Repoussé project

 The word repoussé comes from the French word, "to push" and essentially means to push the metal from the back of a piece of metal foil to create an embossed image. 

This was the first project in my class unit on relief sculpture. It is an easy way to create tactile images for my students who are blind.

Students began with sketches of ideas, one of which they chose to transfer to a thick piece of tooling foil. If the foil is set on a piece of chip board or stack of paper you can trace a drawing with a pen and it will transfer to the foil with embossed lines. But my blind students had to re-"draw" their ideas using Wiki Stix, which they could then trace to make the embossed lines.

Rubbing with a rounded plastic stick pushes the foil from back to the front to make your the front raised or budge out. Then rubbing around the form with a flat stick makes it pop out even more. Edges are re-defined and cleaned up with sharp pointed points. For large areas, we found the lids or bottoms of fat Sharpie markers worked pretty well for repoussé.

Then most students opted to color their images with Sharpies. These colors are more bright and permenant than our normal Mr. Sketch on the foil.

Then students painted the entire surface with black paint, whether they'd colored the surface or not. It's important to get into the cracks so the lines show up on the final product.

While the paint is still wet, begin wiping gently in circular motions with a paper towel. You'll go throughs several of them as they get dirty pretty quickly. You want the raised portions to really have a shine, while the cracks should be able to stay black. Reveal as many details as possible without overwiping.

Younger children can wrap boards with thick string or yarn and cover it with aluminum foil and just rub with their fingers to make an embossed foil project. This student chose to use greens and blues to fill the shapes using Sharpie markers.

Yarn Collage Images

Younger kids and multiple complex needs students make a lot of art using only lines. I started the school year teaching about vertical and horizontal lines. We then moved onto to diagonal lines, and finally curvy lines that show movement. Because my students are blind, it is always a good idea to end with a tactile image. Students chose a the color of their piece of paper, and the color of the yearn they wanted to make a curvy line from one edge of their paper to another. Then it was a matter of picking the next color of yarn to push against it. The end results are soft, fuzzy Op Art. 

Little Kids Garden Painting

While cleaning out my attic, I came across a box of leis, which I bought for a luau themed party that I never threw. Rather than throwing it away, I brought it to school and had my multiple complex needs students use them for a mixed media art piece.

As a class, we talked about how you don't need a paint brush to paint, you could use a sponge, a mop or your fingers. Then we wadded up plastic leis and dipped them into green and yellow paint to pat on paper for a background color for our garden art. Before the paint was even dry, students picked colors of flowers from the silk flower leis and glued them to the surface. It's a quick project and a great lesson for kids to learn about mixed media art, the concept of background and foreground, and planting gardens.

Wesleyan Collage Workshop

 The Wesleyan College Leadership Lab has started a series Called Level Up, where community members can take part in Learning Experiences with poet Laureates and experts on AI. The first in the series was a collage workshop presented by none other than Dennis Applebee, the Art Department Chair, and my hubby. He walked participants through the history of collage and his process before turning us lose with books, art paper, X-Acto knives, and archival glue sticks.  The number one problem students make? Not putting enough glue and having the edges curl up. He uses a piece of copy paper to cover the freshly glued collage piece and rubs it pretty hard in every direction with a flat tool to make sure the glue goes into the fibers of both pieces of paper, with rubbing the image or snagging the surfaces. A lot of people left with some really nice pieces. 

Dennis had his art show hanging at the Leadership Lab throughout the month of August, so it was nice to have lots of examples of finished projects. How lucky am I to be married to such a talented guy?

Make Your Own Quiet Book for Kids

 When my I was a young mother with a toddler and a pre-schooler, I struggled to keep my boys quiet at church. My solution was to sew an activity book. I started by cutting out a stack of light denim for the pages and then drew my ideas in pencil before painting, gluing and sewing details for each page. I probably got some of my ideas from friends since this was long before the days of Pinterest and craft blogs. Most of the pieces are now missing, but before I tossed the book, I wanted to document some of the activities in case I ever need a Christmas gift idea for grandchildren.

The book started with a dresser shaped pocket filled with clothes that could be used to dress a boy, like a velcro version of a paper doll. I used to paint on white fabric, glue it to felt and then cut it out to give it a little stiftf-ness to make flannel board activities, so I assume I did that here as well.

