Suminagashi and Sochi.

I wanted to try this whole suminagashi craze that's been all over Pinterest land.  Suminagashi is the ancient art of Japanese paper marbling.  It is the process of marbling plain paper with ink and water to change it into vibrant and colorful paper.  Delicate, swirled patterns are created on the paper when colors of ink are floated on the surface of the water.  Suminagashi can be traced back to Japan as early as the 12th century.

True suminagashi uses carageenan or powderized seaweed, which creates a booger-y substance.    But, when I was scrambling to pull together a lesson for my 5th graders on Monday morning after realizing they had already finished their current project (hate when that happens), I also realized I unfortunately do not have a back-up supply of seaweed. Now, this is what we in the teaching "biz" call a punt.  So, don your best cleats and kick away!

I grabbed a tub of chalk, a plastic knife, and filled one of the many metal lunchroom trays I have hoarded with a tiny bit of water.

We used the knife to gently scrape chalk dust into our metal trays.  I did not stir the water and if bits of chalk happened to fall into the tray, warn students to just leave it, as movement can disturb the water tension.

Gently set your paper on top of the water's surface for about 30 seconds and then pick it up.

I would recommend keeping a tray or tagboard next to the water trays so that you can immediately set your suminagashi paper down and prevent dripping.

I can't get enough of these beautiful colors.  They look so galactic!

Now, what to do with all these beautiful papers???  My students could probably have made these papers for the next few classes, but on day 2, we put 'em to use.

I found these cool Sochi Olympic pictograms on Pinterest and was thrilled.  We've started a unit on Keith Haring and these have a Haring vibe about them.

Students selected their top 3 Olympic sports and practiced drawing them before deciding on a final sport.

Figures and details were drawn, cut, and glued.

The student titled this one "I Believe I Can Fly."  Ohhhh, R. Kelly, you even influence the youth of America today.

This bobsled team is rocking some awesome Keith Haring-esque lines of motion.

I call this one "Nancy and Tonya."  The top figure just needs a metal baton in her hand...

I hope you are enjoying the Sochi Olympics as much as I am.  It's a nice way to unwind at the day's end!

Pointillist Painters.

My wee Kinders have delved into the world of pointillism.  I think my Kinders have a better understanding of pointillism than some of my older students.  The minds of these little artists are truly amazing.

Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, 1884

The actual painting is about 7 feet by 10 feet and housed locally in our very own Art Institute of Chicago.  The Kinders were PUMPED when they found out the painting was here in Chi-town!  One of the wee ones announced to the class:

"This painting is by another famous artist.  Not the guy who chopped off his ear and painted the yellow house."

This is of course, the same kid who declared he was taking "artistic license" with our last project.

 

I want to give credit to Kids Art Market, who totally inspired this awesome lesson!

The Kinders used leftover sumingashi paper from our Sochi and Suminagashi project (check it out here) to create their little moons.  I wanted the moons to pop out from the paintings, but was fresh out of pop up dots.  BUT, all the leftover scraps were put to use.  I chopped up the scraps because there is still a lot of sticky stuff left on the remaining scraps.

Final pieces were sprayed with green glitter liquid watercolor paint.  When you add glitter to ANY Kinder project, the kids are ecstatic.  Not Miss French Fry so much, because I've been finding glitter everywhere.  I reached over to pet my dog last night and lo and behold, she had green glitter all over her muzzle.

Art (and glitter) really is all around us.

Magritte-a-licious Moon Trees.

Recently, I blogged about my Third Graders' WIPs (works in progress) here, which are inspired by Rene Magritte's 1956 painting Sixteenth of September.

Well, I know you've been waiting with bated breath, so here we go.  Our beautiful Moon Trees are below...

I have been on a major painted paper kick and we painted the heck out of our papers for these 3rd grade masterpieces.

We added a little salt to our backgrounds to experiment with a salty resist texture too.

Our moons were cut out from leftover papers from our Sochi and Suminagashi Lesson.  We have gotten a LOT of use out of these leftovers.  Not like my food leftovers that sit in my fridge foreverrrrr.

Speaking of leftovers, I have a big decision to make tonight: Thai or Pizza for dinner.  Decisions, decisions...