Project #13 Lacy Clay Ornaments

The last lesson was mine and Melanie Jorgenson’s, and we taught our lesson on clay and lace. Our project for our students was to create clay ornaments using lacy or metal filigree designs. We started out the lesson with the different vocabulary that was included in our lesson. We then explained the history of lace and the history of metal filigree to our students. We then instructed the students to draw out their design of what they will use as their ornament on the construction paper. They were instructed to then outline their design with a permanent marker so they could see it through the wax paper when they taped the wax paper to their construction paper. They then were given a baggie filled with water and clay. They were instructed to mix the clay and water evenly, so they were showed to work the clay in the baggie with their hands to evenly mix it. After their clay was mixed together well, they were instructed to cut a small hole in the bottom corner of the baggie so they could squeeze the clay through there. They then were instructed to apply a thick layer of clay over their drawn design. It was to be thick so that it would hold together and not break. When they were done tracing their ornament with clay, they were instructed to paint their ornament with water color paints, using either warm color schemes or cool color schemes. They were also told to add a tint or a shade to the paint. When the ornament was dried, they needed to tie a ribbon around their ornament so they could hang it up. This ribbon needed to match their color scheme used in the paint.

We used a 3-D cabinet for our display of the art projects. We hung up a few of the ornaments and laid the rest on the bottom, on top of a sheet of lace. We put a blue background to the display using a black border. We used the saying “There are no mistakes in lace, just misdirected threads that present a new challenge” by: Barbara Bulgarelli, in our display.

An extension activity that I would include in this project would be to start working with creating a “metal filigree” project. I would have the students find a flower pot or another product, or I will provide pots or vases for the students, and then they could look at metal filigree and create a clay outline on the pots or vase. Instead of making an ornament, they could create the design on a flower pot, and then let it dry to show the metal filigree look.

Project #12 Stepping Stones

This lesson was taught by Kirsten Cronin and Jackie Eikamp and they taught us about stepping stones. Before the day of their lesson, they asked us to bring in a photo that meant a lot to us, and they laminated the photo for us. They started by teaching us the different techniques or designs of stepping stones. They gave us a piece of paper then to draw our design out, or what we were going to use in our stepping stone. They called us over to then have cement poured in our plastic containers. They instructed that we shake the cement around in the container so that air bubbles would come to the top so we could pop them. After that, we were instructed to place paper towels on the top to soak up some of the excess water from the cement. Then we were instructed to start decorating our stepping stone using our picture and different colored stones, glass pieces, and marbles. I used balance in my stepping stone, which shows that each side of the stepping stone is the same. I decorated mine with my picture of my family. My family means everything to me, and so I decided to put a picture of them on my stone. I used pink, blue, green, and orange stones to decorate the stepping stone, as well as using large marbles to hold my picture in. I also place a butterfly on my stone to add color and the spring/summer time feeling!

An extension activity that I would have my students do with this project would be to include science. We would work with cement and the chemical make up to see why it hardens when water is added to it. We could then experiment with other fluids such as coffee, or juice to see what that does to the cement. We would then make our own stepping stones using these fluids and see what different colors the fluids create.

Project #11 Print It!

This lesson was taught by Allison Vetch and Laura Opsahl. They started out the lesson by explaining the art instruments that we would be using and telling us a little about each of them. They then read through an Easter book where a chicken would lay different colors and different designs of eggs. We were instructed to draw a picture of our own egg that we would be printing later. I drew flowers and ribbons on my egg as well as including my name. We then were given a piece of Styrofoam to draw our egg into. We used sticks to puncture the Styrofoam into our designs of our eggs. We then went on to the ink and we used rollers to roll the ink onto the Styrofoam pieces. Then we placed a piece of paper over the foam and pressed them tightly together so that ink covered the entire design of our egg onto the paper. There were 5 colors of ink to choose from. I chose yellow, red, blue, and silver ink to roll onto my foam piece. We were then instructed to let our prints dry for at least 24 hours. After they were dry, we glued all 4 prints onto a construction paper.

For an extension activity to this project, I would have my students experiment with using paint brushes on the prints instead of rollers. The reason they would need to use paint brushes would be so that they can add as many colors to their picture as possible. For example, instead of my egg being one color only, we would use the paint brushes to color the ribbons red and the flowers blue, I would paint my name silver and have the outside of the egg be yellow. The pictures would not just be one color, but be full of color.

