Flexible Love

Not your Reader's Digest Christmas Tree

I remember when people used to make tabletop Christmas trees out of folded Reader's Digest magazines.  If you are feeling nostalgic, you can find the directions here.  Now artists are not only creating books as art, but using books as art.  Section 8A was able to take a break from their ATCs and look at the work of Australian artist Nicholas Jones.  Visit his website.

Click to see examples of the 8th grade sculptures.  

Susan Jensen is another book sculptor, as is Zito Bedat.         

4th Grade - A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

   

Reading clues section by section of a larger picture, making predictions each time a little more is revealed....

...until you see the whole picture.

The photos are from Carmen Lomas Garza's painting 'La Feria en Reynosa'.  Ms. Garza paints from childhood memories - traditions and celebrations.  

We also looked at 'Pull Boys' by Grandma Moses:

These are all examples of personal narratives - stories about a special time.  By showing a little bit of 'La Feria en Reynosa' at a time, we learned how important supporting details are in telling the whole story.  By concentrating on one small part of the painting we can write about the sensory images - the sizzling of the meat on the grill, the crackling fire, the smell of fresh bread....

We will start drawing and writing our personal narratives next week in class.

3rd Grade - Painted Ladies

We read the book "Oh Were They Ever Happy" by Peter Spier. In the book the Noonan children decide to paint their house while their parents are gone for the day. After drawing thier own homes, we looked at examples of 'painted ladies' - Victorian buildings built during Queen Victoria's time, painted in three or more contrasting colors. The colors are used to bring out the decorative ruffles and flourishes.

The students were able to design their own painted ladies for watercolors.

Click to see student examples.

Watch the Nippon commercial from Maylasia and the Sony Bravia commercial made in Scotland. How did they do that? Color your world!

6th Grade Texture

The 6th graders have been practicing line drawings - using a tool to make a mark on the paper. 

We also looked at how artists use lines:

edge and outline

expressive line

implied line

texture and pattern

We spent the next two class periods practicing drawing controlled lines and using lines to create patterns, and patterns to create texture.

                 

Click to see some student examples.

5th Grade - Slits and Strips

The 5th graders are starting samplers for paper weaving (like an example on a bedside table at Riverside at the Farnsley Moremen Landing) , starting with a simple Over/Under and changing variables... right now that means the width of the slits and the strips.  If the students feel comfortable enough they may accept the challenge to try both a twill and herringbone weave.

 twill                          herringbone

Did you know that the Jacquard Loom is a distant ancestor of 20th-century computers?  The Jacquard mechanism, the first practical application of punch-cards (binary system), had significance beyond the textile industry.  It offered solutions to problems faced by 19th-century inventors of computing machines and can be considered a distant ancestor of 20th-century computers.

8th grade challenge

Our version of a 'quickfire' or 'short cut challenge'... create a paper landscape that includes a fence, an animal and a tree.

Click to see some student examples.

Some of the artists examples we looked at include:

Richard Sweeney

Jen Stark

Peter Callesen

Nishimura

Laura Cooperman

Su Blackwell