1 Fish 100% Success! Easy Gyotaku.

Here's a project with a 100% guaranteed success!

To get inspired I told the students the history of the Gyotaku. Some classes watched this PREZI. Others I just told the story of the history of Japanese Gyotaku. My spiel goes something like this. . I asked the students if they have ever seen a picture of a person holding a fish, looking very proud of his or her catch (I acted out my best proud fisherman pose.) Most said they had. I asked WHY would the fisherman want a picture with their catch? Most said to remember the fish and size. What if we didn't have cameras? How would we remember or show others the fish we caught after we ate it, sold it or threw it back? I then showed them the Gyotaku process and explained that Gyotaku means print fish in Japanese. Now artists make Gyotaku for it's beauty and not to record the size of their catch!

Gyotaku on Prezi

First we created the background details with oil pastels. I had handouts and posters with undersea plants  for them to get inspiration from.

Next we did a watercolor wash of ocean colors. The paper was a little moist which worked great for the prints. I carried an old towel with me to dry papers that were too wet. 

Finally we printed our fish. We don't have a big budget so I only have two rubber fish!

Rubber Fish from Dick Blick art supplies
Your probably wondering how I got around to all the tables with ONE fish.
Actually I'm lying I have two but I only brought out one.
I found when I was in control of the fish it went a lot more smoothly!
I applied the ink and kids put their paper on the top and pressed down.
ONE SECOND AND DONE! NEEEEEXT!
I have one hour and some classes with 25 kids.
We did it! The students finished their backgrounds at different rates which helped and we discussed that when they finished they were ONLY printing the fish if their behavior was PERFECTION.
So guess what? Their behavior was perfection, even the most challenging ones!

MAKE YOUR LIFE EASIER ADVICE!
Have students put the paper on the fish, NOT the fish on the paper.
This means no ink will get on their hands.
If students put the fish on the paper you are in for a long line at the sink!

Very smart! Have students write vocabulary word on the back of their paper!
This way they are more likely to remember it.

Bottle Cap Installation

Thank you for all of your inspirations with the bottle cap murals you've been making. To try to link all of your work would be impossible (since it's not on my pinterest) so please feel free to put a link in the comments for other artists. I am going to be putting my spin on the project in the next few days with my students. I knew I didn't have the time or the support to create the magnificent pieces I'd been seeing (as I notice most of you screwed in every single bottle cap whew!) So the idea evolved from a mural to a temporary installation.


This Tuesday in the center of our school we got permission to create a temporary BOTTLE CAP INSTALLATION on the floor. It's really a cool space which I'll try to describe to you. It is an open area with three story high ceilings with skylights and stairs leading down and up. There are also stairs on either side so when we close off the center area for the installation there is plenty of room for classes. The space was original conceived as a place for performers. The kids can sit on the stairs and it is like a theater in the round. Alas we don't have a budget for performers (nor enough art supplies which is part of the reason we reuse a lot) and when anyone comes to the school we try to get in as many kids to see them as possible. This space will only fit two classes at a time. 
It is a BEAUTIFUL space. But a DEAD space. 

As an artist seeing this space with form but no function has been driving me crazy for years.
I've been daydreaming about doing an art installation in this space for a long time.

We've been saving caps for an entire year. Now we are going to create a radial design installation on the floor with the caps. Our Green Team (that the PE teacher and I lead) is going to do it all in a two hour period (HOPEFULLY) and we invited the newspaper. We prepped the kids last week by showing them the work of the amazing Victor Muniz as seen in Wasteland (we only showed the accompanying art work and then the trailer, the whole movie is something that would be "up to" parents of the older students). And we reviewed radial symmetry (a concept I introduced in art class already.)

Victor Muniz's work is amazing. If you haven't seen the movie see it! Basically, Muniz, is a super famous artist who goes back to his home town in Brazil to work with the poorest in the community to create art. He works with the "pickers" or people who collect recycling at the dump to earn money. The job is dirty and dangerous but it has dignity. The people pride themselves on earning money in a legitimate way by RECYCLING. They make it very clear that they work with recyclable materials not garbage. Muniz photographs the pickers and a small group recreate their portraits out of recyclables. Then Muniz photographs the giant portraits. The photographs exist as the final art work and are sold in galleries for more money then these people ever dreamed of. When the work is complete most can never imagine going back to picking and some dream bigger. One man creates a library for the community, he himself is an avid reader and finds many of the books at the landfill. I love this detail because it shows the kids how far people will go to have an education. We are so fortunate to live in the USA and have the opportunity of public education and resources all around us.