Project #10 Scratch Art

This next lesson was taught by Justin Kiefer and Nicole Bruemmer. They taught us how to create scratch art. They explained the scratching terms of hatching and cross hatching. We also learned how to create other designs by simply making small circles to shows dots or by just leaving a space free of scratches. They also emphasized that we scratch on the paper hard enough to draw the designs, but not too hard that we dull the wooden stick. They started out the project by giving each of us a different shape and we were to create any picture using our imagination of what we thought it most resembled, and then we finished drawing that picture. We then drew this same picture on our scratch sheet with the wooden stick. I created my picture into a goose. I used hatching and cross hatching on my scratch art. To finish our project, we placed a border around our picture to bring out the scratch art.

An extension activity that I would teach with this lesson is to have them create a story of their picture. It can be a short story, but the students must be able to show the story in the picture by creating the necessary scratches “bring the picture alive!”For example, my picture is of a goose. I would write a story about how maybe the goose lost her baby and she is in a panic. I would have to add more scratches to my picture to show my goose panicking by scratching ruffles in her feathers and by the scratching worry lines on her face. I think students would look more into their scratch arts and they would easily be able to bring their picture “alive!”

Project #9 Andy Warhol Pop Art

The next lesson was taught by Ms. Katzenberger and Ms. Mammenga and they taught us about the Andy Warhol pop art using oil crayons. They described to us that when he drew a picture, he would create the same picture with 3 replicas, each in different colors or shades. We started out by choosing an item from the table and were asked to draw a replica of it as close to it as possible. My group chose a flower watering can. When we were finished with drawing the item, we traced them with a black sharpie marker. We then were asked to choose a color scheme that we wanted to work with for our picture. I chose cool colors; purple, darker purple, and blue. We chose 3 colors and started with coloring the object with one color; coloring the outside of the object with a different color; and then coloring the rest of the paper with a different color. We learned how to blend our colors so that they blended together nicely, by pulling the colors with our finger tips. It was pretty cool to see! When we were finished with coloring our pictures, we put a black frame around the picture. We measured an exact inch of frame that would go around the entire picture.

An extension activity that I would do with this for my class is to have them write about the differences they see in each picture, and how each color scheme in the picture makes them feel. Questions that I would use would be; How does the warm color scheme make the picture look and make you feel?, or How does the cool color scheme make you feel?. After they are finished with their pictures, they would be able to look into the picture and pull out what they think of the colors and how the colors make them feel. I know when I saw the water picture painted with warm colors, I thought of it sitting on the table early in the morning with the sun shining in on it. Sometimes, different color schemes can remind you of things that you have seen before in your life.

Project #8 Rainbow Fish Collage

For the third peer lesson, Ms. Anderson and Ms. Deslauriers taught us about paper collages. They started out by reviewing the story, “Rainbow Fish.” They gave us an outline of 2 fish and had us free hand draw the fish we wanted to use for our collage. We were not allowed to trace the fish. We cut the fish out and then began ripping different colored construction paper to glue onto the fish. We glued the construction paper onto the fish, overlapping the previous piece of construction paper to create the collage. We reviewed primary and secondary colors and were to identify which of the colors we used in our fish. After that, we were allowed to decorate the fish with sequins, tin foil, and glitter. I decided to create a rainbow fish. I used all the colors of the rainbow and then used a sequin for the eye, tin foil on the tail, and then glitter throughout the body.

For an extension activity, I would have my students create an ocean theme and place their fish in the ocean on a bulletin board. They could then create a story of how their fish helped other fish in the ocean, just like Rainbow Fish did. They could work together on their stories and create one big class story of how their fish would be a helpful fish in the ocean. We would then place the story up with the fish for everyone to see.

Project #7 Pebble Painting

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The second peer lesson was presented by Ms. Wiekamp and Ms. Trautner and they taught Pebble Painting. They started out the lesson by reviewing the story, “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.” I really enjoy that book! We then took our shoe boxes and placed a construction sheet of paper on the bottom of it. We chose between 3 different pebbles to paint with; small, medium, and large. I chose the medium pebble first and dipped it into red paint. I then placed the pebble in the shoebox, closed the shoebox, and then shook it so that paint covered the entire piece of construction paper. When I was done, there were different shapes on my paper. I then moved to the next station and chose a small pebble and placed it in yellow paint. I did the same thing that I did with the first pebble and then moved onto the next station where I continued on with the same procedure with using a large pebble in blue paint. We used all three primary colors and then we were to mix two of the primary colors to create a secondary color using the pebbles as well. I mixed blue and red together and created purple. I then mixed yellow and blue to make green. We then traced shapes and cut them out to trace onto our papers that were speckled with paint from the pebbles. I made a triangle, diamond, square, rectangle and a circle. I then pasted each of these shapes onto a big construction paper.

An extension activity that I would have my students do with this project is to create pictures using the shapes. For example, they could use the square to make a house, a triangle to make the roof for the house, and the circle as a sun. They could also experiment with other shaped pebbles, sharp or round, and different colors of paint to create their pebble paintings.

