More Papermaking

"Family Portrait" by "H," and "Green Suite," by "I," Grade 5 (see video below)

To wrap up the 2nd quarter in Art, CBMS students have been exploring possibilities in papermaking. Starting with hall passes, gum wrappers, old homework and all sorts of scraps of paper, students learn the process of deconstructing reclaimed materials to reconstruct art papers. Can we make paper out of tea bags or green beans from lunch? What happens if you add aluminum foil? What if you use too much stuff and the paper is too thick or there is not enough material and the paper is too thin? How thin can we make it? How thick is too thick?

"Green Suite" - 13 shades of green by "I," Grade 5

Learning the process of papermaking is one thing, finding a purpose for the resulting papers is another. Some students work as alchemists, blending custom pulp and crafting unusual papers. Some are colorists who focus on one shade, building a monochromatic portfolio of papers in subtle tones. Some students are innovators, testing materials and processes never before attempted. Others see possibilities for collaboration.

The Four Seasons by "M'" Grade 7

And what of meaning-making? Can young artists use the papers they make to create meaning? Is the meaning formed with the paper or does it emerge later when the paper is transformed into a book, a collage, a sculpture or a painting.

Click to view video!

One young papermaker custom-made 6 pieces of paper - one to represent each member of his family. Dad was made from pages of a discarded boo, because he is "always working," Mom was made of different shades of blue, her favorite color, brothers were thoughtfully made with colors and scraps that represented their interests and activities - the artist blended his paper from orange (his favorite color) and musical notes, since he loves music. Even the family dog was represented. Once the papers were finished, the artist cut them into five human figure shapes and one dog shape, arranged them in order, and strung them together to create a family portrait. (See photo at top of post)

Biggest Clay Whistle in the World

6th Graders Collaborate on the Giant Whistle Project

It started innocently enough – Some boys were interested in learning how to make clay whistles. I warned them: Clay whistles are hard. It takes a while to get the knack of making a fipple that produces sound (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fipple ).

(Click to view video!)

These boys were game. Several small whistles were carefully constructed, one even had four legs and a head. They produced various tones after great determination and practice.
Then it happened. While the whistle-makers were engrossed in their work, a student started making a large hollow bank by draping clay into 2 large wooden salad bowls (not the bowls you eat the salad out of, the ones you SERVE the salad from). It was a huge bank. The whistle-makers got one look at this bank and knew instantly that their NEXT whistle would be a world record-winner.

Testing the fipple and hoping for a sound

It wasn’t easy, of course. It took persistence, daring, physics and the willingness to get clay on your lips. In fact, it took a team of experts to collaboratively produce not one, but TWO giant clay whistles with two distinct sounds.
If anyone knows of a clay-whistle band in need of a couple of bass whistles, let us know…

Gift as Motivation

What motivates an artist to produce quality work? In this case, the motivation was the desire to make a special gift. "O" (7th grade) worked for several periods on this watercolor painting for her horse-loving sister. She worked with care and determination to produce an exceptionally well composed, well executed painting.

"O" has a very lucky sister!

Tools of the Trade

Sometimes, artists need specialized tools to bring their ideas and intentions to life. The 5th grader in the above picture is glazing a bowl (that he made on the potter's wheel) in a very specific way: he was intent on applying black glaze so it would drip down the inside edge in thin lines, and STOP when the lines reached the floor of the pot.
"H" made several false starts with brush and drip methods and determined that he needed a straw to blow the glaze in the direction he wanted, for the duration that was needed. Voila! A new glaze tool and glazing technique is born!

The artists thinks the resulting pattern looks like an eye.

Click to view video!

This video shows the "eye" pot being thrown on the potter's wheel.

Light! Camera! Action!

Claymation!

The 7th grader who made this animation claimed she was not very good with computers, yet she produced this project all on her own,

figuring out how to use imovie to make her animation, add music, dub in her own voice, create titles and add sound effects.

Two stop action animation projects were recently completed in one 7^th grade class. Students set up tripods, crafted characters and scenery and  took hundreds of photographs to make their short films. Theyused imovie on the classroom computers to make their photographs come to life, adding sound effects, titles and music.

"K" & "L" work together to add a snowstorm scene to their animation using a hand-textured painting by "Z"

It didn’t take the 5^th graders very long to notice the equipment and begin their own projects. These students learned about the process of stop-action animation last year at Thatcher Brook, and have been able to use their prior experience to begin their projects in the art studio this year.

Meanwhile, another team of 7th graders created a hysterical movie, filming through the built-in camera on the Mac, employing a combination of live action, drawn backgrounds, special visual effects,custom sound  track and a cast of  naughty, rude reckless lizards.

Paper Mache Pets

2 balloons form the armature for this sculpture

“H,” a highly organized, intrinsically motivated 6^th grade artist, listened carefully at the beginning of the quarter about to the description of the choice-based classroom. She understood that students would be doing the authentic work of artists – identifying an idea, a process and a product to work on.

"A" painting her paper mache sculpture - the 2nd dog to come to life in the studio

She came in the next day with a plan: she would make a papier mâché panda. The plan she carried in to the classroom included thumbnail sketches, images captured from the computer, a list of needed materials and the steps she would take toward completion. Over the next several classes, “H” organized her materials, started to construct the panda and planned intermediate goals. She worked on her sculpture to completion, only stopping to help other classmates who became interested in starting similar projects.  

Tandem Painting

In the studio- classroom, student artists sometimes choose to work side-by-side on similar ideas, or work together on one idea...

5th grade friends work to make a group of pastel paintings that fit together together and tell a story

sometimes producing twin paintings or connected drawings.

Twin paintings with a camping theme are painted side-by-side

Sometimes a more experienced artist peer-coaches a less experienced artist.

6th grade friends work with care to make a set of "name art" drawings, so each will have one to take home.

 Sometimes friends make friend-paintings