We each made a video on an art technique so I chose acrylic painting techniques aimed at high school or middle school kids. I covered scumbling, underpainting, glazing, washes, impasto, splattering and wet on wet.  I also showed the different types of brushes that affect painting marks and soft gel medium for glazing and impasto.

 

For our last project, I made a stop motion animation with my partner, Karli.  We decided to use one of Elliot Eisner’s “10 Lessons the Arts Teach,” using number two for our project: ”The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can
have more than one answer.^“1

After some brainstorming, we decided to use origami paper on top of a decorated sheet of paper.  The beauty of using origami is that you can make so many different things from a single sheet of paper, and it illustrates our point.  Quite simply: what can you do with a piece of paper? We first made a dog and then a cat, but the possibilities could have been endless.

10 Lessons the Arts Teach (PDF)

Watch the Arts Advocacy video by clicking below:

 

 

¹Eisner, E.(2002). The Arts and the Creation of Mind, In Chapter 4, What the Arts Teach
and How It Shows. (pp. 70-92). Yale University Press. Retrieved from https://www.arteducators.org/advocacy/articles/116-10-lessons-the-arts-teach.

We’re lucky enough to have a glass kiln at the art ed. studio, so we made tacked, slumped and fused glass.  You can only do up to three layers at once, but other than that there are few limitations. We scored and cut glass and crazy-glued the pieces onto the layers.  Tack bonding maintains more of the design than full fused bonding, which melts the layers together much more.  Slump fusing is at a lower temperature than full fusing, and you do that after you full fuse with a flat piece.  Safety glasses are needed and if cutting glass with little kids, placing the pieces in a bag while snipping them is ideal so no one gets hurt.

The full fused example below contains confetti, which for glass means that the layers of paper thin glass can be placed in between the thicker ones for a see-through effect.

 

 

Spin Drawings and the FInal art show

This week was our final art show for the Saturday Art Workshops and we also had a 60-minute lesson on spin drawings for them to do. We set up the artwork a few days before the show but in order to involve them in talking about their work, I suggested that they think about how they would describe the process and ideas of their work to their families.

After the opening ceremony where one student passed out her business cards of her bakery business (impressive), we showed them our spin drawing examples and the slides on the rotoscope, zoetrope and early filmmaking, they jumped into making the drawings on paper. These are examples of simplified animation that kids really enjoy.

Spin Drawings and videos

Spin Drawing Video 1 (Click Here)
Spin drawing video 2 (CLICK HERE)

Flip Book example 1 (CLICK HERE)
Flip Book Example 2 (CLICK HERE)

They also made flip-books with post-its which are an easy way to do that. The main aim of this activity was to get them to create movement by playing with puns through images as a starting point. Together, they talked about their ideas while they were making them. Each image can be on one side and make a third meaning together, such as “eye roll” or “eye scream,” or my example “present tents,” which had two tents and a gift box on it. They seemed engaged right away with the humor part of it. It’s good to have a sponge activity for times in your classroom that might be filling the space in between lessons.

The final art show

For the art show, families came to see their kid’s work and talk to them about how they made it. A couple of our students did that and showed their parents their paintings and animations and explained the process of making it. In order to provide more explanation, I showed my blog that people could look through set to the painting page and Colleen had slides with her Rube Goldberg lesson.

They displayed their spin drawing near another piece of work in the show to keep items together. I think our space was visually cohesive and we grouped similar lessons together to show different examples of the same project and celebrate individuality. Overall, this art show was a success because we had families coming by to comment on their pieces, ask us questions and see what other kids had been doing these past eight weeks. It was really nice to see how proud they were and show that off to their parents.

Classmates’ spaces in the art show

Let your colors fly! Flags for Freedom from discrimination Day

 

For the International Day Conference in Coralville, Iowa, our team of teachers designed an activity with flag decorating using personal symbols.  These were flags that the kids could display in their rooms, on their bikes or other fun places to show off aspects of their personal identities, interests and hobbies. They used sharpies, scissors and rubbing alcohol in droppers to give a tie-dye effect, if they chose.

After creating their flags, we played anti-discrimination bingo with prize buttons of Kehinde Wiley, Mickelene Thomas, Harriet Tubman, Neil Degrasse-Tyson, Eleanor Roosevelt and MLK King, Jr. We had the kids write a unique ability or quality about themselves on a numbered piece of paper corresponding to a bingo number based on how many kids were there, around 25.  We read each one after we pulled them from a box.

After bingo, some of the kids shared their flags and revealed things about themselves that were very brave.  I was really impressed by that because most of us were strangers to them including other kids.

four finger knitted scarves for the kiddos

As part of our community arts projects, we made four finger knitted scarves in bulky yarn made of wool and acrylic (in case of allergies).  After making two strands of these about four feet long, I sewed them together with a tapestry needle from the backside.  We’re donating them to kids.

We volunteered at the Holden Cancer Center at the University of Iowa Hospitals as part of our class.  Bereaved people who had lost a relative or friend came and wrote on strips of colored fabric as a memorial to their loved one.  They could also snip a piece of the fabric and take it home on a card as a reminder of the day.  When completed, the ribbons formed a colorful wheel where the writing became private.

For one community arts project  in our Art Education Studio class here at the University of Iowa, we each designed and decorated a faux pumpkin to donate to the Shelter House auction.  This is a place that supports people who are homeless or nearly there: https://shelterhouseiowa.org.