Plaster Puppets

This is a couple photos of my plaster puppet. I’m not sure what day we did them on because it was at the end of a pretty busy art class. It was fun though, putting the plaster on your finger and having it harden, but also being able to shape it. I had never made plaster puppets before. Mine was just a little sea monster I call monty. Anyway it was fun and I would probably do plaster puppets with my future students although I will have to be carful because it could get messy! It’s pretty simple though, all you need is some plaster netting sheets and a cup of water. You must cut up the plaster sheets into strips and then dunk them one at a time in the water and then put around your finger or fingers. A great tip is to put vaseline on your finger(s) beforehand so it is easy to get the plaster off once its dry.  Before it gets dry you can shape the plaster around, add pieces to create shapes and other formations. Enjoy!

Printmaking

Feb 26/08

Today we did printmaking. It was actually pretty difficult, but enjoyable. Alex demonstrated how to do it, using 4 differenct techniques, then each group had to choose a theme and then create their prints.

Our group chose spring time for our theme. I created a spider print  with the eraser block thing, on the styrofoam I drew an easter egg, for the 3-d cardboard picture I created a camping scene.  You either have to cut around the drawing to get rid of the area you don’t want to show and so that your drawing will stand out. On the styrofoam you just have to draw because when you roll on the ink, it hits the spots that were not touched with the pencil and the lines you draw are white and the ink colours in the rest.

Procedure:

1) Choose ink colour(s) and spread on glass sheet. Roll out with roller to make ink less dense.

2) Choose medium to create your print-styrofoam, eraser bit, cardboard

3) Roll on the ink

4) Press print onto paper, or textured material.

Here are the prints that I made, plud the group sheet with all our springtime prints on it. I made a spider, an easter egg and a camping scene.

Hellen Belkin Museum visit

Feb 19/08

Today we went to the Helen Belkin art gallery. It wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would be more like the museums I went to in Europe, because sadly I think that was the last time I went to an art gallery. I especially liked how all the artists featured are from Vancouver, it creates a sense of pride just by walking in there. Our tour guide was very knowledgeable about the art works and she kept us quite informed. Unfortunately I didn’t write any of that information down, so I can only recall so much.

Some things however did stand out for me. I really liked Kevin Schmidt’s work with the light show played along with music in the pristine mountain environment. I love the outdoors and music so when the 2 are put together I get very thrilled. It was neat to see something that you would never think about doing yourself, but once you see it you would have liked to be there! Also I liked how a video that seemed so simple could actually be very moving and actually created with a lot of behind the scenes effort. The artist tried not to distrupt the natural environment, which I appreciate and at the same time the piece seemed to celebrate that natural beauty. The music and lights were the stage for the natural world that surrounds it.  I actually did my visual reflection on this piece (it is pictured below) because it was the one exhibit that really caught my attention. I thought Tim Lee’s 3D exhibit was great also because it was interactive in the sense that we had to put on the glasses to really appreciate the work. Plus it felt like you were right in the studio where Elvis once recorded. I think that students of every age would appreciate that exhibit.

Overall it was an interesting experience at the art gallery. I had never been in there before so it was great to go inside to finally curb my curiosity. Also I liked how there were photos as art, not only paintings or drawings that are the assumed art mediums.

My eyes watching the art display

A variety of art pieces

Fuchsia group’s cultural artifacts

 

 My family crest-what a work of art!

Glendinning is Scottish and it comes from a place in the parish of Westerkirk Dumfires, recorded in 1384 as Glendonwyne. The Glendinnings are a sept of the Douglas clan an dhistory goes back to Adam de Glendonwyn who was alive during the reign of Alexander III of Scotland, circa 1286. The crest’s motto is “have faith in Christ” and was worn on the shoulder during battles.

The Heraldic artists created coat of arms. The enjoyed incredible freedom in designing them, however they had certain limits. The objects in the arms, the crest, colours and positions may not be altered, but how each object is rendered privides a wide latitude of design to the artist. The can choose the shape of the shield, the style of helm, and the arrangement to create a well balanced composite design.

My newly painted sculpted masterpiece! I love sunsets, don’t you? We finally got to paint our clay sculptures! It was actually kind of difficult and I highly recommend using small paint brushes for those small sculptures. My sculpture was inspired by Goldsworthy’s natural, environmental work. I love the outdoors and I thought by sculpting mountains, the very place clay comes from, helps to incorporate that connection.

