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End of
the Year FUN! What did you do to MOTIVATE?
The
Challenge is on...Share your best ideas
Submit your
ideas all summer long. Check back next year when you feel those "end
of the year" woes - "Art show is over, now what do I do?"
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From Barbara Yalof
Plasticine Clay Relief
End of the year woes? Here's one the
kids loved - they worked in colored Plastilina (plasticine),
creating scenes of the best vacation they ever had. The first class
consisted of making a detailed face, including 3-D eyeballs and
properly mixed skin color. |
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use only red, yellow and white or tan to create the skin, adding
brown if they were quite tanned! This is a good one for elementary
and middle school - I bet a high school class would have fun with
it, too. Tie in the Children's book illustrator: Barbara Reid
From Patty Knott -
Cure for "Senioritis" -"So You Made It?"
Patty gave her AP student this
theme:
So you made it?
You may use any style or process but your theme is
SO
you made it?
So
YOU made it?
So
you MADE it?
So
you made IT?
Think of what the question could mean
made what? Made it through high school made it to
college made it? (constructed it) What
is made? What is it? What is so?
Be creative MAKE IT work worthy of a final project
First thing was one girl reading aloud the inflections
and I asked her her to say those infections
loud that got them thinking and.... The thinking started
immediately --- one kid will finish a project she has been working
on for 2 years -"I finally made it"
Another thought of a figure made of dollar bills working in a
mint making dollar bills - Who made it?
- another- a duck in a flock of geese asking how'd you
make it? and many more
then someone asked, "Can I make a song?"
Of course! Why not make a video of the song
? Which led to a collaboration with another student.....
I'm so excited that seniors that have worked so hard and are burned
out are excited
and mostly they asked, "Where did you get this idea for a
theme?"
"Just came to me," I said -- because I never stop thinking
and I'm thinking this simple theme generated such ideas.
Why don't we pose more problem solving around ideas
instead of how-to's. Kids want the thinking. Images
from Patty to come?
From Jennifer Maria Middle School:
I try to do a different group activity "end-of-year project" every
year........One I did was newspaper chairs. Full-size chairs made
from newspaper and masking tape ONLY. No armatures or
cardboard allowed and the final product had to be able to support one member of the group
for 5 seconds. (From Linda Woods: Another chair idea use
cardboard tubes and corrugated cardboard) Smaller students were VERY popular at this time when
it came to
group picking! The chairs had to be built in the
"style" of an artist we studied during the year or an art style we studied. This is
open to interpretation. We had a competition amongst the classes to see
which chairs were the best Form and which were the best Function (held up to the
5 second sitting test). (Middle School)
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From Jennifer Maria - Middle School:
My students are ALL over the place
after they take their state test (TAKS) so I usually try to do
something involving a group of 4 students. Last year, I did
paper-maché combination animals. The students had already
drawn combination animals in their sketchbooks (combined 2 animals
into 1) so then the group voted on which animal to do and made it!
Great (messy) fun. We put the animals on display around the
school the last 2 days and then cleaned the art room! Nice idea for
when a student is gone on a field trip and the group can still work
on the project. (Middle School)
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From Barbara Yalof -
Perspective Letters
Barbara did this with 2nd and
3rd grade.
1)To start: draw block or
bubble letter names on black paper with white charcoal
pencil. -
2)Using vanishing point and one
point perspective, draw in the "back" of the
letter, making it appear to be in 3 dimensions.
3) Using their knowledge of
warm/cool colors and shading, pretend that the vanishing
point is the sun. Shade and highlight accordingly. Use
warm colors for the fronts of the letters, and cool for the
3-D effect. Students used soft pastels
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Barbara says they really loved doing
this, and the kids who love cartooning could practice bubble letters
in 3-D. Doing their own names seems to eliminate the "fear
"of drawing with perspective. Glue outlines could add textural
interest.
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From Judy Decker - Jewelry
Assemblage
Start garage sale hopping this
summer. This might be a fun challenge for an end of the year jewelry
assignment - when you don't want to hand out any additional silver.
I made a wearable "shrine" to my family out of several old
pieces of jewelry:
This pin (while a bit heavy) has remnants of 9 pieces of jewelry
plus some new beads to finish it off. I made the face from a mold
from Backyard Cards and Gifts http://www.backyardcards-gifts.com/
- then made a little Sculpey red hat to fit. The piece framing the
face is a little ceramic frame made by an artist I met at Arrowmont.
Each charm has personal meaning. The rose in the center is a little
hard to see. I will be making a foil tooled frame for this. The
shadow box has the Poem "Warning" by Jenny Joseph collaged
on the outside.
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From Judy Decker - 3-D Photo Collage Shadow Box
I thought I would share an idea that
you could do for an end of year photo
assignment - or graphics arts (Vivian Komando did a similar project
with her
students - Joseph Cornell shadow boxes). It would use photos the
student
have already taken over the course of the semester/year.....Or you
could
make it a new assignment for local Architecture in the
community
Mine has a "surreal" quality to it. It uses five
photographs that my son
took - one of his senior pictures (Matt with MG) - and fish I found
on the
Internet (those are the four fish of his fish that died from an
ammonia spike under my watch -- so this is a "shrine" to
them, too. Thanks you Pet Fish web sites for allowing me to use
these images). The building is Stocker Hall at Ohio University (where
my son's main courses in ME are held).
Behind the doors is a full image of the building along with a park
scene and
my son with his MG
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The main building was done with four
photographs the same size (mine are all printed from the computer -
his photos were on CD) - layered - and separated with mat board for
a little relief and/or with foam core board for more relief. The
images in the foreground (sculpture-flower and plant) are supported
with blocks of wood. The doors have plastic in them to simulate
glass. The box is collaged inside and out with the history of
Stocker Hall and Ohio University. I put a full size photo of Stocker
Hall on the back of the box. This piece will have a frame and will
be under Plexiglas.
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From Christa Maria - Painting with
Kool-Aid - for Kindergarten/early grades
It's summer and Kool-aid time... You
want to put the watercolors away for the year....
Buy the cheapest packages of Kool-aid, get cheap brushes, construction
paper ( it soaks well - White paper will show colors best -
slick paper will not work) and create ' scratch and sniff' paintings
... On lids or egg cartons mix a small amount of Kool-aid with a few
drops of water to a rich consistency, that will be the paint, used
with regular cheap paintbrushes. Let it dry well, usually 24 hours and
than the painted surfaces can be scratched and sniffed.... Very cheap
art project , summer fun and "Aromatherapy" From
Carolyn in Virginia Beach - Middle school - high school
I am always looking for those perfect spring days to take my kids
outside with drawing boards. We even took watercolor sets out
last year.
Sometimes we do plaster sculpture outside.
We pour plaster in milk carton boxes, sit in the sunshine on the
bleachers and carve away! Less mess in the classroom.
If I have leftover Pariscraft, sometimes we go
outside and do casts of hands. Two students work
together. One day, they do one person's hand. The next
day they do the other. There are some really neat ideas
of plaster hand sculptures on IAD Hands Ideas
page. This should get some problem solving going!
I teach middle school but most of these
ideas could be adaptable to most levels.
From San D - High School
As for fun end of the year projects, kites
(essentially shaped structures to paint on) are fun, especially when
they get flown on the front lawn of the high school, chalk painting
in the school parking lot (we did underwater scenes), Pinwheels (we
did Escher linoleum cuts).
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Also
See - Ideas that Motivate |
