Leftovers

One of the things I have learned over the years when working with kids is that building upon a project is a good way to keep interest high for extended periods of time.  It is especially good for nipping in the bud those kids who love to holler out ten minutes after a project has started, "I'm done!"

This project started out with some Plaster of Paris circles left over from another project earlier in the year.  Since all these students had created on plaster before with paint or pastel, I decided to do something a bit different and have them use graphite only.

Once done, I let them put in some pastel color over it if they wanted too.

Then I got out some leftover Fimo clay I had from summer camp and had them create a few sculpture  "charm" pieces that related to their plaster drawing.  I told them to make sure they put a hole in it so it could hang from their artwork.

Then while the Fimo was in the oven, I pulled out some cardboard I had salvaged from the many different paper packages I buy for class projects and had them paint with acrylic just the environment their graphite sketch would live in.

Finally on more salvaged cardboard, we glued down some leftover burlap I had used to create plaster pieces for other projects.

Then we assembled all the pieces created from the leftover bits into a finished artwork.

10 year old, deer

She used a deer reference that had a baby hiding in a yellow flower field.  You can see she picked up this reference in her charms and in the painted background.

13 year old, stag

Another deer, this time wading through grasses.  I love the way she picked up the same motion in the painted work also.

8 year old, crazy chicken

He wanted to create an image out of his imagination.  How cute is this chicken and the story that goes along with it?  In case you are interested, he likes to eat doughnuts and pizza. He also likes to bowl. And he enjoys dreaming of flying in the sky.  I love the whimsy of this sketch and funny enough all the other classes who were looking at the works during the next week were also drawn to the funny nature of this sketch.

It was fun working with just leftover bits and pieces in the studio and seeing what we could make out of it.  I thought these were quite interesting when completed and not once did I have to wrestle with "I'm done" 10 minutes out of the gate.

the humble pencil

I realize that sometimes in my quest to create interesting projects that introduce new and fun mediums, I sometimes forget the simple things.

Like the pencil

Taken for granted and rarely ever given it's due as an important medium to be explored.

And that's sad because I realized when I presented a "sketch your stuffie" class to my students, just how much joy they found in spending a class working with nothing more than their pencil.

I had each child bring their favorite "stuffie", as they like to call them in Canada, or "stuffed animal", as I liked to call them in the States, and then we spent an hour just quietly sketching them.  This project really gave the students a chance to work on nothing more than their drawing and real life observation skills.

And since they couldn't hide behind paints and color in general for interest, their composition skills too.

I find the results charming and these are some of my favorite pieces to come out of my classes.

So next time you are wracking your brain for a creative and fun project in class, don't overlook the humble pencil and the joy it can bring in a simple but lovely project.

10 year old

7 year old

7 year old

9 year old

8 year old

7 year old