Get out your popcorn, it's time for a preview

I'll warn you right now: this post contains a Downton Abbey spoiler. That makes sense on an art ed blog, right? Okay then.

We have close to three cycles under our belts, but only my youngest students have completed their initial projects. (I see my classes just once every 6 days, for 45 minutes apiece.) I'm hoping to get a few of those project posts completed in the coming days, but if you're like me, you love a good preview (or a preview that's way too fast and leaves you hanging and questioning WHY MATTHEW HAD TO DIE!?). So here are some candids from the first few days of art class, showing what the little artists are working on for their Square 1 Art projects!

 

Super-Speedy Sunflower Still Lifes

My super student teacher (now a proud graduate--congrats, LC!) started this Vincent van Gogh project with the third graders. I have done Vincent's sunflowers before, but it was nice to see how Miss Caruso approached it, particularly in a time crunch, as it was May and our classes were numbered. I like to do this project at the end of the school year 'cause sunflowers just scream SUMMER, HERE I COME!

After talking about VVG and his passion for fashion sunflowers, Miss Caruso had the kids prep their paper, drawing a border around their 9 x 12" white sheet, Phyl style! (Bless you, Phyl, you practical genius.) Then they painted the background using two colors, one on either side of their pre-drawn horizon line.

(This was great timing for our first day of this project--a few minutes were spent to introduce the project, kiddos glossed their coil pots, and then did this background portion.)

On the second day, students entered the art room to find some lovely (fake) sunflowers decorating their tables. These flowers served as inspiration for adding vases and flowers. Miss Caruso did a great demo showing how to twist and turn the brush to manipulate the paint into petals and leaves. Kiddos painted in this order:

1. Paint a vase and give it two values, VVG style:

2. Use a pencil to draw the brown centers of each flower you intend to paint:

3. Use the penciled centers as a guide to show where to paint the petals:

4. Once petals are done, go back and paint those centers (doing it in this order prevents a lot of "AHHH MY PETALS TURNED BROWN" panic attacks on the part of the 9-year-olds)

5. Go to town adding leaves, values, details, and the like!

6. Sit back and admire your work whilst telling your art teacher and student teacher how beautiful they look today amidst the field of sunflowers in the art room:

7. Clean up your mess, wash yo' hands, and tell your art teacher to stop using her iPhone to take pictures of your awesome artwork 'cause the lighting is all kinds of funky with this neon paint.

Anyway, there are 57698234 ways (I counted) to teach about van Gogh's sunflowers--for a quickie, I highly recommend this method. The timeline is fast but the results are fab!

Monochromatic Coil Pots AND Tips for Using Self-Hardening Clay

Like its cool cousin the pinch pot, coil pots are one of those projects that the vast majority of us probably do. There are many creative ways to jazz these stinkers up. But if you're like me, kiln-less, with 300 pounds of self-hardening/air-dry clay sitting in the corner staring back at you, the options are a bit more limited than our kiln-blessed amigos.

Luckily, this year, my student teacher arrived at the PERFECT time, ready to take over teaching just when third grade was ready to start the coil pot monotony fun! Thanks, Miss Caruso! :-)

We decided that to make the pots are little more interesting, we'd limit students' color choices. Miss Caruso ultimately opted to make the painting process monochromatic, and as is the case with many projects, the presence of boundaries really fostered creativity! It was also a good review of the color mixing we had done earlier in the year (here and here).

If you're going to coil without a kiln, I have a few tips for ya:

• Consider giving your kids a practice day. I have found it VERY beneficial to use modeling clay to practice, taking the time to teach the physical making of the coils and subsequent construction of the pot. You can also use this class period to talk about the history of clay/coiling, why someone might coil as opposed to pinch their vessel, etc.
• I highly recommend using the slip and score technique. Otherwise, your coils are bound to come apart.
• I mix a small amount of white vinegar into my slip, which seems to build a better bond. Granted, it makes the art room stink even more than the usual Sharpie/paint/children after recess scent with which we're all so familiar, but a little stink isn't so bad.
• Have your kiddos build their pot atop a canvas or other textural base. Even the self-hardening stuff will stick to your smooth tables. If you don't have the dough to invest in canvas boards, or if you want to use what you have (and/or you're just cheap like me, bah haha), small pieces of rough wallpaper will do the trick! (I have stacks of wallpaper sample books and chop those pages up for each kiddo.)
• Just in case, have a hot glue gun and lots of glue sticks ready for when any poorly-made pots are dry and a-crackin'! The air-dry clay tends to undergo some major separation as it hardens.
• Paint your pots with acrylic paint. Or, if you prefer tempera, seal the pot with a layer of acrylic gloss medium when all the painting is done and dried.

