put a ring on it.

The 2nd graders are checking out the work of Erin Inglis this week. Instead of multiple pieces of jewelry like the 5th graders, they are focusing on making one piece while continuing to focus on analogous colors like they did with their Erik Abel inspired skateboards from last week.

We are reviewing the analogous color families at the beginning of the lesson and then we take a look at how Erin repeats simple shapes in her designs to create interesting forms and patterns.

The kids are loving this project. It's quite interesting for me too, as I am not used to creating such small, intimate pieces with my students. I need to think of cool ways to display the jewelry work. It would be neat to have some mannequin hands and heads to show off the various forms...

In order to make the rings, I have been cutting 1/2" by 5" strips of plastic and cooking them. I then wrap the soft strips around the end of a marker. I should probably be wearing gloves because that stuff is hot! (I can see my wife shaking her head as I continually get my fingers toasty;) After the kids make their ring piece we hot glue them to the band.

Many more to come, but I had to share these from our first day of ring making.

ouch!

sketching at least two ideas.

that bear has some bling:)

boom!

still shrinkin and dinkin!

Today I was able to share the work of Erin Inglis AND the work of other 5th graders with my classes by showing them my previous blog post. It's always cool to share what other classes are doing with the same project. I feel that it sparks more ideas because they can see how their peers have interpreted the assignment.

I am loving the variety of pieces that are coming out of this wearable art project!

Here's a cool interview from a few years ago with Erin for a little more insight into how she rolls.

Watching the magic happen:)

shrinkin' and dinkin'.

I LOVE shrinky dinks! Back in the day, my wife made a lot of really cool jewelry with it. We also did ornaments for our xmas trees a while back that are still some of my favorites to put up:)

This is the first year, though, that I have attempted to use the material with kids at school on a grade level scale. Seven 5th grade classes with 30 students each... let's do this!

I discovered the work of Vermont based artist Erin Inglis online. She makes way cool jewelry with shrinky dink material. I love her use of shape, pattern, and color. Her work fits well with the 5th grade investigation of unity on conceptual and visual levels.

I've been sharing numerous pieces by Erin with my classes, pointing out her repetition of shape, line, and color to create a sense of unity. If she uses just one shape in a piece, she will break up it's interior with smaller shapes. We are also looking at how she sometimes assembles a few seperate pieces to create a larger whole, like a necklace and that these pieces don't have to be exactly the same. This variety of form and/or concept makes her pieces more interesting to wear or see.

For this project I asked the students to create a piece or several pieces that are based on the use of one or two shapes a few times. Each students has a 4x5" piece of plastic to work with. I emphasize that if they want a statement piece, something big, that they need to draw it as big as possible because the material will shrink in my toaster oven to 1/3 of it's original size. I think this has been the hardest part for the students to grasp. As they watch their pieces shrink in the oven, they are continually amazed at how small their pieces become.

I have students sketch out ideas and then trace the ones they want to use on the plastic. They can then outline in sharpie and color with crayola color sticks. The pieces are cut out, baked, and then strung, hung on ear rings, or rolled as rings.

The kids are loving this project. I'm going to have a hard time getting kids to part with their wearables for our art show at the end of the year!

If you are looking at a cool science connection to this project, you could talk about why the shrinky dinks shrink like they do. You can also tie in math and fractions since the material shrinks to 1/3 of it's original size. Students can estimate the final size of their designs in a quick sketch and then compare that sketch with the final "dink".

even this old guy got into the act;)