Draw-Dee-Da

So I don't forget....

2011-10-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

I come across amazing artists all the time and think to myself "kids would LOVE this". Just so I don't forget about London artist, Marcus Oakley, I'm throwing up some of his work that I think could inspire some brilliant work in the classroom. I also love his Holiday Sketchbook.

Contact Paper Collage

2011-09-20T09:38:00.000-07:00

This may have been one of my favorite projects all year. It is a really good one day project with little to no mess or clean up and a great way to use scrap and tissue paper. The subject of these sculptural collages was Spring, though it could go in so many other directions. Students got pieces of contact paper that I precut into 8 1/2in by 22in (more or less) sheets. They were told to fold a crease in the middle and lay the paper open with the sticky side up. They then peeled away the protective sheet to the crease and were given little pieces of tape to secure each corner to their tables. At this point, half of the sticky paper is exposed and half is still protected. On the sticky side, students arranged scraps of tissue paper to create Spring landscapes. When they were finished, they removed the other half of the protective paper and folded this half over to cover the exposed tissue paper collage. The finished pieces were kind of magical; students were surprised and amazed that they had created art that they could see through and enjoy from both sides. Also great was that they had to help each other manipulate and fold the sheets of contact paper. These would be beautiful hanging from a mobile or in front of windows.

Brooklyn Post Cards + Pen Pals

2011-09-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

My mom teaches 3rd grade in San Francisco so when I met my 3rd graders for the first time I knew I wanted to do a Pen Pal project. Who doesn't love getting a personal, hand made card in the mail? I also thought it would be a neat way for the kids to teach each other about their cities. We looked at images of Brooklyn cityscapes and urban landmarks and thought of special places in our own neighborhoods. To create the cards, Students then watercolored a background on postcard sized watercolor paper that I found at a craft store. To make the cityscapes even more "New York" they cut out buildings and city elements from the New York Times. They finished off their collages with sharpies. On the back they wrote letters to their Pen Pals in San Francisco, telling them about their favorite places in Brooklyn. The most exciting part was getting wonderful cards back from San Francisco.

Art Room Rules

2011-09-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

I am a huge fan of illustrator and guerrilla artist Keri Smith. I found this list of Art Department Rules on her blog and had to share. If I ever get an art room of my own (fingers and toes and eyes crossed) this will be up on my wall.

The Door do your Dream House - Sculptural Facades

2011-08-02T09:03:00.000-07:00

This was a dynamic introduction for 5th Graders into Architecture and Design. Students chose photographs of doors and sketched out the facade of their very own dream house that they imagined surrounded that door. They were challenged to incorporate at least three ornamental features (i.e. Bay windows, columns, cornices, pediments, etc. ) that learned about through looking at many images of Victorian Houses. Students then constructed their facades using cardboard, glue, tape and finished them using bold pastels and tissue paper details. Materials: photographs of doors, sketch paper, pencils, cardboard, glue, tape, oil pastels, tissue paper, images of Victorian houses and diagrammed vocabulary sheets of Victorian ornamental features.

Cubist Roosters

2011-08-02T07:58:00.000-07:00

This was a wonderful 3rd Grade project included in a unit on Cubism and Picasso. We looked at many of Picasso's paintings and drawings of roosters and watched a short film of Picasso himself painting a rooster. This started a discussion about how Cubists like Picasso were inspired by African art and it's powerful use of geometric shapes and sharp lines. They also learned that Cubists were interested in rendering multiple perspectives of an entire subject on a two dimensional plane. We explored this by thinking about peeling an orange and what the surface of a sphere would look like flattened out on a page. From here, we looked at photos of roosters and broke them down into simple geometric shapes and thought of ways to draw the all sides of the rooster even though we had a two dimensional piece of drawing paper. Materials: sharpie, watercolor, oranges, drawing paper, images of roosters, Picasso Rooster prints.

Pop-up Landscapes

2011-04-18T05:56:00.000-07:00

Since January, this first grade class has been learning all about city scapes and landscapes. The concept was introduced when we read "Tar Beach" by Faith Ringgold and students created their own city scapes featuring meaningful places in Brooklyn using oil pastel watercolor resist. We then moved onto landscapes where students were encouraged to create a 2D imaginary landscape using construction paper collage.

