Wire Sculpture

Awesome Elephant!

love the feather

Dancing Bear

Lady on the high wire...she has plans for hanging

Me with this fabulous bow tie from one of the students!

Wow, I love the embellishments here.

This clown car was such a great idea.

We broke out the wire to create some fun sculptures the past few weeks when we studied Alexander Calder's sculpture.  He worked in wire, wood, and found materials to create his 'Calder Circus' which he performed in France and America many times.  Here is a link to watch part of it...lots of fun!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8To4mp9HVw&feature=related

We discussed his invention of the mobiles and viewed some of these and his stabiles.  The middle and high school students had to work with wire and create a circus themed sculpture.  Elementary students used wire to create a mobile portrait with a wood base along with a variety of materials for embellishment. Good middle school project as well. Love these and I found this on a blog and am afraid I cannot find it again to acknowledge. Please let me know if this was your idea so I can give you credit!  Thanks so much for the great idea!

man with the mustache

Smile from ear to ear!

Awesome work, guys!

Colored Pencil Sea Life

Students worked on colored pencil blending at the last class for the semester.  They traced a template of a sea turtle or fish and drew exaggerated the shapes you would find inside.  They did these on black paper which really makes the colored pencil illuminate.  They used analogous colors (colors next to each other on the color wheel look really nice together and blend well) and overlapped the colors to create this effect.  They turn out really nice!

Norman Rockwell Magazine Covers

The last project the older students worked on this semester was to design their own magazine cover.  This was after we studied the life of Norman Rockwell and enjoyed his amazing paintings and how he was such a master storyteller in his illustrations.  Students were given a list of magazine ideas or they could come up with their own...great opportunity to be creative.  We discussed elements of good design and they had to use some of these in their layout.  Then came the colored pencil technique which I will explain here:

After drawing your design, it is very important to erase your pencil lines so you cannot see it thru your colored pencil.  You will still see the lines faintly after erasing but because colored pencil is permanent, you will not be able to erase your pencil lines later.  I showed the students the image of the eye that I worked on from a magazine picture and showed them the two techniques- layering and burnishing.  This worked best to show in small groups at  a table in the back of the room so they could see the details.  Colored pencils need to be very sharp to use this method.  We used Prismacolor(I recommend the 48 color set) because of their wonderful blending ability.  Students were required to use the layering technique (2-4 colors) in their magazine cover and not to go too dark in the beginning.  Choosing analogous colors works well for this method.   With practice, this technique can create depth and realism and created a lot of interest with the colors showing through in the under-painting.