Thursday, March 27, 2025
Mask Making from Every Day Objects
Costume Design Project: The Hundred Dresses
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Food inspired one student's dress designs: mochi, banana splits, onigiri, candy apples etc. |
To incorporate literature and career education into our art project, I read my students a book from 1944 called "The Hundred Dresses" by Eleanor Estes. It's a Newberry honor book and top 100 teachers pick to read aloud. This sweet story tells of an impoverished girl who was bullied for saying she had 100 dresses, and after she moved they saw that she had 100 amazing drawings of dresses. My students and I made a goal to create 100 dress designs for our next exhibit.
One students obsession with architecture was his fashion line inspiration |
Each student was to pick a theme for their designs. Some students were inspired by food, animals, seasons, or architecture. They could base their designs on a color pallet, a culture, or a decade. It's a great chance for each kid to explore their interests and express themselves.
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From celestial orbs to seasons of the year, there was lots of ideas for fashion themes. |
Netflix has an amazing series called "Abstract," so we watched the episode about costume designer Ruth Carter (minus a few minutes with bad language). It gives a great look into the process and the career of costume design. Most art students have no idea how much research professional artists and designers put into their job.
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animals can have always inspired fashion: zebra, peacock, clown fish and mantis shrimp |
David Byrne's cult classic "True Stories" has a scene of a fantastic fashion show. I show that 4 minute clip to my students for inspiration, and then a behind the scenes documentary which is only 5 minutes. A quick discussion helps students generate ideas and push boundaries. When it comes to costume ideas, creativity counts.
P.S. This project was modified to accommodate students with no vision. Some made their drawings with Wiki Stix, while others mixed and matched heads, torsos and legs to create images using Fashion Plates. I want to give a shout out to my sister, Carolyn, for sending me this favorite childhood toy (she bought a new one for me). It's a perfect tactile solution for blind students to participate in the project independently.
Costume Design Unit: Hats!
Friday, February 28, 2025
Muted Color Relief Sculpture
Last week, my students helped to create boxy, relief sculpture using saturated colors. This week they helped make a relief sculpture using curvy shapes and muted colors.
A color can only be as bright as it is when you buy it in the bottle. You can however make the color more dull by essentially contaminating it. There are two ways to mute a color: by adding gray or by adding its opposite color and the color wheel (its complement). If you want to make a bright orange into a rust color, add a little blue. A bright yellow can become a brown mustard with a little purple mixed in.
Every student chose a color to mute and then paint on curved cardboard shapes. I didn't limit them to part of the palette like last week when it was just pink or colors with lots of yellow. The fact that all the colors are moving towards grays and browns means they have the intensity in common, and that's enough to look good tother.
Monday, February 10, 2025
Analogous Painted Box Tactile Sculpture
Friday, February 7, 2025
Adjusting Color and Learning about Color Science.
Students practice finding the right hue, saturation, and value to get match a target color on the smart board |
When color range is too wide, it looks chaotic |
Adding blue to the yellows makes the composition analogous. |
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the dark background make the colors look like they're glowing |
Triadic Color Scheme Compositions
Friday, January 31, 2025
Analogous Watercolor Assignment
For a quick and easy color theory project, I had my students choose three neighboring colors on the color wheel to make an analogous watercolor painting. Students began by using masking/painter's tape to break up the picture plane into small, medium, and large, shapes. I like it when the strips of paint go off the edges of the paper, but smaller pieces can work too, as long as there is overlap of tape.
blind student uses fingers to navigate what parts of the paper still need painted. |
blind student adding value to tape edges |
Complementary Color Op Art Assignment
Once you have a color wheel made, you can begin to discuss the relationships and positions of colors on the wheel to form color harmonies. A complementary color scheme consists of two colors that are opposite on the color wheel. They have nothing in common, but that's OK-opposites attract! The contrast in these combos pop in a way that make them perfect for sports teams like the Florida Gators or New Orleans Saints.
yellow-orange/blue-purple compliments |
I teach complements by setting three bottles primary colored paint on a table: red, yellow, and blue. These are the first and most essential colors that you need to make all of the other colors (secondary, tertiary and beyond). Two primaries make a secondary. I ask, "What do yellow and blue make?" "Green!" they answer. "And what is left over?" "Red." ":What is the opposite of green?" "Red!" A primary color's complement is the secondary color that is a combination of the remaining primaries. So in a pair of complementary colors, you get all three primaries. The root of the word complement means "to complete." I continue to hold up a primary colored bottle of paint while students look at the remaining two colors to figure the secondary color that would make up the opposite until the concept is solidified.
Students can also look at their color wheel to find compliments other than the primaries and secondary three combos: red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple. These tertiary colors are just shifted slightly to be a yellow-orange and blue-purple. or a blue-green and a red-orange. When naming the tertiary colors the primary color always comes first and secondary color second. The name is the recipe for mixing. You would never have an orange-yellow, because orange can't describe a yellow. yellow is yellow. Once you mix in a little orange it is no longer yellow, it is orange.
Some students chose to work markers. Scented markers can be useful for my students who are blind. Others worked in colored pencil. Some were able to shade and highlight their shapes to make the optical illusion a little more effective.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Color Wheel Lesson Plan
Braille labels with color initials help students understand upcoming lessons on color harmonies |