Art Ed Blog of the Year: The Golden State Bloggers

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Jessica, from The Art of Education, was kind enough to let me know that K-6 Art is a finalist for Art Ed Blog of the Year.  I am so honored by this, especially when I see who the other finalists are.  I want to introduce you to some of the other art education blogs that are finalists.  If you are not reading these blogs, please do because they are incredible!!

Voting open through December 14, 2012.
Please vote for K-6 Art!

I’m starting off the list with California art ed bloggers. K-6 Art is written in San Diego…here are three more Golden State blogs:

  • Shine Brite Zamorano: If you are unfamiliar with Don’s blog, you are in for a surprise. Shine Brite Zamorano is unique: it features elementary art projects based on the work of contemporary artists and illustrators. Don often contacts these artists and shares his students’ work with them.
  • Deep Space Sparkle: Patty’s DSS blog is the go-to blog in the elementary art ed world, with good reason. She has an incredible number of colorful, successful art projects on her site. I’ve even purchased one of her top-notch eBooks. You may not know that Patty writes excellent art room organization and art show posts as well.
  • Teach Kids Art: Cheryl’s blog has a huge variety of lesson plans for grades K-8, all helpfully photographed step-by-step. I taught TKA’s op-art lesson to our 4th grade last year with great success.

 

Please vote for K-6 Art at this link. You may vote for multiple blogs, but you may only vote once. Voting closes December 14, 2012.

Thanks for your support!

K-6 Art Nominated for 2012 Art Ed Blog of the Year! Please Vote!

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Wow! I am so thrilled to be nominated! I just received notice from the fabulous Art of Education blog that my year-old blog has been nominated for this award. Please vote at this link!

 

Please vote for K-6 art!

This is an incredible surprise. The other nominees on the list ARE AMAZING and I am shocked and delighted to even be on the same nominations list as they are. While you are on the Art of Ed site, please check out the other blogs on the list – they are truly inspirational.

A huge thank you to

  • my students – your art was so beautiful I had to share it with the world
  • my colleagues – I couldn’t ask for a better group of intelligent and passionate teachers
  • our parent volunteers – you make our art program run so smoothly
  • our school PTO – for fully funding our art program
  • the art education blog community – you have enriched our program by sharing ideas and support

Hurray!

 

How to Make a Calder Mobile

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I love Alexander Calder! I teach a Calder wire project each year, but I have never successfully made a Calder-inspired mobile. Until now!

I recently received this 1975 edition of Making Things: Book 2. The Handbook of Creative Discovery by Ann Wiseman. Inside this gloriously illustrated book I found these  instructions for making Calder mobiles:

Making Things Book 2 – Handbook of Creative Discovery by Ann Wiseman. ISBN-10: 0316948519

 

Easy to follow step by step illustrations for a variety of mobiles

 

I decided to test it out with items I had on hand in the art room.

Materials for first mobile:

  • 18-inch pre-cut Stem Wire (AKA floral wire) 20 gauge
  • construction paper
  • scissors
  • hole punch
  • pliers (note: I didn’t have any pliers so I just did this with my hands)
  • AND A BALANCING FINGER 🙂

 

Materials for making a simple Calder-inspired mobile

 


Ms. Wiseman tells us mobiles are built from the bottom up. Aha!

Success! A 4-tier mobile!

Now for my second mobile. I made this mobile using Ann Wiseman’s illustrations and Peel & Stick Foam Sheets.

Calder-inspired mobile made with wire and self-adhesive craft foam.

To add interesting organic shapes, sandwich wires between matching pieces of self-adhesive craft foam.

If you choose to make these multiple tier wire mobiles, try it yourself first, be patient, and expect a lot trial and error. Balancing those wires is tricky and takes practice. I think these projects would be great for middle and high school students.

If you want to try this with a whole class of upper elementary students, I would keep it simple. Stick with one or two wires. Check out this project from Meet the Masters. I like how they have three degrees of difficulty and incorporate a stabile as a base.

Illustration from Meet the Masters website.

 

Here are some more ideas for Calder mobiles for kids:

If you love Calder, you might like my previous Calder posts:

Enjoy!

Have you ever made a mobile with your students? 

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Note: This post contains affiliate links.

Note: post updated 12/30/13

Leaf ‘Collage’ + Photography

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Want to try a leaf collage project? Want your leaves to stay fresh and bright forever? Skip the glue/wax paper/laminator and try a camera instead!

Third graders arranged leaves into animal shapes, then photographed their art. Allow one 40-minute class for this ‘collage’ lesson.

Third graders just completed their leaf collages, inspired by the book Look What I Did with a Leaf! by Morteza E. Sohi.

In the book, M. Sohi arranged leaves on a white background to create fanciful animals, then photographed them. Click here to see more examples.

To prepare for this lesson, you need to gather a variety of leaves and flatten them. I placed the leaves between the pages of an old phone book. Plan to do this at least a couple of days in advance so the leaves will be really flat. You can also ask kids to bring in leaves from home

On the day of class, cover tables with white paper to create a backdrop and spread out the leaves.

Cover tables with white paper to create a unified backdrop for the collages.

Students arranged the leaves to resemble animals.  Butterflies were very popular!

Student arranges a leaf butterfly.

We used camera-equipped iPods to photograph our artworks. Our third grade is 1:1 iPod Touch so each child was able to take photos of their own creations.

Students used camera-equipped iPods to photograph their collages.

Students then rearranged their leaves and repeated the process. Most of our third graders made 3-5 animals during the 40 minute class.

Third Grade Student Work:

Ashley’s alligator

 

Deer

 

Mouse

Fish

One of the benefits of this method is that students can re-use and share leaves. Remind your students not to crumble the leaves, and you can reuse them for multiple classes. Students can work alone, in pairs or in groups – there is no argument over who takes the work home because everyone can have a digital copy of the work.

Next class we will learn to rotate and crop our photos, and how to email them.

Display options:

  • Upload to Artsonia
  • Email the images home, or put them up on the class wiki
  • Create a large class poster of all the images for the art show
  • Students can write a paragraph about their animals, or illustrate a story.

For further inspiration, check out the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. The artist used real fallen leaves to create her illustrations.

 

 

Awesome Little Pencil Sharpener

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How could something so small make such a big difference in the art room?

Foray manual pencil sharpener works great on large and small pencils and colored pencils.

I purchased seven of these Foray double-hole sharpeners, one for each of my tables. I used my electric sharpener to sharpen all the new pencils at the beginning of the school year. Guess how many times I have used my electric since? ZERO.

Foray double-hole manual sharpener.

All the kids ages 6 and older use the manual sharpeners! They put a nice sharp tip on our large pencils. They save my time, the students have more independence and the room is a little quieter.

AND they work well on colored pencils, much better than my electric pencil sharpeners.

Foray double-hole pencil sharpeners are available at Office Depot and maybe at an office supply near you.

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