Linden Mural Project

I currently teach art at the Linden School in Malden, MA.  The room I use is completely uninspired.  After a little persuasion, my 6-8th grade students and I were able to convince the principal and program director that we can paint a mural on this wall and transform the room into a place where students can be creative, innovative, motivated and inspired.  On my way into work yesterday, I stopped at Lamson & Davis True Value  in Malden to ask if they had any discounted "Oops" paint (mistinted cans), and they had 2 gallons that they happily donated to our mission.  From Miss Crystal & the Wednesday Channel Surfers Art class, we thank you!  We will put your paint to some really good use.

Collage a la AJ

This may be one of my favorite collages of all time, so it deserved its own post.  My 1st graders were given a large stack of magazines and a piece of mat board to create whatever style cut-paper collage they wanted.  This is only 2 pieces of magazine, but Morris the cat in Paula Deen's hair simply brought the house down.  Thank you, AJ!

Linden Kids!

It seems like forever since I last posted!  The new school year is in full swing and my students at the Linden School in Malden, Massachusetts are fantastic, as usual!  I am happily teaching 4 clubs this session- Bookmaking, Beginning Builders, Dream Parade Art and of course, Environmental Art!  I will try my best to update the blog after each class and will post comments and photos from my students.  Unfortunately, my iPhone wasn't cooperating with me the last week and I wasn't able to get any clear photos of my clubs' progress.  I plan on bringing the camera from here on in and will post pics as soon as I can.  

Oh, and Linden parents/caregivers- I am open to any suggestions if you've got 'em!  Please see me Mondays or Tuesdays.  Below, my Beginning Builders were gracious enough to "pose" for this group shot.  Thanks for stopping by our blog, and Happy Autumn!  - Miss Crystal

Bring on the Fall!

Although I wasn't able to update the blog as often as I would have liked, I still feel this summer's mission was quite successful.  The last week of teaching at deCordova, my very patient assistant (Sarah) & I had a dozen 5-7 yr olds.  We completed the pastel drawings below in the last hour of class.  I felt it was appropriate that we ended 6 weeks with a few beautiful branches to remind us of how important our precious Earth is.  I hope I can carry my eco-art mission into Autumn with some of my other students.  Thank you to all the parents and students for an amazingly fulfilling summer!

"Color" theme & Tree Frog Choir!

This summer ended with some pretty fantastic students and one incredibly cute project.  We painted large cardboard pieces a dark color and cut ink-blot leaves out of old wallpaper.  We had a piece of styrofoam for a 'branch' and glittered old moisturizer lids for the eyes.  The painted cardboard frogs were accented with my only purchase of the summer- $1.99 for some fluorescent paper feet & hands which we cut out of poster board.  Not a bad project for less than $2, huh?  I adore these little guys!

Cardboard Cityscapes & the Tree Frog Choir

Today's project was an "oldie but goodie" using pieces of painted cardboard to create a layered Cityscape- complete with scrap paper windows.  We have SO much cardboard, and what better way to keep the kids occupied while I made the template for tomorrow's tree frog choir??  See the frog colony below. I am REALLY excited to see the finished product!  A heads-up to parents: there will be glitter on Friday.  Don't say I didn't warn you!  Bring a trash bag, perhaps??  Week 5 is going along smoothly...

Paint Store 'Color Sample' Branches

Somehow, deCordova got a HUGE donation of paint store color samples.  I was determined to create a project that would use some of the little scraps of paper and came up with this idea.  First, I cut out a lot of shapes found in nature- mostly bugs and leaves.  We took pastels and colored the edges of these shapes to smudge a "fireworks" effect on the background of our pieces.  All the girls were familiar with how to cut folded-paper snowflakes, so we decided to give the idea an upgrade and use it for the leaves on our natural branches.  We glued small branches we found on the museum grounds to our mat board backgrounds and then placed the leaves strategically on the branch.  My wonderful assistant Elaine and I hot-glued the projects together.  Lots more to come this week so check back! 

Pollack, "Color" Collage & a Costco box...

Forgive the hiatus, folks!  The last week and a half has been extremely busy for me and my son, but I am back on track with some new ideas (and some old 'recycled' projects!).  

This week has started off amazingly well and my students are fantastic.  We learned about Jackson Pollock and got a little messy  splattering paint across our hand prints.  The kids ALWAYS love this project and my 6 little girls today weren't disappointed.  We were able to use scraps from the LARGE donation of mat boards from Stanhope Framers in Somerville.  

For the second project, we used old National Geographic magazines to inspire our "Color" Collages (Color is the theme of the week in all classes at deCordova).  For this project, I managed to salvage a very pretty pink box from Costco to use as our background.  These are a work in progress and we will be adding to them later in the week.  Check back for progress and photos!

