Stained Glass

What do most people think when the word stained glass? Many will say bright colors, and church. Well in this last lesson the class learned about stained class. Examples whould be, why were they made, and why most of them had to do with the church.
In this project we made tissue paper stained glass. Forst what we did was we had to take holiday type themes and cut out the negitive space and then when we were done, we then had to fill the space with tissue paper that had a certin color theme. Examples would be using the primary colors, or use only warm colors. In my piece I mainly used the cool colors because I like the way they look. It was kind of fun making this project. So tell me what you think?

~Monica

Nature Printmaking

One of the other things I really enjoy becides sculpture is printmaking. I'm told that for some reason, many sculptures enjoy printmaking as well. I think thats true. My main reason is because its the interaction with the plate as the artist is creating their image.
What the class had to do for this project was to take a piece of fome and draw an image from nature. Being the fact that I like owls, thats what I decided to draw. Then we also had to make sure that there was a difference in line work, example thin line vs. thick line. Then when we were doen the students had to take it over to another table where we could choose between red, yellow, and blue ink. Next we rolled the ink on the fome plate and then tracefered the ink onto paper of out color choosing. I decided that I wanted to use black paper because owls are up in the night. However, the blue ink was dark on the paper, so I had to add a bit of white so the image could be seen. All in all I think I did great and I loves how the image turned out for what I was able to work with. Tell me what you think?

~Monica

Welcome to the Cave

Back before there were paint in tubes, how did the cave people paint? Well many people believe that the cave people used mud and mixed items that had color in them to make color paint. Some examples would be red flowers to make red paint, or grass and leaves to make green.
In this project we had to think of an exciting event and paint it. Only we had to use colored mud. Then we had to use some natural things to add texture. Some examples would be twigs, grass, leaves... My memory was when I was up in Canada with my dad and we watched the sunset over the lake. Though I did find it hard to pint the picture; and acctually I think that my final painting wasnt really all that good. I found it hard to blend the colors to make the sunset, but I did try my best. Then for texture I added some grass on the mountain.
Tell me what you think.

~Monica



Leaves Falling

Red, yellow, and orange. Thats what many people think of when they hear the word fall. In this lesson the class tas taught about warm colors, and cool colors. What we first had to do for this project was to take crayons of the warm colors and shave them onto a piece of wax paper. Then after we had enough, the paper was then folded in half and put onder an iron so the crayons could melt into a blen of warm colors. then what we had to do was take that wax paper and draw at least thre leaves and cut them out. then after the class had glued them onto paper we then had to take oil pastels in the cool colors and draw more leaves around the warm ones to make a collage.
The point of this lesson was to learn about the warm and cool colors. Tell me what you think and how I could have emproved.

~Monica

Under the Sea

In this lesson we were taught about drawing. What the class was given was two sheets of that paper that you can do scratch art on. You know the paper that is black and then when tool that has a fine point on it so moved across the paper it scratches away the black and leaves the color that it under it.
What we had to do was there were many different sea animals the the class could choose from. I choose the sea hourse, because I though it w as fun. Then we had to draw the picture of the sea animal on paper and then transfer the image to the scratch art paper and then scratch away. Also one of the things that we had to do was make the sea animal look like it had texture to it. What I did was I added little dots to the picture to add both shade and texture. The darker the place, the more dots I added. I have to say that by doing that method it did take a long time, but in the end it was worth it.

~Monica

Birds of a feather

This is the lesson that I helped teach. It had to do with 3D design and it was fun. Being mostly a sculpture I thought that it was fun to teach about working in the round. Not saying that working 2D is bad, I just prefer 3D. Anyway what the stidents had to do for this project was to color and assemble the bird that was put before them. Meaning that they got a sheet of thin cardboard with a bird template and the cut it out colored and put it together.
Before they really had to work on it , my partner and I thought that it would be nice if the students made a little description of whay and why their birds are the way they are. After that was done they were able to make their birds. There were some things that they had to do. the first was to add color; second assemble. Third add texture/ pattern, and last punch holes inorder to hang the bird in the hallway.
I have to say that I loved making my bird. What it said about my bird that his name is Rainbow Wing and he is the best when it comes to mixing colors. He basicly knows whats best when it comes to color.
Well what do you think? should I have done anything different? Let me know.

~Monica

Clay Necklaces

With this project it was one of the first lessons that were taught by two of my classmates. In this project we were taught about clay. What we had to do for this project was to create five beads useing the clay that was given to us. The rest of the class was told that after the beads were dry we had to paint them. One of the restrictions was that we had to use atleast 3 different colors.
I decided that I didnt want to creat just round beads, I wanted to make swirl beads, and thats what I did. Also if we wanted, we could create more than 5 beads if we so choose. In total I made 9 beads.
The point of this lesson was to leatn about how to use clay. How to shape, swist, and a few vocab terms as well. The group that prsented this project did a fantastic job, there lesson was more towards 1st graders and they did a great job breaking it down in simple terms for 1st graders to understand.

