The last project

I saved my favorite craft for last: the balloon-yarn-ball-thing! Alison I and I made these over spring break, and I couldn’t wait to have my students do them. They are super messy, but worth it. If you want to make them, instructions are here.

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And now, crafts class is over! I’m worn out but I think I’m really going to miss teaching. It was a life saver for me this summer, because I like to stay busy and would have been super bored in the evenings otherwise. I guess it’s back to individual craft time for me!

Chairs: complete, at long last.

It has been a long road for my students with these chairs. But, with our last class quickly approaching on Wednesday (tomorrow), it was time to finish them up. I think there are some great successes within this project over all. Some students chose to stick closely to the famous paintings they chose for guidance, and others meandered a little more. I’m going to put all the photos in one slide show, with their inspiration paintings first followed by the chairs that match them.

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1. The Andy Warhol chair, which used his work called “Yarn”  as inspiration,  is my absolute favorite. I had a difficult time keeping from revealing that to the entire class, but I couldn’t get over how well it turned out. Love it! I wish I could keep it for my own house.

2. I thought this student did a good job choosing elements of this Van Gogh painting, “Cottage,” and making the chair her own design. She worked really hard on it.

3. On the third chair, inspired by the painting called “Rowan Leaves With Hole” by Andy Goldsworthy, I think the colors look awesome. I tried to get the student to add the details of the individual leaves, but he wasn’t really interested.

4. This last chair is what I like to call Mondrian: through the eyes of a teenaged girl. I was really excited when she picked a Mondrian painting, because I had seen this example online and thought it looked awesome. Eventually, I had to accept that the student is the one taking the chair home at the end of the course, and if she wants to draw cartoon flowers all over it, that is her prerogative! She worked really hard on hers, as well.

I am not picturing the chair made by the student who didn’t follow directions at all. But, hopefully he likes the way his turned out and will find some use for it.

I was actually really sad when the chair project ended! I think I am going to go back to the Habitat Re-store and see if I can find one of my own to work on for the last couple weeks of summer.

A way with words

I bought a paperback dictionary and a paperback thesaurus at Goodwill for $.75 each, small white cardboard boxes at Michael’s for $1.50 each, set out the Modpodge and asked my students to get started. I hoped they wouldn’t be bored with this because it was similar to the jar project, but I don’t think they were at all. I think they have all really improved and each of the boxes turned out well. Some of them even looked for dictionary definitions that had accompanying pictures, which I had not even thought of! Way to be creative, craft kids.

Sidenote: I felt a bit strange having them tear up dictionaries for craft purposes. Is Mr.Webster going to come after me? Or Mr.Roget? I’m scared.

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A nature walk and a craft put together

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The students were super excited about going outside last night during class. I had them look around campus for leaves to print on wooden boards, which will be wall hangings (once I drill holes in them this weekend). They picked wildflowers and weeds and leaves from trees, and I told them not to mess up the university landscaping so we wouldn’t get kicked off forever.

They painted the leaves and pressed them on their wooden slabs, and some of them chose to use their leaves as stencils. Oh, and did I mention I got a new male student (that was for you, Shana)? The unenthusiastic student has been M.I.A., so I still had enough supplies for them to do this project.

I shouldn’t judge the crafts, but the lime green one of these is definitely my favorite. It looked AWESOME. Later, the student chose to paint DREAM in bubble letters in the empty space on the board, annnd let’s just say it looked better beforehand. But, these are their projects and they can do what they want with them. I’m just glad they were so enthusiastic!

They also worked on their chairs at the end of class, which look great so far. I guess I need to try to round up a fifth chair over the weekend for the new addition to our class!

Tote bags!

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In tonight’s class, the students made fabric flowers like the ones Alison and I made and used on decorative pillows. I couldn’t quite afford pillows for the class, so I got tote bags instead (I probably should have ironed them first, oops!). I wish I had zoomed in a bit further on the flowers they made for their bags, because they turned out really well! I didn’t tell them how many to make, and they chose to do fairly minimal designs. My male student even participated, and made a bag for his mom, which made me happy. I think they were glad to have a little break from paint and modpodge. They’ll be starting to paint the designs on their chairs on Wednesday and I must say, I’m really excited!

Chair progress & candle jars

This week, I had the students paint a second coat on their chairs. They turned out really nicely and the paint looks great. Tonight, they started sketching their designs on the chair seats. The students don’t seem to be thrilled about trying to replicate the famous paintings on the chairs, but I’m encouraging them to try. I think they’re just nervous about how they’ll turn out.

I also had them choose a color, cut out snippets of magazine pages in shades of that color, and modpodge them onto mason jars. I think if they decide to put candles inside the jars, it will look really neat. Both projects were successes!

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Chairs: the base coat

My students painted their chairs tonight! I just had them do one coat, and we’ll paint them again on Monday. I’m really excited — one is doing a Mondrian painting, another is doing Andy Warhol, and another is doing Van Gogh. The fourth is unfortunately unenthusiastic, and after refusing to choose a painting, is doing his based on a photograph of a man’s tattoo that he found on the internet. It’s a basic shape of a sun. Oh well, I guess I’ll just let him go for it. The other three should be great, though!

One thing I have learned from two nights of teaching is that I could never, ever keep a room full of adolescents occupied for an entire day of school. I have not filled the two hour time block completely thus far, even when it seems like I bring plenty to do. Hopefully I can work on that.

Chair project, phase 1

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Craft class starts Monday! I’m really excited. I’ll be teaching four high school students, who I think are all rising sophomores. I hope I don’t scare them away with my enthusiasm.

My budget for the class is really small, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to pay for enough projects that would take up the full two hours of class, two nights a week. Then I remembered that in 8th grade art class, we each brought in a piece of furniture, and replicated our favorite painting on its surface. My mom still has the stool I made in her kitchen. I decided that would be a great way to keep my students busy, and would hopefully be a gender-neutral project they’d all enjoy.

So began the hunt for furniture. I checked everywhere — Goodwill, Ram’s Rack (a local thrift store), Big Lots, Wal-Mart, Michael’s, and Lowe’s Hardware. The cheapest chairs or stools I could find were $8, which may not sound like much, but purchasing them for my entire class would have eaten up more than half of my budget. Then, one of my co-workers reminded me of the Habitat Re-Store on the outskirts of Boone. I found these chairs for $2 and $5 apiece! I was thrilled. Alex and I spent the morning sanding and priming them. I hope the kids will have a fairly easy time painting over them with acrylic paint.