Serious Soft Sculpture.

Thursday's first group (at Lee) unanimously decided they need TWO hours of art... it takes 20 minutes to makes the first "breakthrough"... then you get inspired... and it's almost time to clean up! 

Still, with what little time these artists have, they experiment aggressively and figure out all kinds of ways to use materials.. (WITHOUT the glue and tape they insisted they needed)! Some great abstract work here, too.

"snap"

Artist Troy Emerson inspires all of us to take craft supplies to a new level! Check this out!

Soft Sculptures!

Ms. Dey and I busted out the most fluffy, fun, colorful supplies we could find and challenged the artists to  create something - anything - with them! This is harder than it sounds - there were no examples of crafts to copy. Instead, kids had to get their hands on the materials, experiment and play, imagine, and problem solve. True creativity at work...

Popsicle sticks, PomPoms, beads, pipcleaners, feathers, and a wad of dough. No glue, no tape, no samples...GO!

Ms. Martine's class at Lee Academy were a smiley bunch!

We showed the video of last week's puppet shows to a sold-out crowd in Lee Elementary... the stars of the show couldn't believe their work was on the internet!!! 

"HOW MANY HITS?" 

"Over a THOUSAND!!!"

Then we presented the soft sculpture challenge to this crew. We added felt to the mix. Again, no glue, no tape, just experimenting and engineering! Check out all of the different approaches and solutions these artists found! We love it!

Sophie the guitar. 

And what would an entry be without some video?

Luis and Luis present...

"MISTER CRAZY COLORFUL MAN"

..and an interactive piece by Steven! Sports Sculpture!

Holmes closes out shadow puppet madness...

I finally found a video fellow educator Gail Wang and I put together of our visit to Houma, China, to meet a master shadow puppet maker. All of the groups were pretty captivated - especially by the violent and absurd battle scene showed in one clip of a real puppet show in China...

Then everyone finished their puppets (some even started new ones) and got a shot behind the screen.

Some artists added on to the basic shape... wings!

Adding legs.

Fancy "LOL" shirt. Details were added by poking holes in the paper.

It's all fun and games till someone loses an arm...

LASTLY, some candid shots taken by our group photographer, Devontae:

Mr.Wega's group is definitely a creative crew. Everyone thinks outside of the box, and I can show them how to do something for themselves, and they'll work through it until it works. Here are some of their puppets, below. Special thanks to Materials Specialist, Michael, for his extra work in addition to focusing on his own project!

Finally..VIDEOS!

Hi everyone, 
This website hasn't been showing videos. Until it's fixed, I posted a movie of our puppet plays here:
http://vimeo.com/40277468


Enjoy! Nice work, everyone!

Soft Sculpture at Lee Academy

 Today I sat with the young artists in Ms.Vina's room and after enjoying a song together we talked about sculpture. We imagined holding a sheet of paper between out hands (flat!) and holding a sculpture. Then we looked at and touched some materials: pipecleaners, beads, pom-poms, and dough (to use as bases to hold a stand-up sculpture). Our new teaching assistant, Ms.Dey and I passed out the pipecleaners and let kids get to know them with their hands and discover ways to change them. Then everyone got a ball of dough to put on the table. After about a minute, artists started popping like kernels of popcorn on a warming frying pan - "A SCULPTURE!"..."I did it!" Look at mine! It's standing!" "Mine's wiggly!"
We'd agreed to try to use our own unique ideas that were different from our friends', so everyone had something different going on with their materials! We shared beads - some put them onto the pipecleaners, while some enjoyed pushing them into the dough. As time went on, we watched the sculptures get taken apart by the artists, while they did more experimenting with the stuff. The dough was super soft, and many took the pipecleaners out of it and played with it. When given the option of keeping their work or taking it apart and putting the pieces away, about half the class kept and half took apart. While I regret not getting pictures of the standing sculptures, this process was great just as it was - allowing the kids to do what they needed to do with the materials to learn about them and enjoy them is really important. There were no grown-ups telling anyone "what to make". This way, the artists' creativity and natural learning instincts were in charge of their experience.
We decided pom-poms should be a separate tactile activity, since what everyone wanted to do was touch them (and they are pretty useless for artmaking, without hot-glue).  The class sang a beautiful goodbye song for us as we left!

International Night at Holmes Elementary

Families filled the gym at Holmes on Tuesday night to be treated to displays and stellar live performances showing off what classes have learned about different countries around the world. I set up a table with the students' self-portraits, their part of the miniature neighborhood surrounding the school, and some of the shadow puppets we've been working on. I included a couple of the puppets from China, too. Lots of kids were running up to the table to find their friends' pictures, and parents were really impressed that the kids took the pictures themselves. It was great just to hear so many people raving about the photos. Nice work, everyone!

(SHADOW) puppets

Hi my name is Tanzania. In art class we made chinese puppets from china. first we had to cut out the person; then we had to put stuff on it; next we had cut out the arms and  go to the O/R so Ms.Briget can put the arms together.That is how you make a chinese shadow puppet.

Well, it looks like the "China" part of my introduction stuck! This group hasn't finished their puppets yet - I imagine once they get to use them behind  screen with lights, the "shadow" part will stand out more in their minds!

Apologies for missing video in the last post - Blogger is messed up and many people are having trouble with their videos. Check back soon, because the puppets shows are awesome!

Puppets in Action at Lee

Lee Academy Artists Create Together

Last week we created stand-up paper figures, inspired by the Lee and Holmes miniature city that was on display at family night. Now everyone knows how to make their artwork stand by itself!

Today this crew, who excel at teamwork, created a big poster of artwork we cut into pieces to make a giant puzzle! They were still working on putting it back together when I left!