Georgia O'Keefe Enlarged Flower Assignment

Art History Books are full of male artists, so I always enjoy when I can teach a lesson based around a woman as important as Georgia O'Keefe, the Mother of Modernist Painting. I love how she takes something as small as a flower and makes it so large that you have to take notice. For a spring-time appropriate assignment, we discussed O'Keefe's history and subjects before students each chose a flower to use as their subject. I'd originally wanted to make them choose a flower that was native to our state, but it soon became clear that they would work harder if it was a flower to which they felt a personal connection.

Many students used a print out of a flower, drew a grid on top of it in order to duplicate it on a large piece of paper (also with a grid). Oil pastel was the medium of choice for my students with low vision

Although for those who are blind, I drew their flower in hot glue, and then they used watercolor to fill in the shapes. Every student seemed to take a lot of pride in their finished product.

Kite Making

Kites can be canvases for drawings or paintings. Kites can be sculptural. Kites can be functional works of art. For our kite-making unit, I offered my students a variety of kite styles to choose from. Then they decided if it made more sense to use wooden dowels or straws as the support. They chose whether to make the body from plastic, paper, tissue paper, wax paper or fabric and decided whether or not to draw using oil pastels, markers, or colored pencils. Art making is about choice making.

It seems like a big stretch to tie this into American History, but we did probably spend forty minutes discussing the accomplishments of Benjamin Franklin. He was famous for his electricity experiment using a kite and key, but when he was much younger, he also tied a kite to his toe, curious to see if it would pull him across a pond if he were to float on his back. It worked! I suppose you could say we studied aerodynamics too when we tried to fly them with some success.

The tissue paper didn't hold up very well for the box kite or tetrahedron kite, and had to be remade using bulletin board paper. Live and learn.

Some students re-purposed their batik assignment and the acrylic that had soaked into the fabric gave it a little more wind resistance than plain fabric.  

You may recognize the motorcycle on the kite below from Prince's Purple Rain Album. Everyone has to bring their own ideas to the project.

Four people who made tetrahedron kites put them together to make a much larger one. This kite wasn't finished until the weather got too wet to fly, but we may try it out if the sun ever comes out. The blue on the top was originally one kite with four tetrahedron components, each component requiring 6 straws. String is pushed through the straws and tied together before gluing paper around two sides.

Puppetry Arts in the classroom

The last couple of weeks, I have watched stoned faced students erupt into giggles when being hugged and kissed by puppets. For blind children, it is important to get to touch the mouth of a hand puppet as it opens and closes, and shake hands with a puppet arm. They each got to try out several kinds of puppets and listen to silly my voices. I showed an episode of the "Muppets" and talked about how someone has to invent each character and make it by hand.


When it came to art production, my elementary students began at the beginning, which for me is the paper bag puppet. No childhood is complete without making at least one.

It didn't take long for me to sew dozens of little finger puppet bodies, which these kids took to new heights. It's important to discuss lots of ideas and offer a variety of materials before students come up with a solution that will work for them. I was surprised at some of the ideas they had, like feather for hair and a goat-tee, or a yarn loop to make a girl's hula hoop.

Older students watched power point presentations on puppets and video clips of amazing giant marionettes to ancient shadow puppets. They then made their own shadow puppets with two pieces of black paper, wire, and metallic markers. Dowels and brads work too for moving parts. But I am saving our dowels for another project.

The marionette project used paper towel rolls (we still have plenty left over from all of our toilet paper roll crafts), paint, string, and Popsicle sticks.

Puppets and marionettes marry visual arts with literacy and performance art. We wrapped up our unit by taking a trip to the Center for Puppetry Arts to watch an amazing performance about "The Diary of Anne Frank."

Batik

Batik is usually a process that combines wax drawing and tie dye. The Indonesians in Java have the art down to a science, and there are some fun Youtube videos that can walk you through the process. In our class, we used Elmer's glue, rather than hot wax, and watered down acrylics, rather than dye.

First the glue is applied to a piece of fabric, in a pattern. When it driers, diluted acrylics are painted on top. It takes more than you'd think, since you want it to soak into the fabric. The back side of the fabric will probably still show the white lines pretty well. After the paint dries, you can wash it in warm soapy water to remove the glue, and it will create white lines on both sides of the fabric.

Bottles of watercolor worked well too until it was time to wash out the glue, at which time the color disappeared. But there's nothing wrong with leaving the glue in, if you are just going to use the fabric as a wall piece. It is easier to feel the texture of design for my students who are visually impaired anyway.

Face Pottery

There is a rich tradition of face jugs in the southeastern United States, in part because of our abundance of clay, and in part because freed slaves were the ones credited with the tradition. Some believe that because slaves weren't allowed to have headstones on their graves, that face jugs were left to scare off the devil. A few of the jugs migrated north and were buried by the front door of houses to ward off evil spirits. Ironically, in the 1920s ugly jugs were made to store spirits (i.e. moonshine) during the Prohibition era.