~Monica

Safari Hunt

Another project that we did had to do with warm and cool colors. The first thing the class had to do was to think of an animal that you would see on a safari hunt. For myself, I picked a giraffe. The next step was to then take a light blue color pencil and draw that animal upside down. We were told that by drawing the animal upside down, the brian works harder on the picture. Then we had to take our warm color crayons and draw a design that would fill the page. By doing so it would create a disquise. But how would we see the animal? Well the next step was to create a pair of red glasses useing paper and red filter. Only then would we see the animal in the safari hunt. Down below you will see two pictures. One showing the finished picture both with and without the red filter.

Tell me what you think.

~Monica

Eric Carle Collage

Have you ever herd of The Very Hungry Caterpiller? Most people have; however for those sho have not I will tell you a bit about it. It starts with a new born caterpiller. When the little caterpiller is born he is very hungry so he starts to eat, and he eats and eats and eats until finaly over 5 days of eating he is finaly full. Then he starts making a cacoon. Then after a while he becomes a butterfly.
The author of this story is Eric Carle and he is not only the writer of these children books, but also the illustrator. Whae I find amasing about his work is that each page is a collage. He cuts out each shape with tissue paper that he has painted himself and pates it on the paper to create the page in the book.
The reason why I'm telling you about this is because for one of the projects we had to take the collage method that Eric Carle uses for his books and make a collage ourselves. However, we only had to make one page from our story that we created.
In my story it's about a very little inchworm, and she see's all these other bugs and they all can do wonderful things, but the little inchworm can not. so she is sad and one of the bugs- the firefly, tells her that even though she can't do anything, she can be something, and that something is a thing that she always was... a very good friend. Then the little inchworm understands and becomes very happy because she has found her special thing.
After we had our story page idea we then took paper and painted them fun colors and then cut them out into the pieces that we needed and made a collage. I wanted my page to be full so I added grass to the background. All in all I think it turned out great. Let me know what you think.

~Monica

Van Gogh Part 2

In the previous blog I had explained the first part of what the class did for the Van Gogh method. For part two we had to take the method that Van Gogh used, mainly the Starry Night swirls and use it to make a collage.
First we took tissue paper and cut out some wave pieces and swirles. Then the class glued them to colored paper of our choice, I choose white so the colors will pop. After it was dry we then drew swirls and more lines with silver sharpie and oil pastels. The next step was to take black paper and create a cut out city scape. Though if you didn't want to make a city scape, you could make something else. Thats what I did. I decided that I will do more of an underwater type thing. After I had created my background I then cut out rock shapes and two fish. Then I added silver sharpie lines to make them look more like rocks and fish.

The point of this lesson was to understand the use of swirls and apply other mediums to it. I feel like I did a great job on this project. the only downside is that I didn't use swirls, only waves. Tell me what you think; does it look okay with only the waves, or should I have added swirls?
~Monica

Van Gogh Starry Night

Who here has ever finger painted? For the second project we did we, you guessed it, fingerpainted. The goal was to take Van Goghs Starry Night and recreate it only useing our fingers. We were only given a few colors- red, yellow, blue, black, and white. However, if some so choose they could have used the method that Van Gogh used, and painted an other painting useing that method. The method that Van Gogh created is the use of bold brush strokes and the colors really didn't blend together.

However, for my project I just decided to paint Starry Night. But the point was to understand the method and apply it to the paper. This project was only part one, in the next blog I will explane part two to you. Also don't foget to tell me what you think.
~Monica



Are you ready?

 For the first project that what are some things we like to do or love. After we brain stormed for a while, the class was told that we need to trace our foot because like our fingerprints, our footprints are also different. We could trace our shoe or the foot itself. Then within  the foot print we were told to draw the things that we enjoy. The goal was to fill the footprint and use three different art mediums.
While I was thinking about my footprint, I thought about what your footprint would look like when people walk of the beach. You wouldn't normally see the whole foot. Most of the time what you would see is the toes, ball, and heel of the foot and not normally the arch (unless your flat foot). thats exactly what I did. For the drawing inside, I drew just a few of my favorite things. Examples would be, owls, books, the oudoors, my home state Minnesota, and art. Also one of the last things that we had to have on the footprint is our name
Well there it is, thats what I did for the first project. Let me know how I did. The next post will be soon.

~Monica

Update!!!!

Hey sorry that I haven't been on for quite some time. However, I do have good news. Now that the semester is almost over I have compiled all the work that I have done over the semester in K-8 Methods. Over the next few day's, every hour on the hour I will be posting an activity that I've done. In between each hour would be the time to tell me what you think, or how I could inprove. Some of these lessons might be changed so that when I do become an art teacher, these lessons will be most effective toward the children. Let me know what you think.