Any air-dry gurus have anything to add?

And hey, if you're reading this and you, too, are fire-free and are thinking, "girlfriend, there are a thousand ways to skin the coil pot cat, I've got crazy creative ideas for you!" then please, enlighten me!

'Til then, enjoy the one-color wonders!

Things the kids say (a.k.a. medicine for a Monday morning!)

Whoa, Monday morning. You're really out to get me! Upon leaving for school this a.m., I was about a block away from home when I heard and felt something strange related to my car. I jumped out to look and tharrr she blew--a flat tire! Thankfully, when I realized something was wrong, I was only in our little neighborhood, not on the busy highway. Thank you, Lord!

At a time such as this--a flat tire on a rainy Monday tax day morning!--I think it's important to take the time to laugh a little. And so I've decided to share a few of the things that the kids have said lately that have really cracked me up... or took my ego down a few notches.


2nd grader: "Miss Connell, someone said a bad word! It started with 'cr-' and ended with '-ap!'"


3rd grader, talking about her family's annual trip to Taiwan: "There is a very large market that we go to. There are LOTS of people. Once, I almost got lost!"
Mrs. Connell: "Maybe your mom should get a little leash and pull you around like a puppy!"
3rd grader: "Do you do that with Mr. Connell?"


5th grade boy: "I was a very chubby baby."
Mrs. Connell: "I was, too."
5th grade boy: "I can tell." (this dude is going to have trouble finding a girlfriend.)


1st grader, talking about Mod Podge: "Mmm, this stuff smells like lavender." (WRONG.)


Mrs. Connell: "A collage is made of many pieces of things combined to make a larger artwork. You might use tissue paper, photos, drawings, scraps--"
1st grader: "And cake?" 


1st grade boy: "Ew, I don't want this pink, that's not a boy color."
Mrs. Connell: "Oh, c'mon! Lots of boys like pink."
1st grade boy: "Well they're disgusting."


2nd grade: "Mrs. Connell, how many kids do you wanna have?"
Mrs. Connell: "Oh, I don't know for sure. Maybe 4? Although Mr. Connell wants 3."
2nd grader: "Well it's YOUR choice!" (8-year-old feminist on board!)

With my student teacher, Miss Caruso:

Miss Caruso: "And this carving is really old, more than 500 years old!"
1st grader: "That's close to 29 years old!" (and then 28-year-old Mrs. Connell cried in a corner)

And my personal favorite:

2nd grader: "Mrs. Connell, are you havin' a baby?"
Mrs. Connell: "No."
2nd grader: "Well it looks like it." (neat.)

Gyotaku Prints!

When I saw gyotaku on Dali's Moustache, I knew that it HAD to be done! I have been looking forward to trying this project for months!

I opted to do this with my third graders--a moronic brave choice, considering how wild some of my third grade classes can be. But the appeal of working with fake rubbery fish won out over poor choices, and this ended up being a very successful project!

Very little introduction needs to be done for the kids to get excited about this project. I show them the following video to get them hyped!

For your reference, the above artist, Naoki, has a website with a lot of his gyotaku prints featured:

http://www.gyotaku.com/ 

And the following video is pretty cool, too, and is set to some neat music!

After discussing the art of gyotaku, or "fish rubbing," I had the kids paint their background paper. I experimented with a few papers but ultimately prefer using watercolor paper, as it isn't terribly thick but still holds up to the weight of watercolors and tempera combined. Our paper was 8 x 18".

The kids were allowed to choose the palette they used for the watercolored background, as well as choose whether they wanted an abstract cloudy/blob look, or a more organized pattern.

This underpainting took a full 45-minute class, which was perfect to move us into the second day, the big printing extravaganza!

I fully took advantage of Ren's fantastic idea to have extra gyotaku assignments prepared for the kids who weren't printing (as we couldn't do all prints at once). Kiddos designed their own funky fish and personalized stamp design, as per the worksheet you can find on Dali's Moustache:

Some of my early finishers wrote a few facts about their fish. My favorites include:

"This is Elvis Fish. He wants me to say, 'thank you, thank you very much' for reading about him."

"My fish makes man prints. He won first place for his man printing."

The third graders were absolutely nuts for this project. And, as with their Trapeze Artists, all of the other grade levels were totally jealous! For just two 45-minute classes, I am thrilled with the work that the students produced! These precious smiles prove that I'm not the only happy one:

This is such a cool job.