Faith Ringgold Story Quilts

I had been planning to create story quilts inspired by Faith Ringgold's "Tar Beach" with my homeschool students, but couldn't think of the right angle for it. I didn't want to have them spend a class writing a story--we are too limited on time. Then I saw the post for Story Quilts done by Ms. Gram. She posed this question to her students: "If you could fly anywhere in the world, real or imaginary, where would you go?" Ah-ha! Just what I needed! 

Our completed quilt (I have a much smaller class this semester,
check out Ms. Gram's site to see this on a larger scale).

Check out the specifics for her lesson, here.

Here are our quilt squares...

I'd fly to a meadow; I'd fly to Cabela's

I'd fly everywhere; I'd fly to outer space ad touch the stars

I'd fly to some random Tokyo mall; I'd fly to L.L. Bean

I'd fly to Moscow, I'd fly to Australia to see bats

And here are some other books you may find helpful for a project like...

"Cassie's Word Quilt," by Faith Ringgold (The main character of the "Tar Beach" book stars in this picture book full of words).

"Dia's Story Cloth: The Hmong People's Journey to Freedom," by Dia Cha (This is more of an embroidered quilt, but it chronicles the journey of these refugees from Southeast Asia and their search for freedom).

"Talking With Tebé: Clementine Hunter, Memory Artist," Edited by Mary E. Lyons (the quilts and paintings of this self-taught African American folk artist pair well with Ringgold's textile art).

"Tar Beach," by Faith Ringgold (this was the specific book I used for this project--the children had me read it to them twice).

"The Keeping Quilt," by Patricia Polacco (this shows a quilt moving though generations of immigrants coming to the new world).

Enjoy!

Printmaking: Warhol Self Portraits

For my last after school Modern Art class I wanted my students to explore the work of Andy Warhol. Last time we studied Warhol, we did the Handy Andy prints (which are a popular one on my blog and with my students). This time, I wanted to have them try printmaking so they could explore the Pop Art  repetitive printed images of Warhol's. With this project we are using foam trays to make a printmaking plate similar to a linocut or woodcut, but without the sharp tools.

This student loves to create Manga-inspired art.
I love this piece because it shows her interests and
is definitely a POP art piece--Warhol would be impressed!

This was a great first "real" printmaking project and the results are always so bright and fun. Some children really embrace this technique and I had one student complete TWO projects with the class time since she was having some much fun. I also did the project one-on-one with my Kindergardener and he loved it too. Clean-up is great since I used water-soluble printmaking ink (although I would love to try something in the future that is more permanent so that the kids could add color with watercolors afterwards...).

This might be a bit of an expense to buy the roller (brayer) if you are doing this project at home, but once you have the supplies on had you ca make a bunch of great prints for gifts, stationary, etc. Give it a try!

Faux Linocut Warhol Self Portraits

Supplies Needed:
Adjust the dimensions of your supplies based on the size of the foam trays you are using...

• A few 4" x 5 1/2" pieces of white paper for drawing your design 
• Pencils and erasers
• Foam trays or styrofoam plates
• Masking tape
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• A scrap piece of cardboard or mat board slightly larger than your foam printing "plate"
• Water soluble printmaking ink
• Brayer (I use the Speedball 4" soft rubber brayer)
• A few 5" x 7" pieces of colored paper (smooth paper with bright colors work well)
• Glue stick
• Large piece of construction paper to mount the finished prints on

Directions:

1. Use the pencil to draw a simple self portrait on the white piece of paper. Make it unique--just like you, but don't get too detailed. 

2. Place the drawing onto the foam tray and tape down. Trace the lines of your drawing with a dull pencil. Press down enough to leave an impression in the foam tray, but not hard enough to poke all the way through the foam or shred the paper drawing. This takes some practice...using the pencil at a slight angle helps. Once you've traced the drawing, remove the drawing and go over the lines you made in the foam tray to make them a bit deeper.

3. Mount your finished foam printing plate to the cardboard using hot glue.

4. Squeeze some printmaking ink onto a spare foam plate or foam tray. Use your brayer (roller) to move the ink around, coating the roller with ink. You don't need it gooping with ink--a nice even coating works best. Roll the inked brayer over your foam printing plate. Lay a piece of colored paper o top of the inked printing plate and press gently with your fingertips. I had the children use one hand to hold the paper still while the other rubbed the image. Remove the paper to see the transferred image. 

5. Repeat as may times as you wish. I had the children make at least four copies of the image ad the they mounted them onto a larger piece of construction paper once the prints were dry.

Enjoy!

This guy is super-cute, too! 

Love the freckles!

And this piece is super-sweet! It makes me smile!

Lung Project Done

Many of you read about my experience watching my son make a 3D plaster cast of his body for a science project on the respiratory system...well, the project is done (and he got an A+!). This was a great project from a mom point-of-view: the supplies were cheap, it allowed for TONS of creativity on my son's part, and he could pretty much handle the whole thing himself--oh, and it didn't chew up a entire weekend! He worked on it one Saturday morning (taking breaks to go sledding and visit with company). And he was super-proud of it! That's my kind of project!

So here are the finished picts. Hopefully it inspires you to try something new!

The details of the project (in case you were wondering):

The plaster cast was made using three packages of plaster tape bought at Michael's. The strips were about 4" wide and 8' long--we cut them to size (some 4" strips, some 8" strips and some 12" strips), dipped them in warm water, and then applied them to my son's body (make sure you coat the model's body with petroleum jelly before putting the strips on).

The dried cast was painted with leftover house paint my son found in our garage (I am worried I needed that paint, but c'est la vie!).

The red stuff (used for the nasal cavity, mouth, trachea, and bronchi) is model magic--I think he used one standard size package.

The lungs are sponges that he used scissors to cut into lung shapes.

The bronchioles are made from some leftover moss we had that he sprayed with red and blue spray paint (which he also found in the garage).

The whole thing is mounted on foam core (from the Dollar Store) that was covered in leftover colored paper. He also went crazy using the hot glue gun on this project.

Fun Calder Fish

One of my private art students is open to any art project...while we work I talk to her about all sorts of art and artists and I've been letting her interests guide our studies. She had done the Calder Monogram Mobile project I posted here, but one of Alexander Calder's sculptures I showed her inspired her. So...one of our next sessions, I got out some wire (in a variety of guages and colors) and lots of different kinds of beads and I let her go to town! 

It was great talking about Calder's work with her and then watching her make choices for her fish mobile. This was also a great project for problem solving (How do you get the beads spaced evenly along the wire? And, How do you keep the vertical rows of beads still within the fish "frame"?). 

When she was done, we created a stand for her mobile using a cork with a clothes hanger stuck in it, glued to a piece of mat board (this is my standard mobile "base").

Enjoy!