With this project we "pulled" our landscapes up off the page to assemble imaginary sculptural landscapes. We explored the different shapes we could make when we folded, bent, ripped, twisted and crumpled strips of construction paper. I demonstrated how to attach these shapes to their paper plates by folding a tab at the end of each strip of paper (a flat surface for their dot of glue). Materials: construction paper cut into strips, leftover paper scraps in various shapes from collage, glue sticks, paper plates.

Accordion Name Books

2011-04-14T04:27:00.000-07:00

This project was an excellent choice as an ice-breaker. I got to know the kids names and they got to express their identities. We started by thinking of words that described our personalities and interests that started with letters in our name. Students then designed graphic letters to represent these descriptive words. From there we folded strips of drawing paper into accordion books (this was the most challenging part!!) and drew our final graphic letters using color sticks, markers, crayons, colored pencils and sharpies. I was so impressed with the care and creativity these third graders put into these.

Imaginary Creatures

2011-04-09T18:52:00.000-07:00

This was such a great project to do with first graders because they have such unbound imaginations. Anything seems possible to them. They also were excited and emboldened by the power I gave them to create their very own hybrid animals. I started by reading them the fabulous book of poems "Animals that Ought to Be" with great illustrations of make believe animals like the "homework eater" and the "channel changer". We also read "Where the Wild Things Are" which the children just loved and had read in class with their teacher. Their task was then to come up with their own hybrid animal that was made up of at least three different creatures, to think about where this animal lives and finally to give their animal a name.

Sketchbooks in Schools - AccessArt

2009-12-02T05:43:00.000-08:00

Sketchbooks in Schools is the endeavor of Paula Briggs and Sheila Ceccarelli of AccessArt. It abounds with sketchbook ideas and activities and connects educators, students and artists. Check out their youtube channel for demo videos. Click on the photos for descriptions of a sketchbook icebreaker and a stitched story collage.

Bernie!

2009-11-30T19:44:00.000-08:00

Brett and Ashley make a movie with her puppet for puppetry class. I made Bernie's head with paper mache over a clay mold. For his shoulders and arms I used cardboard, cheese cloth, wood glue, wood dowels and wire. His body is paper bags stuffed with plastic bags and his clothes are from a thrift store.

my first watercolor and some other stuff

2009-11-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

Some recent work from my sketchbook and two persimmons that became one after I was done painting.

Shadow Puppets

2009-11-11T08:18:00.000-08:00

I haven't made my shadow puppet for class yet but I poked around the internet for inspiration. These were some of my favorites.

Sketchbook Series: Ashley

2009-11-09T05:39:00.000-08:00

Exploring Scale

2009-11-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

These are the collected photographs of Slinkachu, a London-based artist who for several years has been placing tiny hand painted people on street corners, park benches, and the Underground, and leaving them to fend for themselves. I set up some of my own Slinkachu's around my house.

Media and Materials: Lost Objects, thinking about armatures

2009-11-06T09:48:00.000-08:00

This week in class we each brought in paper sculpture stand in for objects we lost as kids. In class we got into groups and made large latticed structures of our childhood play spaces out of cardboard and bamboo.

Sketchbook Series: Ashley

2009-11-06T09:14:00.000-08:00

Here are some selections from my sketchbook. I'm becoming interested in lines that connect: webs, string, stitching.

Subway Series: Rusty Zimmerman

2009-11-03T06:59:00.001-08:00

My wonderful friend Rusty was over this weekend. We sat on my fire escape, watched the Marathoners putter, stride and wheel by, sipped coffee and talked about drawing. Rusty is an illustrator by trade and I've always admired his work. Pictured above are a few Subway sketches from his moleskin. I wish I could draw like that! More about rusty here.

Sketchbook Series: Kara Kramer

2009-10-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

These are images from a few of Kara's sketchbooks. As you can see they vary from watercolor to pen, to some collage. They also go from a few years ago to more recently. Kara says, "I go through phases of using them and then forgetting about them. Sometimes they are used for a specific idea or poem but mostly for me to just play. I also tend to stuff pages of loose drawings in them like the one from the back of a tea box."

2009-10-08T11:20:00.000-07:00

I love John Copeland's tall stack of pancake cars. Looks like he's also sketching his sketches...a bit of meta-sketching. How can I bring the verbs "layer" and "cram" into my own work? His work is smashing up against the edges of the page. Great.