Textures and Illusions

The Craft-o-saurus Rex has been at it again. (Yes, that’s me.) Dreaming up art projects for kids big and small. These days I’m posting lessons online and I’m trying to create projects that do not require unusual supplies. After all, we are homebound and most students don’t have clay at home. But if you have paper and a pencil, you’re an artist. Yes, you heard it here.

The younger students learned how to do texture rubbings with crayons. My older students blew me away with their Op Art projects.

In case you have not done crayon rubbings before, it’s fun for artists of all ages (2 to 102, and beyond!). Texture rubbing is done by placing paper over a surface that has a raised pattern. To transfer the texture, you take a pencil or crayon and color back and forth over the paper until you see the texture emerge onto your paper. I encouraged my students to become detectives, hunting indoors and outside for raised texture. You can make texture rubbings over sidewalks, chicken wire, Legos, sneaker tread, kitchen utensils, raised metal or plastic or wooden details, to name only a few ideas. There are endless options and part of the fun is looking around for textures. After making several rubbings, I asked the students to cut their samples into pieces and make a collage using the different patterns. I absolutely love how imaginative they were.

Now for the older kids. They learned about Op Art, a movement that began in the 1960s. It’s short for Optical Art, and the idea is that on a two-dimensional surface, the artist uses line, shape, colors and shading to produce optical illusions. Some Op art appears three-dimensional, and some even appears to move.

Full disclosure: I adapted this Op Art lesson from one I found online by a teacher named Mrs. Filmore (artwithmrsfilmore.com). There are some great art lessons online and I chose hers. I added to it by including my own tips on how to shade and highlight.

I want to put the spotlight on my hard-working students because no matter how good a lesson plan is, if the students don’t care or don’t try, you’re not going to get great results. Furthermore, this would have been a hard lesson to do even if we were in the classroom, where I could help them in person. Having them follow my recipe in printed form online is harder. It requires their attention and patience. I’m so proud that some of my least attentive, most talkative kids buckled down and produced beautiful art. You can tell that the students took a lot of time to finish their work. My estimate is that some took several hours.

This project was intended for students in grades 5-8, although one ambitious fourth grader did it, too.

The student were given a choice. They could freestyle their own Op art or do the lesson I posted on Converging Lines, which features at least six triangular sections that appear to be curved like cones, and meet in the distance.  Many of the art pieces you will see below are similar, but I chose to include lots of them because this project was such a challenge and the kids really knocked it out of the park.

There are a few more projects I want to share in coming weeks. So don’t go anywhere (as if you have a choice!), because I will be back soon with more Adventures in Art…

Art and Nature go Hand in Hand

Did you notice that the word “nature” has the letters A and R and T in it? ART! 

(This post is meant to be.)

Earlier this school year my students created two nature-inspired art projects that I want to share on my blog. I’m showing the projects now for two reasons. 1) We all need a little boost and some entertainment while we wait out the quarantine. 2) The principal asked me to hold all the art we made this year for our art show this spring. We aren’t able to have a show so I am sorting art to return to the kids (eventually), and I’m getting to revisit the amazing art my students created.

The first project was done by fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh graders last September. They created fall trees, using pieces of Origami paper. I asked them to cut pieces of Origami paper because I thought the trees would look beautiful if they had a patchwork of various patterns. It is a little strange to show this fall-themed project in spring, but that’s okay. (And it is fall in the southern hemisphere, so…) Plus, it’s always fun to see what kids make.

The second project is one that all my students did, from Kindergarteners up through eighth graders. We learned about the famous Japanese artist, Katsushika Hokusai. If you are not familiar with that name, I’m almost certain that you have seen his best-known piece of art, The Great Wave (1831). The three boats in this woodcut print symbolized both danger and opportunity. Japan was facing change in 1831, when Hokusai created his print, because the country was about to end more than two hundred years of political isolation from the rest of the world. 

My youngest students colored in a simple wave shape that I drew for them. The older students created their own waves, and added lots of detail. Some students copied the original print almost exactly (and I was amazed at how close they were to the original). Many students made stylized waves. The assignment was never about copying the original. Our waves were based on the overall shape and color scheme of Hokusai’s work, but I think it’s too much pressure to expect an exact copy. Plus, I want the kids have the freedom to imagine their own wave.

When I first started this blog post, I was not intentionally pairing Origami trees with Hokusai’s wave. These were two projects I had not yet shared in my blog, and I wanted to show the kids’ work. The fact that these projects share a Japanese aspect was a happy coincidence, so I will sign off using two of the few words I know in Japanese.

Arigato (thank you) for reading.

Sayonara! (bye)

Cactus Huggers

“Homebody” has taken on new meaning lately. We all are staying home because of the virus that shall not be named. But life goes on, and school certainly continues.

At the elementary school where I teach art, the teachers have developed an online teaching system. I have posted two art lessons online, and I was delighted by what my students made.

I’d like to share three different art projects by my students.

First will be cactus drawings.

Second will be colorful wire sculptures made by my 8^th grade students before school was closed.

Last will be still life drawings done by my older students.

First, the cactus huggers. (Please note that cactus hugging is not advised, nor does it reflect the views of the author or the Blogspot website. Do so at your own risk.)

The cactus drawings were made by tracing kids’ hands onto paper. The sky was a sunset sky, created by doing a gradation of colors from light to dark. I encouraged the kids to add needles and flowers to their cacti. Although all the cactus drawings are similar in some ways, I love how each student personalized his or hers. Each sky and cactus has its own colorful look.

This creative paper sculpture was made by a student who wanted her cactus to be 3-D.

Next, we have a cute collection of small wire sculptures. My eighth grade students were asked to make something 3-D with colorful wire. Some followed a tutorial on caterpillars but a few students freestyled and came up with their own ideas. I thought this tree was particularly charming.

This tree has so much texture. I love how the student wrapped the wire.

Butterfly resting on a flower.

The still life drawings really impressed me. It’s hard enough for kids to do this kind of art in the classroom, with me right there to help them understand shading and perspective. But this project was given online, so the beautiful drawings done were finished with no hands-on assistance by me. I thought the kids did an amazing job.

My fifth grade student really amazed me with this one.

I love that this 6th grader was not afraid to use dark tones.

My online teaching will continue for the next month or two month as school may not reopen until the fall. So I will have more student art to share in the next few months. I hope you liked seeing what the kids made and I wish you good health and safety as we shelter at home. I also hope that if you are out in nature you are keeping a six foot distance from any cacti out there. Admire the cacti. Wave from afar. Tree hugging is fine, but please don’t be a cactus hugger.