loved ones who have died. They build altars to honor the dead, bring favorite food, drinks, and gifts to them to in order to encourage them to visit and hear their prayers and comments. Its the imagery and art that I love - skulls and skeletons (calaveras) in beautiful clothes, colored in bright colors, and adorned with flowers (usually marigolds). Its so graphically rich that I can't help but want to share this art with students!

I brought in a book to share with the students. There are some fantastic children's books about the Day of the Dead. This gave them a little background on the holiday, as well as a glimpse into the art surrounding it. To inspire them, I also brought in a few skulls and other items I have collected.

Designing our own skull art was a perfect opportunity to practice symmetry. We discussed what symmetry means and talked about how the left side of the skull should be a mirror image of the right side. Everyone had a practice sheet to sketch out ideas before we did our real skull.

Students sketch their skull designs and practice symmetry.

Once students had a design sketched out, they were given a silver sharpie to recreate the art on a black piece of paper. This produces a striking contrast and a dramatic final piece of art.

Love the silver on black!

Once the skulls were drawn in sharpie and the completely filled with designs, students could take it a step further and paint a colorful border, add tissue paper "marigolds" (by wrapping squares of tissues around the end of a pencil, dipping it in glue, and pressing it onto the paper), and glue metallic "sequin" shapes to their art for a little extra bling.

The finishing touches

Each skull was as unique and different as the artist that created it. They are each amazing on their own, but really fun to see here all at once. I think we nailed our symmetrical Dia de los Muertos skulls! Muy bien!!

BcB      DK

     IJ     AB

BB      JV

MC      PM             .

  MK      LD   .

   NB       SB

NoB      JD    

Bolivian "Ojos de Dios"

 

 The "Ojo de Dios" or God's Eye is an ancient symbol made by the Huichol Indians of Mexico and the Aymara Indians of Bolivia. In Mexico, the central eye was made when a child was born. Each year, a bit of yarn was added until the child turned five at which point the Ojo was complete. In Bolivia, "God's Eyes" were made to be placed on an altar so that the gods could watch over the praying people and protect them.

Some of us remember making God's Eyes at camp or school out of yarn and popsicle sticks. I remember as a kid thinking it was fun, and my boys had a lot of fun with it when I showed them how to create a God's Eye, so I knew I wanted to share this craft with the class.

I recently ran across an amazing artist named Jay Mohler who takes these to an entirely new level and was inspired to try some of his tricks myself. These are amazing!

http://www.ojos-de-dios.com/skypelearning.html

How to Create an "Ojo de Dios"

The first step is to take 2 sticks or dowels and tie them together in a cross or "x" shape. I had done this already for the students in order to save time, and they were allowed to choose 2 of these to work with.

We then started wrapping the sticks in a basic God's Eye fashion. Holding the sticks, you cross the yarn over the top of the closest stick and wrap it around once (some people prefer to do this twice). Then bring the yarn to the next stick and do the same thing. Repeat this over and over until you have a diamond shape in the desired width.

To change colors of yarn, you can either tie the old color to the stick and tie on a new one, or tie the two colors of yarn together and keep going. Sometimes you need to trim it a bit if you don't wrap it around a stick and cover it with the new yarn.

Once you have a central diamond that is about 2" wide, do the same thing to your second set of sticks. It works best if the second diamond that will go in the back is slightly larger than the first set. Lay them, one on top of the other so that all 8 sticks are evenly spaced.

make two God's Eyes separately, then place together

Now you have to start securing the two sets of sticks together which can be difficult.You do this using a dagger pattern. Tie your yarn to one of the sticks, then bring it across the back to the stick directly across from it, and wrap it around that stick twice. Run it back to the original stick on the opposite side, and wrap it around that one twice. Continue at least 4 times on each side or until you like the length. Repeat this process with each stick until you have a dagger pattern on all the sticks. Slowly the God's Eye will become more stable and will hold together on its own. 

Starting the daggar pattern, finished daggars on back and from the front

I like to add a second daggar color to get some good depth to the God's Eye design, as I did with the green yarn below. Once you get the hang of it, then you can switch back to a regular pattern or do another pattern. The pattern below on the right is one where you skip every other stick. I did this first with one color (pink), then did it with another color (turquoise) on the remaining 4 sticks. I think it makes the daggar design pop and adds a nice layering feel.

Green daggar pattern from back, then front. Addition of an interesting design involving 4 of the sticks in one color, then repeating with the remaining 4 sticks in another color.

The students found this challenging, but it made them really think about colors and what worked together and what didn't. By adding in the dagger pattern, we created some negative or empty space, which was a fun concept for them to consider.

As you can see with the finished piece below, I continued to add a daggar pattern again before going back to the basic God's Eye pattern and finishing it off. The back (below right) is a good example of the daggar pattern from behind.

The finished God's Eye from the front (left) and back (right).

Some students wanted to stick to the basic God's Eye, some followed these directions exactly, and others did their own unique creations. I think Jay Mohler would be proud of them...I know I am! :)

MC      SB

   IJ    NoB

MK      LD

JD      DK

DB      BB

   

JV      AB

NB      PM

        BCB     DK (final)

Australian Aboriginal Dot Painting

 

What is Australian Aboriginal dot painting? It is based on the art of Indigenous Australian artists who used dots to create images from nature or dreams. X-ray art shows both the outside and inside (bones, heart, etc) of a figure.

Watch this to see an Aboriginal piece of art come to life!

We started off talking about Australian dot art and x-ray art. We looked at a book named "An Australian abc of Animals" that was illustrated by an amazing artist named Bronwyn Bancroft. Even though its an ABC board book meant for much younger children, it has beautiful examples of dot/x-ray art that apply to our project.

Students chose which Australian animal they wanted as the centerpiece of their art and traced a template of that animal. They had a choice of black or white for the background. If they chose white, the animal had to be filled in with black acrylic paint (our medium this week). If they chose black, the animal was to be painted the color of their choice.





Then they chose 3 colors for the dot patterns in the background. Using a Q-tip, they dotted paint in the first color around the entire edge of the animal. This was repeated with the second and then third color.

At this point they could continue repeating the pattern, or create their own. We had some imaginative swirls, circles, and flourishes!

Once the background pattern was completed, students moved on to creating simple, 2 color borders.

By this time, the paint inside the animal was dry, so they could start working on the interior design. This is where the x-ray elements could come into play if they chose to go that direction. Examples of x-ray parts they might choose to paint could be a heart, brains, or stomach - or they could choose to emphasize the legs on a kangaroo by painting muscles, create designs on the tail of a lizard, or patterns on the shell of a turtle. Or they could simply continue to use dots inside the animal or even just create whatever felt right to them.

LD's Platypus and JD's Turtle

MC's Koala and DB's Kangaroo

JV's Kangaroo and BCB's Goanna

MK's Turtle

We ended up with some great designs! From x-ray bones and hearts to happy smiles and sombreros, these artists showed some real creativity!

About half of the paintings had a little more work to be done, so those will get finished up during our next class or when time permits. They all look fantastic and I can't wait to see the final pieces!

IJ's Dingo and BB''s Platypus

PM's Koala and JD's Frog

AB's Frog and NB's Koala

SB's Dingo and KR's Koala

NoB's Koala