ok let's talk black glue and printing!

 so when i saw the black a while back i was pondering the many oh so groovy projects we could make!

so i nicely requested for a class set - i get up to 17 artists at a time with 2 assistants! it's awesome...




i got these from nasco - and we just played with them...

i chose printing and bugs for my 5/6 combo classes.

what we did:
1) we looked at - talked about - BUGS AND PRINTING  for about 20 minutes for both. next artists drew on the white board and my favorite thing - PRACTICE DRAWING

i really like the opportunity to have kids be sucessfull and often i give them a starting point.

so we worked on proportion and spacing and bug parts!

2) i brought ginormous plastic bugs to see up close and pairs chose one - or they had the option to pick something like a snail ...

3) with a very SOFT outline with NO details, artists drew a simple outline

4) then i passed out the glue bottles and on a scrap piece of paper 'played' with the glue and learned a little about this oh-so-cool medium before we used it

soooo glad we did this - the glue was gloppy - much thicker than any other glue -
5)so after a few sqweezies - artists 'outlined' or as they consistently want to say traced
the pencil.

 6) then artists took a second paper - carefully placed it over the glue - lightly pressed and peeled

VOILA WE PRINTED!
next class we saw our results - and were impressed!

we talked about what worked well what didn't - mirror image - and warm and cool colors.

artists picked one bug to be warm and the other to be cool! A BIG HIT!

what's your superpower?

what's your superpower?
my theme for the year is 'you are unique, valuable and the best art ever!'
to kick this off i did this lesson at the beginning of the year with the whole school! it took waaaay to long - 3 classes for some but the results were spectacular!
what we did:
1) we started a conversation about superpowers. i started with me and it went something like this...
i know my superpowers because they are something i love to do - like art - something someone else like a friend, teacher, mom or sister has told me about me - funny, kind, good at math.

2) we had to do it BIG and 'fill the space' - challenging because often kiddos want to make everything tiiiinyyy....so we practiced filling a 5X7 with a head and torso shapes.

3) artists were only allowed primaries black and white - i use tempera cakes and the kids dug it! we practiced blending all kinds of colors and of course skin colors were the most challenging!

 4) while we waited between drying times it was important to have one of our 'art talks' which is to discuss and storm our brains for superpowers - REAL ones - not what we want but what we already are. That conversation was absolutely worth the extra time...such kind and funny exchanges.

 5) then we got out the sharpies - always a favorite - and wrote the out on white thick paper copying from our storm list.

 6) and when they were finished...oh my! so much color - so much joy - and superpowers!

do you have superpowers? tell me!