Aloha...from Aberdeen!

Today in art class, we worked with water colors and made our own lei!  Ms. Kalei incorporated her Hawaiian culture into our classroom today; we learned new vocabulary words and a lot of information about Lei Day in Hawaii.  We started off by practicing four different water color techniques and used them to paint whatever we wanted onto our watercolor paper.  When this was drying, we started to make our leis with yarn, construction paper flowers, and straws.  Once our watercolor design dried, I cut flowers out of that also.  The lei is then started with a paper flower, then a small chunk of straw, then I decided to put a watercolor flower.  I continued this process until it filled the entire piece of yarn.  I ended up having 24 flowers on my lei!  

An extension activity would be having students research an assigned country.  They would have to find information on a holiday within that country, and explain how they celebrate the holiday and how art is incorporated within their culture.  

  

CrAzY 4 cOiLz!

Crazy 4 Coilz!  

Bulletin Board! 

Coil Pot

I was the teacher today in art class along with Ms. Rozell.  We taught our fourth grade class how to make a coil pot out of air dry clay.  We connected the coil pot back to the Egyptian culture and the importance of pots to them.  We had each student start with a lump of clay about the size of their fist.  The first step with the clay was to knead out all of the air bubbles.  Once the kneading stage was completed, we checked all of the students' clay with the wire cutter to be sure all air bubbles were gone.  After that we had students tear off a piece of clay that was a bit larger than their thumbs.  This was used as the bottom or base of their coil pot.  We flattened it out into a circular flat shape.  After that we taught the students how to make a coil.  They started with a ball of clay and applied even pressure with their finger tips while rolling back and forth to create a snake like piece of clay that was slightly thicker than a pencil.  After that we combined the two pieces together.  We scored each piece; scoring is when you make small lines or indents into the clay to help it stick to the other piece of clay being attached.  Students then stacked coil on top of coil till they had their desired height of coil pot.  The students used water, clay tools, and their hands to smooth the inside of the pot out.  The pots then had to sit out overnight before they could be painted with acrylic paint.    

One requirement was to use a clay tool to make a design on the coil pot.  

I used a need tool to achieve these designs.  

After the coil pots were dry, students were required to paint them with acrylic paint.  They must include both a primary and secondary color.  Another requirement of this project was either incising or painting on a symbol that is important to their own personal culture.

The primary color I chose to use was red.  My secondary color choices included purple and green.  

The symbol I chose to use was a heart.  This heart represents my family.

An extension activity could be researching pottery from different countries.  Each student would be assigned a different country and be responsible to make an example of pottery from their specific country.  This could be linked to a social studies or geography class.     

     

3-D Design

Today in art class we were fourth graders learning about 3-D design.  We listened to the book Oh the Place You Will Go  by Dr. Seuss and then had to imitate the illustrations on the pages to make our own Town or Village.  My table was assigned to work with cool colors so I used blue, green, and purple.  We then had to curl, bend, and scrunch paper to form a 3-D design.  My village was name E-Ville.    

An extension activity would be having students pick out their own book.  They would have to read it then illustrate a blank piece of paper with similar illustrations that were in the book they chose.  The final project would have to be 3-D!   

   

Print Making

Today in art class we were taught print making.  We were each given a rectangle shaped piece of styrofoam and then etched a design into it.  We had to fill up 3/4 of our styrofoam piece with designs.  We could use shapes or words.  I then chose to use yellow ink on brown paper.  We used a roller to put a thin layer of paint on the styrofoam and then pressed it onto my brown paper.  I kept doing this process until I had three prints that I liked.  Finally, we cut out the three prints.  We had to turn these three prints into a train.  I put coal in my train cars and used crayons to color a South Dakota country background.

An extension activity could be having students do the same thing with the styrofoam piece (etching a design into it).  Instead of using the rectangular prints to make a train, let students use their imaginations and put them into any scene they want.  They must also right a short story that goes along with their finished project.  

  

Marbling

Today in the 7th grade art room, Karissa and Jamie taught us marbling.  We were each given a picture that we had to draw ourselves onto white drawing paper.  My picture was of the Forbidden City in Beijing, China.  We started with pencil, then went over the pencil with permanent marker.  Next we cut out our drawing.  Over on a different table was the marbling station.  Here, we coated the bottom of  a tin pan with a thin layer of shaving cream.  We then chose three adjacent colors on the color wheel; I chose orange, green, and yellow.  I put a few dots of each color on top of the shaving cream, then used a fine point to swirl the colors around until I got the design I was happy with.  Finally, I laid the cutout face down on the shaving cream/color.  When I lifted it up, the marbling stuck to the paper.  I wiped off the extra shaving cream and mounted it on yellow paper. 

An extension activity off of this would be having the students use the marbling technique to make buildings or areas that are in Aberdeen.  They could then make a map on the bulletin board using the marbling pictures on it to represent important buildings in Aberdeen.  

 

Puzzle Piece

We made a giant class puzzle using hot and cold animals!  I was assigned to create a warm colored animal on my piece with geometric shapes in the background.  I chose to draw a fox!  Everyone in the third grade classroom was assigned a color scheme using hot or cold colors.  Then, we had to draw out of a bowl to see what our background would consist of.  Different backgrounds included: geometric shapes, organic shapes, lines and texture.  

An extension activity would be having each student create their own puzzle with a minimum of 10 different animals on the pieces.  They would still be required to use warm and cool color schemes!