shopkins assemblage boxes

This past weekend there was a birthday party of an 7 year old in the studio. All the girls were grade 2 and all seemed to be enthralled with Shopkins.

In fact, that was the theme of the birthday party.

I strive to learn one thing new everyday and for this day, it was all about Shopkins. I had never heard of them before and so spent some time online figuring out what they were so I could create a project around them.

birthday girl

At first I thought I would have the girls create little oven baked figurines of their own design, however after seeing how small this toy actually is was concerned they would finish them way before the 1.5 class finished. Plus I thought it might be a bit of a challenge to paint in the details with one 4 year old in the mix. (which did turn out to be two little 4 year olds in the end)

As I was cleaning up the house, a time for some reason I seem to have creative breakthroughs, I remembered the Affirmation Boxes the elementary class created last year and thought it would be a great match for a Shopkin party.

Each girl started by sketching their own Shopkin creation. I suggested creating a character that might be associated with birthday parties and the girls all through out ideas of birthday foods in a quick brainstorming session.

Once they had their own Shopkin design, I asked them to paint an environment on the inside of the box I gave them.

As they finished the boxes, I gave each girl a piece of acrylic paper and asked them to draw their Shopkin character. When finished they traced over the lines with acrylic and again started painting.

When finished, I took a blowdryer to the parts of painting that hadn't quite dried. Thankfully they were all finishing at staggered times, so I didn't have a long line waiting.

Then I handed them some scissors and asked them to cut out their Shopkin character.

Finally I showed them how to draw a banner on a piece of cardstock and asked them to put the name of their character on it in Sharpie and again cut it out.

Now it was time to assemble the pieces. I gave them some adhesive little dots to tack their pieces into the boxes.

The girls were all excited with their finished results.

Then it was time for snacks and cupcakes and lots of giggles and chatting.

Thank you Miss S for letting me be apart of your special day.

Happy 8th Birthday!!!

halloween reduction prints

I introduced a printmaking project to the elementary class last week. I decided to make it a Halloween theme, knowing the kids were beginning to get amped up about the holiday.

Each child created their own composition on sketch paper, focusing on creating a line drawing.

When they were happy, we taped the sketch on top of a piece of styrofoam then had them trace the drawing with a dull pencil. This created an indented line drawing on the foam. To make sure the ink would not settle in the lines when we started pulling prints, I asked them to trace over the indents one more time.

Then I explained that we would be creating reduction prints.

This process is hard to grasp at first, but as we began creating our prints the kids caught on quite quickly. I asked them to pick out three colors of ink for their picture, explaining that we would need to start with the lightest color and work our way up to the darkest color.

This print was pulled with him coloring out the "hole" in the pumpkin for a yellow glow with pencil. The other two prints were pulled after he cut out the area he wanted yellow. In the end, this was his second favorite print.

8 year old, first choice

Two of the children had put moons in the composition and the other child had created a Jack-o-Latern, so all agreed yellow was a good first choice for color.

Using the plate, each child pulled three yellow prints.

Then either using the dull pencil to color out what they wanted to stay yellow or cutting out with scissors the areas they wanted to remain yellow, we pulled a second group of prints on the same paper using silver.

At first I was going to have each child just color out their moons or the glow of the Jack-o-Latern, but the kids found it much easier to actually have a "hole" in these areas to match up the register when they pulled the next group of prints.

9 year old. first choice

To take a little pressure off getting it right the first time, I had each child pick their least favorite first pull to start with when using the silver. This way if it didn't go according to plan, they had another shot before they got to their very favorite pull.

But as this project continued, the kids quickly learned that what was once their least favorite pull....or their favorite pull....changed with each new color we added.

Once we had printed the silver over the yellow, the kids cut out their main subject matter to add another color.

Bats and the witch's hat were inked in black and printed and the pumpkin in orange.  Again the kids started with their least favorite print for practice working up to their favorite print.

And again when they finished, each child found they were enamored with prints they might not of been happy with prior.

8 year old. first choice

Finally two children wanted to add a fourth color and so cut (or reduced, I kept using the word reduce or reduction over and over to make sure they understood the concept of why we call these reduction prints) out the final shapes they wanted to add color too.

The black shadow on the pumpkin and the purple patches on the witch's hat.

They kids each had three prints to take home at the end of the project. I'm sure they will enjoy decorating their homes with them during the Halloween holiday.

They are all spooktacular!

(sorry. I couldn't resist.)

sketching ravens

The drawing class last Friday focused on sketching ravens.

I brought out conte sticks for them to explore, along with some very fat charcoal blocks in color.

9 year old

We started the hour again with some warm up drawings using a photo of a raven for reference.

7 year old

They drew with their non-dominant hand and also upside down. To be truthful, I think all of them were very happy with their non-dominant hand drawings and used the exercise to start their final sketches on the large black paper I had put out to use.

7 year old

Having a black piece of paper was a great way to encourage them to focus on highlights and also discover that just because something is black, like a raven, doesn't mean it is devoid of color and variations.

And I got a good chuckle out of the above drawing.  When I really looked at his drawing after class had ended, I made some pretty funny discoveries. During class, this little boy had decided to focus on drawing just the face- really focusing in on the eye of the bird. What I noticed after the kids had all left and I was setting the pictures with spray was the bird now had a name....Jeri! He named the bird after me. Ha! And on top of that I realized he has also added a body to the bird and I am IN LOVE with the proportions of his addition. Children never cease to not only surprise me but also keep me smiling.  However I sure hope he didn't name the bird after me because he thinks I'm big-headed.......

8 year old

Although the objective of this class is all about process and exploration, these ravens turned out stunning. Each child was so happy with their creations at the end of class. I'll be sorry to see them go home this week as I have throughly enjoyed having them hanging in the studio to view.