Lines, Paper and Everything Else Art Blog: 2015

As a continuation to the Bead Chandelier/Mobile project before the long winter break, the children were shown videos on Alexander Calder and his contribution to the Mobile/Stabile as well as working with wire, making a wire circus and introducing the world to Linear Sculpture, which is essentially a contour design (where you don't pick up your pencil) using wire. However, since I am not Mr. Calder, Mrs. Slats came up with an activity to incorporate the students "found objects" into our own Linear Sculpture to help decorate the Art Room walls. Due to all the end of the year activities and some field trips I was limited in my time with the students. It turned out successfully, although I did have to adjust what the design was, based on the children available to me.

My focus for this lesson was to teach the children how to work with wire (yes, even 1st grade) and twist wire around their object in such a way that it would not come loose. It is no easy task I tell you. Ironically enough, the fact that we were kind of "wrapping a present with ribbon" couldn't come at a better time as I told all the children, they may now help their parents with the holiday wrapping with their new technique!!

I made the outline with sturdier wire and the children helped connect to each other to form the inside of each letter/character with thin pliable wire.

This whole idea is based on Calder's Fish. (This is where you keep an open mind and remember that I am not Mr. Calder :-)

Calder's Fish

Here is the end result hanging in the art room for their children to admire:

Don't you just love the "found objects" the children brought in!

"Pulling a Print"

We have been busy-busy in the art room for the past couple of months. After the long winter break, I began rolling out power points on the International Study Focus for each elementary grade level to apply to our Block Printing Project. Each child was to design their own building/ship using design elements from their International Study per grade level. We designed in our Art Journals, transferred the design to foam blocks using a relief technique and used brayers and special block printing ink to produce gorgeous prints.

Here is what our kids are learning in art:

1st: Asian Architecture
2nd: Ancient Greek Architecture
3rd: Viking Architecture
4th: Middle Ages (Romanesque & Baroque Architecture)
5th: European Explorer Ships

Our SECRET PASSWORDS for this study have included: Block Printing, Architecture, International Focus, Pulling (a print), Texture, Editing

It has been fascinating for me not only to learn about these different architectural design elements, but to be able to teach them to the children has given me great pleasure. Our school architecture is actually modeled after Greek Architecture we noticed as a class (2nd grade) see evidence below.

As a class, we were able to determine they used Doric Columns (the most simple) for our building.

I introduced a lot of new vocabulary in each of the grades. The biggest reward was having the children make connections to the ideas I was teaching when they were visiting places, such as Epcot Center, which has information there about Viking Houses in Norway.

All in all, this was a fantastic learning experience for me and the children to help tie in to the International Study Focus in the classrooms as well. The children and I have also created classroom banners to proudly display our interpretation of each study with fabric pennants and our "best" block print. Enjoy the photos. More to come if I can remember to take my camera more often!