Milk cartons, wire, jewelry parts, bottle caps, boxes, tin foil, all kinds of odds and ends - all the makings for robots! more here...
robot by noah age 6
izzy uses her trademark splatter technique to decorate her box robot.
sadie and natasha busy making robots.
artwork by mary age 9 - this just makes me happy!
chloe, marisa and christina get into it!
Since the first 2 weeks of class were structured lessons it was time for a little freedom - open studio time. This group of kids loves to do their own thing especially when it comes to 3-d. I have a collection of interesting and unusual materials: fake snow, recycled containers, tree bark, clothes pins, shredded paper, cardboard, ribbon...I dump the "junk garden" into the center of the room and let the kids go. Since I have taught some to these kids for a few years they know what they want to do and are excited. The newer kids look around and immediately get the
idea. For the kids who like a point of departure I started the class with symmetrical cardboard animals and thought they could us the junk garden to build the animals an environment. Since only Marisa used this idea we will revisit the animals in a few weeks. artwork above by ethan age 9. artwork right by marisa age 9, hermit crab on the beach sculpture
jake and his giant cardboard serpent
izzy and her eiffel tower inspired sculpture made from recycled cups and bottles.
Every week we cover the tables with craft paper that ends up after a few uses with some interesting random paint and pastel marks. I used some of this paper for the Do Art! hand logo. Hating to throw anything away, I came up with the idea to make a piece of art where each child traces or draws their hand and writes their name. Then we connect it all together in a scroll and everytime a new kid attends the class we will add their hand. I told the kids that years from now they will come back and the scroll will be a hundred feet long (hopefully).
We were so lucky to receive a generous donation of materials from artist and jewelry designer Susan Rehberg. Susan saw our ad on a friends blog and donated a treasure trove of random supplies including these tiny frames and wooden circles. The kids loved them.
artwork by izzy age 9, "izzy the masked ninja"
work by various artists: bridin age 9, mary age 9, ethan age 9 and notebook by camilla age 7
jacques anthony's tiny frame looks very big here!
artwork by natasha age 5
Here's the whole gang with our special guest Melody aka Mello. In an effort to connect to her inner child she decided to participate as a student in art class this week. We told everyone she was 9 years old so she fit right in.
Melody is an artist who has a website on mandalas. I am going to develop a project on mandalas next semester and maybe we'll get some of the kids mandalas on her site. See how she inspired my art here.
making eyes
Here is Mary making eyes for the eye collection, which I'm now starting to call the eye quilt as I paste it together (see below). Well, actually, she wasn't really making her eyes, she was working on her I am scroll. Since Mary hasn't been on the site in a couple of weeks we set up this shot.
3-d city property development in progress
The kids jumped into their 3-d environments today. Instead of putting the houses on a group mural, I decided to give them each an individual piece of cardboard. I thought we would tape the cardboard together to form a city with interconnecting roads but most of the kids went off on their own direction. Next semester I will have this class do a similar project (it's a real favorite) and work more on designing a mural city together and planning it out. I am going to give them more cardboard next class and ask where they might want to connect roads and properties together. They were so excited about the material (especially the packing peanuts, bark and aquarium rocks) that they went crazy doing their own things.
artwork by maya age 8
I love Maya's use of materials on this. She went wild using the hot glue gun. Love how some of the packing peanuts are upright and others on their side. She has pieces of bark taped down in front. We'll get her to glue them next week. For more on this class click here.
The plan for this week was to continue working on our 3-d cities and finish the mural. Instead of the mural Jake, Mikey, Ethan and Natasha (actually her's is a painting and is almost as big as her) are now working on individual big drawings.
artwork by ethan age 9, mikey age 7 and jake age 9
The rest of the kids are making buildings and other things for the 3-d city and as Julie predicted, did not work on the mural at all. They just love 3-d! continued...
Love these very inventive trees! Such great abstraction, color and texture combinations.
in progress tree by maya age 8
trees for 3-d city by marisa, izzy (back) and maya
Knowing that their might be disappointed artists if I didn't have extra box choices for box-o-lanterns, I made a lot and had extras. I have had totem poles on my mind since summer camp (where one totem pole kinda got made). How psyched was I when John and Natasha both on their own and independent of my suggestion made these! I LOVE them! I wish I had these in my living room!! I plan to do a lesson on totem poles complete with arms and other appendages next semester.
artwork by john age 6, totem pole
artwork by natasha age 5, totem pole
The kids did some really inventive box-o-lanterns (copyright Ethan for making up the name). I was very excited - didn't expect them to be this out of the box!
I have a mini pumpkin collection inherited from my mother so I chose some of the most unusual to show the kids - trying to inspire not the typical jack-o-lantern face. Whether this did it or I just have the most creative kids in the world I don't know, but here some of the results:
artwork by izzy, mary, bridin, chloe, evan, mikey and jacques-anthony
There is so much activity in art class (may look like chaos to some but that's just creativity happening) it is amazing when all of a sudden you have complete silence. We started our 3-d buildings for our 3-d city today and after about 5 minutes - complete silence! It's a beautiful thing.
I am seeing with Izzy the smaller she works the more her work holds together. I love this tiny house she made. It's only about 6 inches high.