Because the pages were sewn together using the zig-zag stitch, I could leave the bottom open between the front and back of a page for kids to use their finger as a trunk and pretend to drink from a barrel of water. I also made a pocket for a pad of paper and pencil. Drawing is always a great quiet activity.

I made this book years before I ever got a cell phone, so my kids at least would have recognized a receiver, which is now missing from the book and from our lives. They could removed the receiver from the Velcro it if they wanted to pretend to talk, or they could push the numbers when I'd recite a phone number.  I can only assume that the hand page was for adding rings or counting. But I don't really remember. What's that hand doing there?

The lion's tale had three cords for learning to braid and the caterpillar hand colored cirlces to rearrange and than try to match up. At the school for the Blind, this would be a great Functional Vision Assessment to determine whether or not a child is color blind.

Strips of felt were for learning to weave, and a brad held some clock hands to rotate and learn time telling.

Summer trip Art Stops

 Art museums are always a treat for me when traveling. I plan my summer road trips based on family members who I want to re-visit, and national parks I haven't yet visited. Then I look at the closest art museums I can stop and see in route for a perfectly balanced vacation experience. 

This summer my family drove from my sister's house (in the middle of Kansas) and my in-law's house (in norther Illinois) by breaking up the 10 hours into two half days of driving. This  allowed for Art Experiences in Kansas City and Des Moines, both of which have stellar, and free art museums!

The Nelson-Atkins has 35,000 works of art that attract half a million visitors every year. It opened in 1933 and was financially stable enough (thanks to the two founders who left their fortunes to a trust for the museum in their will) that they were able to buy up much of the artwork from other museums who were needing to sell in order to raise funds and stay afloat.

There's a nice collection of Impressionist Art, Midevil, Greece, and Egyptian treasures. There's also modern and special exhibits. I was thrilled to see the Andy Goldsworthy stone wall that meanders in and outdoors, and of course, the iconic Shuttlecock sculptures by Claus Oldernberg surrounding the museum. Don't miss the Gates of Paradise upstairs, around the corner from the café. There were no lines and crowds there like the ones in Florence Italy.

We spent a few hours at the museum and didn't see everything. We'd stopped for lunch at Woodyard BBQ before coming, which satisfied our physical appetite, before all those tasty treats for our eyes!

The Des Moines Art Center was really fun morning stop. Firelei Báez is a contemporary artist who was having an enormous exhibition filling several galleries.

But the center also had some really strong modern art like Hopper, and there were Diebenkorn etchings and paintings skattered throughout. 

Lunch at the Manhatten Deli was the best! It is just a few blocks from the Art Center. Good luck finding a parking spot if you are going at noon, but you only need to wait a New York minute for your tasty Des Moines sandwhich.

Lynden Sculpture Garden is in norther Milwaukee and contains over 50 large sculptures among a beautiful landscaple.

They have an indoor gallery that had a photography exhibit when we were there, but obviously most of is is outside: a prairie area, a garden, a couple ponds, and a collection of Bonzai trees. My favorites included a Henry Moore and the Deborah Butterfield horse. Summer was a little hot in the afternoon, but I imagine it being a great place for spring or summer picnics, walks, or photoshoots.

After camping and hiking on the Upper Peninsula and spending a day on Mackinaw Island the family was ready to come down the the other side of Lake Michigan until we ended up at the Ann Arbor Art Fair. I had no idea is was such a big deal! 30 city blocks and 1,000 venders! Lunch at Zingerman's Deli made for a perfect afternoon with the family.

Don't ever think you have to go to the coasts to see amazing art. After all,  I just had 4 fun and free art stops in 4 mid-western states!

Summer time is always a great time to find art wherever you find yourself!

Summer Camp Survivor Medialions & Fishing Field Trip

My summer program students each made a necklace with a medallion they made from clay. They rolled out slabs, cut shapes, pressed textures or drew pictures.

And after a day (we set them in the sun for a few hours), they had become bone dry and so I fired them in the kiln for them to paint. Because most people didn't spend an hour making their medalion, there was lots of time just to play with the clay. No summer should be without a little play.

Other parts of our summer program included, fire building, setting up a tent, swimming and making team flag. One of our field trips was to a fishing education center called, Go Fish, in Perry Georgia. Students were able to practice tying knots, and fish on fishing simulators.

