Maps

This project really confused me at first but I finally decided on what I wanted to do and it ended up being fun.  I wanted the map to represent my "map through life."  I considered what I value most and wanted to portray that through the art.  I decided that relationships and loving bonds between my friends and my family is what will be my guide through life.  That is why i made the maps into a wreath of chains or bonds and how they are all connected together in my life.  Its a bit on the cheesy side-- but there it is!

ABC Scratch Board

I loved making my own scratch board!! I know you can buy them, but making them was really neat!  We took paper, and colored the paper with heavy heavy crayon covering the entire paper.  Then, we took black Tempera paint, added a tiny bit of soap, and painted over the colored paper.  We let it dry, and then took a little tool and scratched away at the paint revealing the crayon below.  I was really happy with how mine turned out-- but i thought it was cooler before I added the "textures" in between the letter.  I am still happy with it though.. it was a very good project.

Wire Sculpture

This wire sculpture is a turtle!  It was a great learning experience to have to create these sculptures with a "disability"  I made this turtle blindfolded and was able to create it just by feeling the wire.  Some people made their sculptures with big snow gloves on, some were "deaf" and did whatever they wanted with the wire (because they couldnt hear the instruction). The interesting thing was, however, that despite the different disabilities, at the end, it was nearly impossible to tell who had a disability and who didnt.  It was a real eye opener to see that there are peojects out there that everyone can participate-- it doesnt matter what sort of difficulties are out there.

My AFrican MAsk!

I loved making this mask sooooo much-- it might have been my most favorite thing we did! We made these masks out of milk jugs, masking tape, shoe polish, paint, and raffia!!! I loved how authentic they looked and how cheap they are to make.  This is a very applicible project for students to do.  It was nice also, to research some african masks and see how they are alike!

African Masks

These are some pictures I found while researching Masks-- These are all from different groups in Africa.  Some look really similar to what I actually made in class-- that was exciting!

Google Sketch-Up

Google sketch up was an amazing descovery for me! I love how this kind of art expands the realm of possibilities for students!  It presents a whole different kind of experience than any other.  They must think of the WHOLE picture-- behind the building, in front of the building, inside the building.... It made me really open my mind to what I wanted to create.  It made me visualize the 3Dness of it all.  I had a hard time at first visualizing what I needed to do to create what I wanted and eventually I got the hang of it.  I think this is an EXcellent tool for teachers and their students...

Pinch Pot

I thought the pinch pot was much easier and much more satisfying than the coil pots!! My pot was super awesome but... when I finished forming it and I was setting it down on the table, all of a sudden all of the sides started sinking and it became a very wide-bottomed, short-sided bowl! Its ok though, I think it looks alright, and the sun I stamped in the center is really cool! Children would probably LOVE working with the clay! It was a good experience!

Coil Pot

I've got to say-- I am not a very good pottery maker!!  I really struggled and had to start over a million times! The coil pot was harder than I thought it would be and it didn't really turn out how i would have hoped! It was still a good experience though-- I would like to see if I would have liked it better on a wheel... probably... I have always wanted to try using one of those~

Yarn Stamps

These yarn stamps were so fun to make!! I loved getting my fingers dirty!!  We took yarn, soaked it in elmers glue, and put it on a little piece of cardboard and let it dry!.. We made them to stamp into our clay pots on a later date (like petroglyphs).  I  ended up only using the sun to stamp into my pot because I realized that my music symbol would be backwards-- and I didnt love the girl stick figure I made.  It was an awesome way to personalize our pots and make them unique to us!

Watercolor Resist

The watercolor resist was a very fun project.  I wasn't too pleased with how it turned out for me- but it was a really fun idea! I wish mine was more whimsicle like Van Gogh's Starry Night is.  I thought the pastels were a blast though-- I even went out and bought a set of my own!! I loved mixing the colors for the watercolor wash in the background! It was fun to see what everyone else mixed up to be a "night time sky." 