Project #6 Weaving

Ms. Thorne and Ms. Jundt started out the peer lessons with the weaving project. We learned about different forms of weaving and what different things are made because of weaving, including cloths and baskets. We learned about warm colors and cool colors as well as shades and tints. To begin this lesson, we started with taping 4 strips of newspaper across the top and taping it around to the back. We then taped 4 more strips of newspaper across the other 4 strips of paper and taped them around to the back. We twisted the newspaper strips and weaved them within the other strips, going under the other, then over the other, then under and then over again. We did that with all 8 strips of newspapers. After that, we taped down the papers to the back so that they stayed in place. We then chose which set of colors we wanted to use and whether or not we added a shade or a tint. For my weaving project, I chose warm colors and added the tint white to lighten the colors. I also put glitter across my weaving.

An extension activity that I would do with this project is to work with cloth or yarn and weave different colors of them together. They can weave these together and then pull the ends tight to create a small blanket or cloth. You can have the students cut the cloth or yarn the same length as the other ones so that one piece is not longer than the other. This will make it look neater and show the students that they can create a nice blanket.

Project #5 Hidden Safari

For this project, we learned about safaris and animals you can find in safaris. We started out with watching the beginning of the Lion King to see the different animals that we would see in a safari. We also talked about warm colors and cool colors. It was important to know these colors because we used the combination of them to create our drawing. We learned out to draw, even draw upside down!  We were told to follow how the lines and not focus on what we were actually drawing. This was actually easier for me to draw upside down. I decided to draw a zebra. We were supposed to draw our animal in a sky blue colored pencil. After we were finished with our animal, we drew different patterns over top of the animal with warm colors, such as red, orange, and yellow. I used first orange to draw circles across the whole page.  I then used red to draw hearts in between the circles. I then used yellow to draw lines through the middle of the page. The last thing I did was draw little dots of orange in the middle of the circles. I did this to hide the picture so that you can’t see the zebra.

In order for someone to see the zebra now, we made “Ruby Red Glasses” out of construction paper and cellophane paper. When you put these special glasses on, you will see past all the designs, and see the animal.  This happens because the glasses take away the warm colors and show the cool colors, which is the sky blue. The last thing we did was write three clues about our animal, so that people will be able to guess the animal before they look through the glasses to reveal the real animal. This project was a lot of fun because it was interesting to see how you can actually make a real life safari! Students will have no idea what to look for in the picture until they put their special glasses on! It is just a fun activity to get the students in a safari unit.

An extension activity that I would do with this project would be to have the students draw a safari scene in their hidden picture. They can include as many animals as they would like, and then they would be required to add a small paragraph of each animal explaining where you can find them, where they live, and what they eat. Students will have to provide information about the many animals they include in the hidden picture. This way, they will be learning about animals, as well as drawing them in an example safari. They can make the “Ruby Red Glasses” as well and search their friends’ safari to find out what animals they have in their picture. They will also have the opportunity to learn more about their friend’s animals from the paragraphs they write.

Project #4 Collage Illustration

For this project, we learned about the author and illustrator, Eric Carle. He writes children’s books and uses painting, cutting, and pasting to create his pictures. He will paint a blank piece of paper many different colors and textures. He will then take his picture that he originally drafted and cut the shapes out to trace out of the colors. It was really neat to see and I never expected that to be the way of his drawings. I have always loved Eric Carle’s books and I thought the pictures were particular when it came to the shapes of the objects. For the project, we were able to paint our own papers and use them to cut our shapes out of. I decided to create one of my favorite sceneries in the summertime. I created a collage of a sunset and a slough where there are many fireflies. In the summertime, it is very common to find fireflies by the slough that is a ½ mile away from my home, so I enjoy riding my bike to go see them. I painted an orange paper to show a sunset and I also painted a green paper to show grass for cattails. I chose to place a quote on my picture and it says “Let your personality Shine, to Light your own Path”. I meant for this to mean that everyone is different, even fireflies. Everyone has something different to offer and should be proud of what they have and can give to the world.

For an extension activity, I would have my students create a class story. I would introduce Eric Carle to the class and show them his techniques of creating a collage. I would have the students create their pages of color and textures to show an individual page to use in the collage for our class story, similar to the project we did in class. We would decide on a story, and each student would be responsible for writing a page in the book. It would have to be in the correct order with everyone else’s pages of the book so that the story would go in the right order. This would be a great way for the students to create a book and have a class project.