My pencil tree! An artist in the making! (mines the one on the right). We did a series of line drawings on this day beginning with drawing an object from our immediate surroundings. I drew a starbucks coffee cup first while not looking directly at it. Then we had to draw an object by only looking at it once and trying to remember it and drawing it from memory. This one I drew a camera case.  Then we had to draw a piece with volume, I chose the camera case again because it seemed easier to do a square shape with volume rather than a cylinder shape. Before doing all these drawings we looked at a variety of pencils, like 6B, 4B, or HB and tested them out by doing figure 8′s. This was actually kind of hard to do as you have to move your whole arm. It was also kind of hypnotizing because it was the same movement over and over again. I thought my tree and my camera case actually turned out pretty good! What do you think?

Mines the one on the right and the other is the template we followed.

The 2 on the left are my coffee cup without looking while drawing and the camera case from memory. On the right is my volume camera case.

Here is  a picture of my hypnotic figure 8. Good times.

Plenty of painting!

Today in class we did a lot of different things. After we shared our readings we were given a number of pencils and some blank paper. We were able to test out the pencils to see which ones we prefered. Alex went over the h and b pencils with us. Then we had to pick one pencil to do a figure 8 and we had to keep on going over the figure 8. We were making art music I guess.  Then we had to draw the roots of a picture of a tree that was given to us.  Then we had to look at the tree and draw our own tree, using the variety of pencils to  help with contour lines and contrast. That we really fun and relaxing. I thought I actually did pretty good. 

Next we shared our cultural artifact. I brought in my Glendinning family crest that originated in Scotland. It was neat to hear about everyone elses artifacts, where they came from and what they meant to them. Then we  set them up as a display on our table and went to each other’s table to take a peak.  I can definitely say that every single artifact is a piece of art. They all were made by people who are artists in their own rights. It was a neat activity.

Next we painted like crazy. First of all we had about 6 sheets each and on each one we painted something. We started with the colour wheel with the 3 primary colours, red, blue and yellow, then we mixed them to find the secondary colours, purple, orange and green. We learned that red, yellow and orange are the warm colours and blue, purple and green are considered the cold colours. We did some other painting like mixing white with a primary colour to find different shades of the colour. We also mixed black and white with a primary colour to do different hues of one  primary colour. Overall it was really fun to play around with the paints and especially to make our own colours come alive.  Then we got to paint our clay masterpieces and our finger puppets,. I think my clay landscape turned out pretty cool.

Helping hand lesson plans!

http://www.lessonplanspage.com/ArtK1.htm

There are several art lessons from many different countries and cultures. http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/middle/oriental.htm

Sculpting masterpieces

Procedures for making clay sculptures

1) Puchase the clay- comes in large blocks

2) Teacher must demonstrate how to use the clay before giving it to students                      

-show clay boards that must be used                                                                                             

 -show how to shape clay (pounding on board, throwing at board)                                            

-demonstrate how to apply ‘slip’ to pieces of clay that want to stick together (slip must be used with pieces put together or else the pieces will not stay. Can add water to slip if it becomes too dry).           

-show students an example of a sculpture

3) Divide the clay block into same sized pieces (using string cutter)

4) Provide students with slip and with clayboards.

5)(optional) Have students create 4 different shapes with their piece of clay before they create their own sculpture so that they get used to working with it.

Collage craziness!

Procedure for creating collages

1) Choose your topic

2) Choose your materials to create the collage (ex. magazine clippings)

3) Cut or rip out the materials

4) Paste them onto pre-drawn shape or glue on sporadically-depending on your goal/purpose

Intro to elements and principles

         Like last week, our coloured groups met and exchanged information about the assigned readings. I really like doing this because, first of all it’s hard to read that much and remember it all, secondly it’s a way to converse with your group, hear one another’s perspectives and it often facilitates discussion.  Then we were given a large blank piece of paper and some felts to work with. Alex told us to draw our journey to UBC, from the moment we woke up to when we got to school.  At first I was a little bit worried that I couldn’t draw all those things (especially myself), but once I got started it went all right. I drew myself as a stick person so it was easier to put more detail into other things. Then we traded with another group to see other people’s days. I liked doing this because it made me feel better (sometimes worse) about my own drawing, but it also gave me ideas for next time. I realized that I didn’t have to draw myself in each picture, I could just draw something that represented what I was doing or what happened. Secondly, I didn’t have to do it in a linear fashion, although it seemed logical to me and easier to remember what I did when I drew them sequentially.