Then they fed fish in the aquariums.

They even caught a few fish of their own! It was fun day, a fun week, and a great way to way to start summer!

Paracord Bracelets

Because the theme of our summer camp was, "Survivor," I decided to teach my students how to make paracord bracelets. Rope or cord is something that comes in handy in emergency situations, to build a tent, hang wet clothes to dry, repel, or create a sling or sprint when someone gets injured on the trail.

And a bonus is that macramé knots can be learned by my campers who are blind or at least visually impaired.

I bought a kit with enough cord and clasps for 50 kids and it ended up being less than a dollar per bracelet.

We started with a long cord, folded in half, with the fold pushed into the hole in the buckle/ clasp. The two ends are pulled through the looop.

 It should look like this, once cinched.

Then the ends are pushed through the hole ont he other side of the buckle. Try to keep the cords parallel  untwisted. You can measure your wrist to see how much to allow through, or you can just try it on your wrist and adjust it, leaving a little room for the extra cords. I left 7 inches in the loop for my bracelet.

And then you start the process of tying knots to hold the appropriate length in place. You'll want to make the knots alternating left and right so that it will lay flat. Otherwise, you'll get a twist, which is great for things like hemp necklaces with little seashells, but too bulky for this project.

I started on the right, making a letter "P" by having the right cord loop to the right side and overlapping the two cords in the middle. The left cord lays on top on the crossing down on the left side of the two center cords.

Then the left cord goes behind the two center cords and pushes up and out of the right loop in the letter "P."  This looks a little like and upside down pretzel.

Once each of the two cords are pulled snug and slide up, you'll make the same knot on the left side. A backward "P" looks like a number 4. You make the loop by placing the left cord across the center cords at a 90 degree angle. Then the right side goes over the top of that cord, behind the center cords and up and through the loop. Pull both sides until the knot is complete. It's basically a square knot. with the right over left, left over right, pattern, except that the knot is tied around the two center cords.

When you get to the end, you cut off all the extra cord and then singe the ends to keep from fraying.

Final Projects

 

Each year, I allow my students free reign (almost) to learn what they want to learn. They can look back on a favorite medium and pushing it further or taking it a different directions. They can think about something that we didn't learn about and design a project for themselves to learn it. Whatever their idea is, they need to write a proposal detailing the scope of the project. This includes the number of pieces, the medium, the size, the subject matter, and it also gives an narative on why this idea is meaningful. Occasionally I have to tell students their proposal is too ambitious or not ambitious enough, but generally, they get accepted, and students are able to devote a week to their own project.

This year, I had students who wanted to learn how to make some origami animals, Another wanted to learn how to draw useing 2 point perspective. One student wanted to make a hand puppet and another wanted to do watercolors using primary colors and geometric shapes. I have to do one-on-one instruction for the few who are learning entirely new skills, but thankfully there are enough woring independently while stretching prior knowledge, that I can to focus on one student at a time.

Making Clay Candlesticks

 Jack jumped over a candlestick. It wasn't a candle, it was the thing that holds the candle: a candlestick. It wasn't until about 15 years ago, that I realized, like everyone around me, that I was calling tapered candles, candlesticks, and calling candlesticks candlestick holders.

No matter what you call it, it's a fun ceramic project for people learning to work on the potter's wheel. I'd never made them before and thought I should l get a lot of practice in before teaching my students as a possible project or fundraiser. It's not to hard to make a cone with a little cup on top. There's a little trick in keeping that cup centered as you squeeze the rest of the clay up into a stick form or, if you want to be fancy, create some bulbs along the way, but it's doable. For me getting them all the same size took a little effort. I was using a wide handle to measure them, but the porcelein didn't strink as much as I thought and the ended up being a little too big.  This wasn't as problematic as the fact that all of them blew up in the kiln. 

Back to the drawing board. I realized that I needed to hallow out the base, even though none of the tutorial videos I watched, mentioned this step. Once the sticks were leather hard, I tried to trim them on the wheel, but they were far to tall and wobbly for this to work. I ended up just holding it with my hand and using carving tools to hollow out the underside, so that the walls were about the same size and gradually lead into the thinner part of the stick.

Success! Every one in the second batch survived the firing, and, since I used the actual candle to measure the size of the cup at the top of the candlestick, they fit. I'm glad I didn't wait to do this with my student.