"Found" art & Watercolor Silhouettes

I cannot believe how much artwork was produced this week!  The ideas were FLOWING!!  On our last day, I had a "back-up" project that I wasn't sure would work.  I've been collecting "junk" for a few months that I hoped would end up getting a new life within a piece of artwork.  The collective imagination of my students this week was such an amazingly pleasant surprise.  See for yourself!

an old earring

a Sharpie cap

shower curtain rings & red plastic moon (above) and shower curtain ring & plastic knife handle (below)

 

Here, students created a watercolor wash on donated mat board and cut out silhouettes (of any style) from the black paper we had left over from the mirror/negative image project.  Comments to wrap up the week follow pics.  On to week 4!

"I think it's really cool we used all recycled stuff."

"Drawing eggplant is hard."

"I liked the neon colors of the splatter-paint project.  They look cool together."

And this week's winner comment:

"This isn't new for me; I've always gotten hand-me-downs."

Kandinsky & Still Life pastels

It is SO nice to have clean white mat board to draw on for our abstract "Kandinsky" pieces!  We used watercolors & oil pastels for these lovely works.  Below, students got a 5 minute tutorial on how to use hard pastels for mini still life drawings.  Information goes in, beautiful artwork comes out!  So glad I saved the small scraps from the b&w cut-out work earlier in the week.  Yet another benefit to being frugal!!  And the last fun (and messy) project of the day was our handprints and a quick paint splattering for an introduction to Jackson Pollock.  These kids created so much work this week! Student comments after pics (if you read up on Kandinsky, the comments make more sense!):

"Some people can see sound & hear colors."

"...like Fashion Designers..."

"Nazis stink."

Retro TV sets

Not much time today to post, but I think these retro TV sets featuring commercials aimed at "bettering the planet" speak for themselves!!  More tomorrow.  Thanks for stopping by our blog!!

B&W and STANHOPE!

Yesterday after class, I dropped in to visit Stanhope Framers to see if I could get any scraps of mat board before they were thrown into the recycling bin (last week's rainstorm put a damper on my efforts to go 'recycling bin diving' on collection day).  Stanhope's generosity will allow every one of my students for the last 3 1/2 weeks to have a clean sheet of mat board to draw on (most likely for every project).  We are so grateful!!  THANK YOU, Stanhope Framers!!

And with the remaining scraps I had from other projects throughout the year, my 10 students this week created some great mirror/negative image b&w cut-outs. Student comments will probably confuse today, but that just means you'll have to check back to see what tomorrow's project is all about :)

"It's funny that Crystal is trying to make us look back into the olden days."

"The old TVs are classic."

"...Brings you back to the old times when x-ray glasses were only 99 cents."

Theme of the week- BALANCE

I'm particularly fond of the theme of the week because I feel humans need to be more in 'balance' with nature.  I wasn't sure if today's new class was going to appreciate my Eco-Art Mission but as you'll see by the comments that follow the pics, I've got yet another class of fantastic (and VERY well educated) students.  


Today, we got to take a stroll around the grounds to see some of the sculptures. The newest installation by DeWitt Godfrey is one that I feel perfectly exemplifies how inspiring the relationship between art and the environment can be:

When we returned to the studio, we made our own 3D sculpture-paintings from paper towel rolls, cardboard box pieces and metallic acrylics.  I love that each student went in a different direction even after seeing the sculpture above:

  

Here is a taste of what we were working on as we left class today.  Will post pics of finished pieces tomorrow and wonderful student comments follow:

"I think if everyone did this (reused & recycled), the Great Pacific Garbage Patch might not expand."

And quite possibly my all-time favorite comment:

"I think it is cool all our products are influenced by this mission and it shows you can do good things for the environment and do fun things too!"

"Flies on the Wall[paper]" & the Bubble Guy

Today, the Bubble Guy showed up to the deCordova, and I must say- teaching Art with the Bubble Guy around is like trying to nail Jell-o to a tree.  When I got the kids corralled again, we finished up most of the projects from the week and used scraps to create "Flies on the Wall[paper]".  We used whatever we could find in the scrap pile and cut out any type of bug the kids could come up with.  We glued our creations onto pieces of wallpaper from the sample book.  It was a really fun way to end the week.  Below are a few straggler pics of projects finished today, the Bubble Guy, and our bugs.  Student comments follow.  Bring on Eco-Mission, Week 3!!

*This was a fantastic project that unfortunately doesn't photograph well, but another wonderful teacher gave us the idea.  You can do this one at home with just a few supplies.  See link here: Tinfoil Project