The Fall session is off with a bang! This week we made Mono Prints (also known as "Monotypes") by painting on plexi glass and then overlaying paper to create the prints. The possibilities were endless as my students had fun experimenting with multiple layers and impressions. The surface of the plexi allowed for easy cleanup so they could start fresh with new ideas.
WEEK 2 - Watercolors
This was my third attempt at making homemade watercolors, (see Spring'11) and I think next time around I need to use better absorbent paper or more vibrant dyes. We also used paraffin wax and crayons again as a resist for the watercolors. I haven't been crazy about the results, although the students have seemed happy, next time around I'm hoping maybe to venture into more natural dyes, like berries, beets, etc. I played it safe again with a mixture of vinegar and food coloring this time around, but just you wait...
Some helping hands to clean brushes is always welcome!
WEEK 3 - Stamp Making
I've been on a printmaking kick, recently inspired by this great book called "Print Workshop: Hand-Printing Techniques and Truly Original Projects" by Christine Schmidt. I supplied wood blocks and a bunch of materials to affix like string, rubber bands, small letters, etc, to make stamps that would either create patterns or specific images. I probably went a little over board with expectations on this one, since many of the students just went for the pre-made stamps or just improvised with brushes and paint. They of course took it to a whole new level, way cooler than I had originally intended.
WEEK 4 - Eggshell Mosaic
This week's project was inspired by a really great craft blog called Small Things. Oddly enough, I was flipping through a Muppets craft book around the same time I stumbled upon this, which also mentioned this same craft, so I felt it was destiny. I saved up a few weeks worth of eggshells and did the egg dying prep at home with my son, Henry. The dye consistency was the same ratio you would use to dye Easter eggs. I had saved mostly brown shells, but I did have a small bunch of white ones which I reserved for the yellow. The prep was a fun activity in itself. Since I procrastinated so long dying the eggs, drying the eggs in the sun wasn't really an option, so I popped them in the oven for about 15 mins each at about 250 degrees. The colors stayed vibrant and I separated the colors into brown paper bags, grab and go style.
The actual execution of the egg mosaics in class had mixed results. I think I may have overshot the abilities from this age range, many students seemed to be disinterested fairly quickly, which may have been because it was such a finite and focused project. Perhaps a bit overwhelming at this age, with so many small bits to make sense of, but if anything, I think it was successful as a sensory and tactile experiment. It still yielded some pretty cool results.
WEEK 5 - Pendulum Painting
I had been saving this one up, and I was so excited to try it out. I found this project on multiple blogs, Teacher Tom and One Inch World. Teacher Tom in particular is a frequent favorite of mine.
I had done some trial runs at home in our garden, but the true test was set in motion this week. For the pendulum I used a construction of bamboo stakes, set up tee pee style, and then lay down some roofers tarp to catch most of the paint trajectories. For the containers, I cut the bottoms out of yogurt containers, and inserted plastic cups that could be interchanged with different colored paints.
Photo by Rachel Jackson
Photo by Rachel Jackson
Photo by Rachel Jackson
Photo by Rachel Jackson
WEEK 6 - DeCoupage Jack-o-lanterns
For our last class, I found a cool Halloween craft idea from Ordinary Life Magic. Instead of tissue paper, I used some orange napkins, they seemed to do the trick. We even had some time to squeeze in some Pipe cleaner Spiders, and made a makeshift web from white yarn that we wrapped around some nearby trees.