Watercolor Techniques

I was able to learn different watercolor techniques through this project.  It was super fun to have foods there and create what they tasted like through watercolor!! It was a nice excuse to have good food there! I really enjoyed the different tools you can use to create "textures" and designes with watercolor.  Salt over a watercolor wash, alcohol drips, and a wax candle were fun things to use to create abstract, neat things.  My favorate box that I created was the one that looks like some sort of solar picture from space- it turned out neat.   I think that was the wheat bread I ate. hahaha

Collograph

We had the oppertunity to go outside for this project and find bugs to look at and draw.  I found a bee!!!  We did this exercise to observe typical body parts of bugs close up. Then we were asked to make up a new bug and cut the pieces of the bug out of cardstock paper and stack them on top of each other to create a COloGraPH! Then we took ink, and printed our bug onto a paper! We also rubbed Crayons onto the bug as another means of making prints of our bugs!  This project became a little tedious because I tend to make things more complicated than they need to be!!! my bug has a really cool body though if you look closely... (O: 

New Word Calligraphy

This project was supposed to be a stamp that we put on our bamboo paintings! I thought it was a really neat idea!  We took a tiny piece of styrofoam and made our name into something that resembled a chinese character.  We carved it on the foam backwards, colored it with red magic marker, and stamped it onto our bamboo art! It turned out great! I love how authentic looking it is!

Chinese Brush Panting

This project was really really fun! We used authentic style brushes to make the authentic style chinese bamboo paintings!  We used black water color- rather than ink- because that was what was available to us.  I think it is awesome that we could make do with waht we had and it still turned out awesome! We had the oppertunity to use authentic rice paper, which I did, but the ink absorbed differently than the paper we were practicing on, so it didnt turn out the way that I had hoped it would.  I have posted my practice piece of paper as well because I liked it so much.  I brought the practice paper home with me and one of my roommates brought over a girl from China.  I had the paper sitting on a desk, and I had forgot I had it there and the Chinese girl was like "Wow! Who does Chinese calligraphy?! It is bamboo!"  she was sooo excited and so was I- because she knew what it was supposed to be!!!!

View Finder Drawings

I found it really difficult to use the viewfinder because as I was drawing things (especially the elephant) I had a really hard time making things so huge that were close to me and things so small that were further from me.  I felt like it really taught me that my previous ideas of how things should be proportioned sometimes outweighed the things that I actually saw.  Eventually I gave in to drawing what I saw through the viewfinder (an ENORMOUS elephant ear) and looking at it now, I can see how it really does look good despite my frustrations while drawing it. 

Grid Portrait

The Grid Portrait was probably one of my favorite things we have done in this class! I have never done anything like this before and I was really impressed with how easy it was once you look at the picture in little boxes and just draw what you see in each box. (originally we tried drawing our face from memory, then from looking at the picture, then with the grids) I just used a normal #2 pencil for this piece- as well as my finger to smudge the pencil and shade it.  This assignment really helped me look at things as little pieces and not just the whole huge thing I had to do.  I am pretty happy about how it turned out- though my eyes are a little too far apart!! hahahaha its ok.  I will just have to make another one someday!

Picasso Head

The Picasso Head was a really neat project-- we were asked to draw a picture of someone in the room without looking at our paper, and without picking up our pencil.  Then, we traced the lines we drew with a thick black marker, and colored in the spaces with the patterns from our previous assignment  (The 8-Design Squares).  This "Picasso Head turned out really cool looking!!  I loved how different they all turned out- but they were all really abstract and interesting!  It was a good project to discuss colors, textures, abstract... and much, much more!

8 Design Squares

For the eight design squares, we were told to use colored pencil and create a large texture, a small texture, complimentary colors, analogous colors, warm colors, cool colors, and two "wild cards."  I really liked how these turned out--- especially my "large texture" box and my animal print "wild card" box!  We didnt know what we were creating these designs for when we made them, but then they became the patterns to use in our next project of the Picasso faces!