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!