the superduper zamo quilt mashup of 2016.

Back to business at Zamo! I had a wonderful summer break drawing outside, camping, beaching, doing honeydos, and spending time with the fam. It's hard to believe that my last post was about our end of the year 5th grade legacy mural. But, in a way, it's a perfect segway... from a large scale permanent public art install to a large scale temporary one.

Every year I kick things things off with a week of 30 minute mini-lessons that allow me to review my classroom expectations with students and to create an artwork that celebrates both the unity and diversity present in our school population. 

This year I found inspiration in work by two different quiltmakers. Latifah Saafir is an LA based quiltmaker and Sylvia Sutters is a quiltmaker working in Saint Louis. Last year I used Latifah's work as inspo for a kinder drawing project, but Sylvia is new to me. I found both by going through the Modern Quilt Guild's website, FB, and instagram galleries. There is so much visual goodness at all of those platforms!

I first introduce Latifah's Glam Clam quilt and we look at how she repeats one shape over and over- same size, same direction. This is similar to the unity found at a school site- the kids are all in the same class, same grade, etc. Then I ask them how the shapes are different from each other- patterns and colors and we relate this to the fact that none of the kids are exactly the same, that they all have unique qualities that make them special.

We then look at Sylvia's Current Wave quilt and I ask the kids how is this similar to Latifah's piece and then how it is different. A lot of kids noticed that she used the same shape as Latifah, but rotated that shape freely to create a different composition.

Finally, we looked at one more from Latifah, her hexie glam clam pattern and noticed that she introduced a new shape into the pattern.

At this point, I explain that they will be doing a mashup of the 2 quiltmakers' work. Each student will create a hexie glam clam piece and then we will put them together, rotating them in different directions to create a composition influenced by Sylvia's quilt.

Then it is time to create. It goes by superfast. My review of rules and intro to the quilters work takes 10 minutes, which leaves 20 to trace, cut, glue, draw, and glue again.

This is what my tables look like before the kids come in.  Each student has a 5" clam stencil and a smaller hexie stencil. They have a large piece to trace the clam and a smaller one to trace the hexie. Depending on what colors we are at on the collaborative quilt, the colors on the table change. We started with light yellows and oranges on Tuesday and finished with yellow greens on Friday afternoon. I gradually work in new colors and transition out of old ones to create the spectrum effect in the final install. I transitioned the hexie colors between white, light gray, dark gray, and black a bit quicker than the colors. This gives the final install more of an undulating look.

I prepared about 50 stencils of each shape because, inevitably, some get glued together, crumpled up, or thrown away.

Kids trace both shapes first.

They then cut out both shapes.

After gluing the hexie on, they create a pattern that tells us a little bit about themselves.

They could use lines, shapes, colors, or words to build their personal patterns.

They put glue on the back of their clam when finished with their patterns

and place it on the quilt, responding to the ones previously set in place.

This was our progress after 3 days. 

This is the final install in our auditorium. It will serve as a backdrop for assemblies.
The final size is 21' x 4'. About 600 kids in 3rd-5th grades participated.
The individual pieces are glued onto a series of 24x36" white sheets.

Something like this takes a bit of preplanning (what doesn't;), but it gives you a relatively quick way to get some color and beauty up at your school for the beginning of the year. The hands on portion is pretty low stress for the kids because it is fast and their piece becomes part of a much larger whole, so if they are concerned about making mistakes I encourage them to work through it and with it. When the pieces are installed, nobody will notice errors in cutting or drawing. 

Our Zamo kids did a great job with this! I'm looking forward to a most excellent school year!

mmm... pop!

This week I did a project with the 3rd graders that is inspired by a collage by artist Lisa Congdon.

I started by sharing this image with the kids and talked about how the background pattern contrasts against the radial design in the middle. It does so by using lots of curves and having lots of detail compared with the straight lines and simplicity of the foreground design.

To make it a bit different for the kids, instead of triangles making up the central design, they used cut paper popsicles:) I show them an example of one of the popsicles and the kids told me that it didn't look flat because of the white and black along the edges that show light and shadow. This is something we have repeatedly worked with all year, so I'm glad they identified it so quickly.

I then explained that we would make a stencil out of paper, so that we may spray paint the background pattern onto another piece of paper. The kids, um, LOVED this part. The background patterns really create a lot of variety in the classes' designs. And really, it's a step that is a "can't not succeed" part. No matter what they do, the patterns come out pretty darn cool.

They constructed their pops out of paper, then they did their background patterns, and then they glued them all together.  I gave students the option of using leftover stencil paper to add symmetrical details to their designs.

Each of the classes worked with a different variation of an analogous color scheme.

As an added bonus (and behavior/creativity incentive) A couple of projects from each class are going to be in an exhibit at a local pop shop called Viva Pops. This will be the 2nd annual Zamorano student exhibit at the store. We'll have a reception for family and friends in a few weeks:)

Great job kids and thanks to Lisa Congdon for the project inspiration!

folk? rock?

I have finally done a project based on a painting by the Jolby design team that I wanted to do for a while. It has been a lot of fun for me (and the kids).

I love the simplicity in shape and color palette. If you look closely though, there is great attention to detail on the guitar and broken line pattern that fills the background.

When I introduced the 3rd graders to the work of the Jolby team the students really got a kick out of the whimsical creatures in a lot of them. We discussed what designers do- how they make our surroundings more interesting to be in, and how they make money and a career by doing so.

I had one student ask if this was a good thing- making things that people like me and you want to buy. Like making a career of selling the products of their creativity was taboo. I loved the question.

When we looked at the above painting we discussed the relationship between the positive shapes (the guitar with hands) and the negative shape (the wavy background pattern). I talked about how this relationship is crucial to the success of a visual image. If the positive image is too small, you are left with a lot of empty negative space. If the positive shape is too simple and uninteresting, the negative shape could be as well.

Keeping that in mind, we set off to make our own versions of the painting titled 'Songs by Robin".

1. started with a 12x12 square sheet

2. cut wavy or zigzag patterns out of a 6x12 sheet of a different color

3. before gluing these pieces in place, like the birdie project, students were asked to think about spacing and direction of the strips to make the negative shapes as interesting as possible

4. glue pieces on

5. add broken line patterns to negative shape with construction paper crayons

6. create guitar body- fold 6x6 sheet in half and draw half the guitar shape

7. decide what is top and bottom, think about position on larger square, and glue in place

8. cut and add guitar neck and tuning board

9. fold sheet for hands, draw, cut, place, trim, and glue  (a lot for "one" step:)

10. add stickers by cutting and gluing paper and/or with construction paper crayons

Again, the variety of guitars, decals, and overall compositions was impressive.

After we completed the project, I walked students through a self assessment. We evaluated how well they met the art standard for the lesson. I modeled this for them and they could discuss it with neighbors if they were uncertain where they scored.

We also assessed their craftsmanship and respect of others for the project. They also answered a couple questions relating to successful and unsuccessful elements of their designs.

This was a new exercise for the 3rd graders and I was very encouraged with how well they did with it. After the class left I went through and checked how they assessed themselves and assessed each of them myself on the same sheet. These will get returned to their teachers to give them more support/evidence for the students' art grades.

An extra note of thanks goes out to Josh and Colby of Jolby for graciously donating a couple copies of their new kids' book, the King's 6th Finger, to our school library and my classroom reading center, as well as a few stickers and bookmarks that I will be using as good behavior rewards. I shared these with my 3rd grade classes today and they were the cat's meow!