Project #3 Finger Painting

This is my finger painting, and I have entitled it ‘Home’. Before we painted, we learned about Vincent Van Gogh and his styles of painting. We learned about the lines he used to show movement and emotion. One painting of Van Gogh’s that we observed was ‘Starry Night’. It was neat to see how the lines and colors blended together to create feeling. We were then given the opportunity to either paint a replicate of the ‘Starry Night’ or create our own picture. I decided to create my own picture, to use the combination of colors and lines to show my feelings of something that is very important to me in my life, which is ‘Home’. The rules of this painting were to use foreground, middle ground, and background. In my picture, it shows my farm.  The foreground is of my house, the middle of our barn, and the background of cows grazing and a corn field. I love being home and everything about it; the animals, my family, the space, the beauty, and the great sense of knowing when life knocks you down, you always have somewhere to go to just “get away from everything bad”. In this finger painting, I tried to use lines like those of Van Gogh’s to show texture of the grass, roofs of buildings, and the road. I used many colors and mixed them to create darker colors or lighter colors.

For an extension activity, I would also have my students learn about Vincent Van Gogh and his painting styles of lines and movement. We would discuss how to mix colors and how to create lines using your whole finger, or just the tip of your finger. The activity I would have them do to illustrate what they learned, would be to finger paint their favorite season. They can use the many colors of the season they like the best and combine it with lines to show movement. For example, if one student’s favorite season is spring, they can show movement with the spring showers on colorful flowers and show blending colors as well. If another student’s favorite season is fall, they can paint leaves blowing around the picture using lines to show movement. I think my students would be able to express themselves with their favorite season and the wonderful colors that go along with it, as well as using lines to express movement in their pictures.

Project #2 Elements and Principles of Design

     For this project, we were to find or take pictures of the different elements and principles of design. The Elements of design are line, shape, color, value, texture and space. The principles of art are balance, movement, rhythm, contrast, emphasis, pattern and unity. We were able to take any picture that included the elements of disign and principles of art. We put the pictures into a powerpoint and gave a little explanation of each element and principle. The pictures below are a couple from my powerpoint presentation. 

The first picture is of the Falls Park waterfall.  This picture shows movement. Movement is an action shot and shows the blurred motion of a subject.

This second picture shows Texture. Texture is the actual or visual feel of the surface. If you could touch the surface, how would it feel? In this photo, you are able to see the slime on the cow's nose and the hair on her face.

 For an extension activity I would have the students create thier own pictures.  I would like to see how the students express thier ideas of the elements and principles of design. They can draw pictures of lines, shapes, color, texture, and the other elements and principles. With the right tools and help from me, I will show them how to create thier pictures so that they express these elements. After they draw a few of the pictures, I will have them point out and describe what elements they created in the picture. They can explain to me what they do and thier description. If I can get them to talk about the elements and principles, they will be able to understand and remember them more easily, and know what to look for when looking at pictures.  

Footprint

The first project we did in ARTE 310 was creating a footprint. We were to trace our foot and decorate it with different mediums that describe us. For class, we then introduced ourselves using this foot. We described everything on the foot and explained how it is important to us.

This is my Foot!

I created my foot to be a cow! I did this because I grew up on a dairy farm and love the farm life! I also have pink toenails because I love having my toes painted! I rarely ever have them not painted. There is a fishing rod and a fish because I love to go fishing with my family and boyfriend. I have a picture of a cat because my favorite animal is a cat! There is a purple crayon on my foot to represent my love of coloring! Any free time I have, I like to color with my little siblings. This leads me to my family sticker. I love my family with all my heart and they mean the world to me. I don't know where I would be without them and thier support and love. I love my Dad and Mom, my oldest sister Sarah and her husband Bryan; my second oldest sister, Lisa; my younger brother, Jeremy; my younger twin siblings, Brianna and Brian; and my youngest sister Makenzie. I love them all! I have music notes because I love listening to country music whenever I am doing anything. For example, when I am out in the field, I will also have my country music there. When I am cleaning or even doing homework, country music is there as well! I have a Disney sign because I am still a kid at heart and I love to watch Disney movies! I am also starting my collection over of Disney movies on DVD. I have pieces of corn and straw on my foot as well to represent little pieces of home. There are always pieces of corn and straw everywhere you look, whether it be in the barn or in your boot after doing chores! I have the sticker Children because I love children. That is one reason I am going to be a teacher! I also work at a daycare and enjoy being around the children. The two stick figures are the children to go along with the children sticker. Across the top of my foot, I have jelly beans and dot candies. I really like gummy candies to snack on. There were quite a few descriptions on my one little foot, but I hope that you were able to learn a little about me and what is important in my life!

An extension activity that I could do in my classroom would be to incorporate it into a social studies unit. It could be called "Footprints around the world". We could create a footprint for each place we visit on the map. For example, we would learn about Mexico, Europe, Africa, and many more. The students can create a footprint of each place and put things on it that they learned about it. They can share thier footprints and they can learn about thier place they studied.