            Line drawing: We had to draw an object that was around us, but without looking at the paper that we were drawing it on. We used a black outlining felt and it was pretty hard, but more difficult just to keep yourself from not looking! Then we had to look at another object, for 30 seconds only and had to remember it and draw it. That was a little easier, but I guess it depended on how complex the object was. So this technique was called line drawing. Alex asked us to think about volume and how we could make the object have volume. Some suggestions were shading, more lines on the drawing. We had to make the object 3D on the paper. I was actually quite proud of mine. I drew a camera case and it actually looked like the real thing.

            Next, Alex went over the stages of children’s drawing. He went from scribbles to intentional scribbles to deliberate drawings. It was neat to see the evolution of a child’s drawing and this was a good intro into our own child’s drawing that we had for an assignment. Alex then had us line up from youngest child to oldest. Mine was one of the youngest at 4 years old. My child, Owen drew something that just looked like scribbles but it was actually a huge story that unfolded as he drew it.  Alex asked me what the story was and I told the class, I didn’t go into too much detail but they got the just of it. I thought that getting into a circle like that was a good way to see each other’s child drawings. I really liked observing Owen drawing and seeing what his imagination had in store.

            Elements and Principles: Each table received an elements and principles sheet with the definitions for each. Then we had to look through magazines and find pictures that represented these elements and principles. I found this fairly hard because virtually all the pictures could fit into each principle. We were finally able to narrow it down, but some of us had different ideas of what represented each element or principle. We had to glue each one on a white piece of paper and write the name of the element or principle in a creative way. This was a good way to learn the elements and principles because it enabled different perspective and discussion over them to find out which were really well representative of them. It also made us realize that there are pictures that could fall into several elements or principles and that they were not limited to only one. Overall I thought it was a good introduction into elements and principles.

            For the last half hour we started to create our plaster puppets. We wrapped plaster around one or two fingers and could create a little puppet out of it. We didn’t get very far, we only finished what we could, but I can’t wait to finish what we started next week!

Earthworks

Jan 29/2008

           

 Today we explored one natural product that comes from the earth and how we can use it to create art. We worked with clay. But before that, in our coloured groups we did a jigsaw with our readings. This was effective because everyone was accountable for their own section and everyone had to provide information to the group, everyone had to participate. I talked about Andy Goldsworthy’s work and how it is connected to nature and how he uses organic material to build his art. Alex put on a movie which I thought was appropriate because it was about Andy Goldsworthy. I thought this was an effective teaching strategy because he tied in the articles we read to the movie about the artist himself. It was also nice to see his work in action and hear his perceptions. One thing that Andy Goldsworthy said which stood out to me was, “the thing that brought life to it will give it it’s death.” He was referring to his work that is nature itself, such as ice or driftwood that was born from the earth and the earth or nature takes it as well, in melting the ice or his driftwood from the sea piled up, but then being taken back by the sea as the tide comes in.

            So after the video, Alex introduced us to clay. At first I didn’t even think about the connection, but now I understand that he brought in clay as a natural element that can be formed into art, much like Goldsworthy’s work.  I found Alex’s instruction of the clay very useful and well organized. He showed us step by step what to do with the clay and what potential the clay had. I liked how he demonstrated what we were about to do ourselves. He showed us 4 different shapes with the clay and then he built whatever he wanted.  He explained what ‘slip’ was and how to use it when piecing clay together. Then we all were divided an even piece of clay to work with on the clay boards. I liked how everything connected together and I found it effective in deepening our knowledge of natural materials in art. It was fun to produce something that came from the Earth, just like Goldsworthy does. It made the learning about Goldsworthy’s art more accessible and realistic.

I ended up sculpting 2 mountains with a setting sun in the middle. At the bottom of the mountains I put streams and 2 trees (one on either side of mountains). I chose this because sunsets and mountains are 2 of my favorite things found in the natural environment and because it represents where the clay comes from, the Earth.