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! 

Macramé

This week in the 6th grade art classroom, we made our own keychain or bracelet!  Karli and Britlyn taught us the history of knotting hemp string.  We had to include a minimum of three beads in our keychain or bracelet, and it had to be at least as long as our middle fingers.  This was a fun lesson and I even got a bracelet out of the deal.    

An extension activity could be creating a bigger project using the hemp string.  In the powerpoint many ideas were given such as pot hangers, purses, and other types of jewelry! 

Blind Flowers

Another project we worked on in class was a blind flower drawing.  We were required to draw three flowers on a piece of drawing paper without looking, using a white crayon.  We then had to wet the paper down using water and a clean paintbrush.  After that we used warm and cool water colors to paint over the white crayon.  When we did this, the flowers appeared very clearly! 

An extension activity could be having students use it in math class.  They could set up problems using a peach crayon where the writing would be visible, but the answer would be in white crayon.  Once painted over, they would see if their answer matches the mystery answer! 

Bunny Art

Our most recent project in class was a first grade project dealing with complimentary colors.  My group was assigned red and green.  Red is considered a warm color and green a cool color.  We took a piece of white drawing paper and drew thick and thin horizontal lines using red and then drew vertical lines using green.  After the paper dried, we traced out pre-cut patterns onto our "plaid paper" that would soon be glued together to form a bunny! 

An extension activity would be writing a story about their favorite animal.  Once the story is finished, they could use the "plaid paper" idea and make the animal they wrote about in their story.   

Safari

The assignment this week dealt with warm and cool colors.  We first chose an animal that we might find on an African safari; I chose an elephant.  Using a sky blue colored pencil, which is a cool color, I sketched the elephant out, not too light, but dark enough where you would be able to see it when you put on your "special glasses".  Using warm colors such as red, red-violet, yellow, and orange, I drew layers of shapes and lines over the elephant.  When finished, I was not able to see the elephant by looking at the paper.  However, when I put on the glasses, I could see the elephant perfectly.  The warm colors acted as a camouflage for the elephant!  

 An extension activity could be giving students a different theme to work with.   The theme could be "What I Did Over Spring Break".  Students would follow the same steps as the safari activity, just have a different picture camouflaged.  This would be a good activity to do when students first get back from break as a way to share what they did during their time off! 

Eric Carle Project

This week in class we discussed the work of Eric Carle.  One of my all times favorite books of his is The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  To create work similar to Carles, we first took big sheets of blank white paper, and swirled, mixed, and textured the paper with paint.  Then, we made a rough draft of what we wanted our storybook to look like.  Next, we cut shapes out of the colored paper to make our storybook scene.  My story was about a butterfly named Sandy who was trying to make her way to the beautiful enchanted forest.  This was a great project, and brought back many elementary memories of reading Eric Carle's books!

"Sandy was speechless when she finally made it to the beautiful enchanted forest!" 

An extension activity would be having students create an entire story book using Eric Carles technique.  As a teacher, you could assign a specific topic such as "A Moment That Changed My Life".  This would be a great way to learn interesting details about the students in your classroom.