 I am so excited about the faces my students created for their "Ugly Mug" assignment. I worked with each of them on the wheel to make a cup or two. Then they came up with multiple face ideas before choosing one to add to a cup.

Nine of my students who made a couple donated one to the silent auction to support the senior's trip in the spring. Some sold for over $20.00. It just goes to show, that sometimes beautiful things happen when you try making something ugly.
















The elementary school students used the slab roller rather than the wheel and made flat faces, which will later be hung. I can't look at these smiles without smiling myself.

How to Make an Etching

Intaglio is a type of printmaking in which the ink goes under the surface of a matrix, such as a piece of copper or zinc. This is unlike a relief print where the ink sits on top of a rubber stamp or wood cut.  I am taking part in an print exchange suite, which means, in January, I created an edition of 30 identical prints. A bunch of other printmakers do the same.
Then we each get one of each other's prints in a lovely suite.

Here is how I made my print.

I took a zinc plate. I beveled the edges (with a file, scraper and burnisher) so that it would be able to run through the press without tearing the felt blankets. Then I covered the plate with a hard ground. This can be painted on or melted on with the use of a hot plate, and then rolled to make the covering even, depending on whether your hard ground came in a liquid or solid.

Hard Ground

I drew an image with an etching needle. Each line scratches through the hard ground and exposes the metal plate. The print is always a mirror image of the plate, which means, the question mark had to be drawn backwards on the plate for it look right on the etching.

When placed in a bath of nitric acid, the exposed metal will etch. In other words, the lines that were drawn will be eaten away by the acid and create grooves, which will later hold ink. Little bubbles are formed around these lines in the process, which causes uneven etching. You can avoid this by stroking the plate with a feather as it etches, or you can create a little masking tape tail from other the plate, which can be used as a handle to tilt the plate every 15 seconds. Both methods get rid of the bubbles.

Rinsing and drying the plate stops the etching process.

 The hard ground can be wiped off using kerosene, and then cleaned with a little dish detergent and water.

Soft Ground

I decided to add a soft ground. This is applied like the hard ground. Rather than draw, I used a feather and pressed it (with the help of the press) into the surface.  All other parts of the plate were blocked out with hard ground, and I etched it again.

Aquatint

Then I painted with the hard ground all the areas I wanted to be white. I used spray paint to create an even coat of speckles, which is one way to make an aquatint. The acid avoids the paint, but eats in the plate in lots of little tiny areas, which can make value. I pulled the plate from the acid bath every couple minutes and add another layer of hard ground to block out, until only the areas I wanted to be the darkest were exposed.

 Beveling 

Once the plate was cleaned, I had to re-bevel the edges with the file, scraper, and burnisher. It's important to get the edges smooth so that they don't hold any ink.

Inking

I used small squares of mat board to apply the ink. It is important to coat it thoroughly, by going in lots of directions. Mat is also used to scrape off most of what is on the surface before wiping the plate using tarletan. Some print makers wipe with paper (phone book paper) lightly before hand wiping, gently to help get even surfaces, and light lights. My husband, Dennis inked both his and my plates and I was the "clean hands" person to work with the paper and press. Our courtship began 18 years ago in a print shop, and it has served us well to know how to collaborate and cooperate on projects such as this.

 Printing

Finally, the inked plate is placed on the printing press.  A damp piece of paper is placed on top of the plate. I soaked and blotted an whole stack of printing paper before placing them in a plastic bag. This is called a damp pack.  I also created a template so I would know where to place my plate and paper in order for it to be centered and squared each time.

After running it through the press, I "pulled the print."  Really, I had to print a couple throughout the process to know how it looked and where it needed to be etched again. I'm willing to post an incredibly unflattering picture of myself just so you can see the press and the felt blankets that I'm pulling back to get to the print. Hey, I'm not proud.

After an 8 hour day, my poor hubby's back was killing him. 

The process is very time consuming. It is much easier to apply pigment directly to paper in a painting...but in the end, it is easier, less time consuming, and more possible to make 30 identical prints than 30 identical paintings.

Leaf Bowls

Last fall when my art lessons all about leaf projects (see the blog with leaf collages, prints, and ornaments), my older students made leaf bowls. They each made a large slab of clay using the slab roller. Then they pressed the vein side of leaves into the clay and cut out around the edges. It was as easy as making sugar cookies. There were a variety of styrofoam, plastic and stainless steel bowls to use as a mold. Students each chose a bowl, turned it upside down pressed their clay leaves together, texture side out around the the bowl. They added either individual feet or a donut shape of clay for one foot. It ended up being a nice way to marry function and aesthetics in project.