I will let you know first, my Green Team group is higher level. So we challenge them, A LOT! This year they created a raise bed garden, went on field trips across the state to "green" related places, created recipes with a professional chef (my husband:) and now this bottle cap mural. 

Please wish me luck and any advice as I have never organized a radial design mural before!

Here's my idea, start at the center, let three kids in at a time with a bag full of caps, let them build out from the center. I want it to be a performance in itself, so I'm going to film it with a stop animation ap on my phone and also my video camera (just in case) I think I'll play music and make a rule no talking. Seeing the art develop and respecting each others additions may be a little easier without words. 

Let me know if you have any thoughts or have done this sort of collaborative work before.

Sorting and getting ready for the installation!

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ALL THE BOTTLE CAPS WHEN WE ARE DONE?
Bottle caps are NOT recyclable in our city!
First we will have a center in the art room where students can work on creating their own bottle cap temporary art (very simply they will place the colors on predesigned pictures)
Second, we will save them for next year and hopefully get enough parents interested through the temporary installation to invest some time in screwing down a permanent mural for our garden.

The Monet Happy Dance

I'm Doing the Happy Dance!

A new children's book that finds connections with the science, art and social/emotional curriculum. 

Every first grade class that I've ever taught learns about Monet this time of year. Maybe it's because it's staying light later, or the bright colors of the spring blooms after a rain shower, but something inspired me to teach impressionism. Usually we make a giant mural as a group and each student creates their own lily pad. I will post some pics if I can ever find them another day. We talk about reflection and how light effects color (especially on water). This year though, the kids are studying life cycles. The life cycle of the butterfly, the chicken and the frog to be specific. I thought it would be the perfect time to add a character in our Monet landscapes. 

This is a must have for any art teacher.
Not only does it talk about Monet, it also talks about bullying.
In the book it shows the bully frogs 'getting what they deserve." They get caught for
Frog leg soup. We talked how they would handle the situation. Would you help the bullies if you
were Philippe? Only three kids said they would help him. They had very good reason. They
thought they could show him how to be good by being good. Our very own little Ghandi's in training.
Gotta love kids with that kind of empathy!
Their classroom teacher also embodies this kind of empathy and it is amazing to see
the development of this group.

Philippe finds refuge in Monet's garden and lives happily ever after.

You can imagine my surprise when the other art teacher at our school brought this book to my attention and let me borrow it. You know this will be on my impulse purchase list.

Here are our First Graders very own Philippe portraits in Monet's Garden.  

Tracing in the Art Room

I TRY to never promote tracing. You've read my thoughts on using tracers, so you can imagine that I discourage tracing. I also believe in breaking the rules, with good enough reason. This was one of the times I had to break my own rules!

We created this mural in our after school Green Team (we also made a few more which I will show you if we ever finish them.) Then we added words to our mural in an ap called WordFoto click on the link to see the initial design here.

In progress! We have more tracing to do which the kids love by the way!

Next I projected their WordFoto onto their mural and they began tracing the words. Can I just note that I LOVE technology! I love it so much I use my own mac, ipad and projector (which I bought for the kids.) I don't want a cookie or pat on the back (well a cookie would actually be good right now) but I'm wondering. . . do any of you BUY supplies or technology for the classroom? What are your reasons? I can't stop buying supplies! I have an impulse problem, when I want something for the classroom, I want to use it right away and I'm not usually able to wait a whole year or write a grant for it! 

You Have Summers Off!

When people say "but you have summers off" you know exactly what that means. Even my own HUSBAND says it to me from time to time. Now I can't say what I think when someone says that to me (because I'm sure you feel the same way too) but I can say they just don't understand. 

I call it a SPRINT and CRASH job. We sprint, or work extremely hard in a condensed amount of time then crash, because no human could keep up that pace year round! Another way to think about it is perform and prepare. I spend many of my breaks preparing so that when I'm teaching I can simply perform at my best. 

This has been a great break. Taking care of Stella, Dr.'s appointments, graduate school work (for those of you who don't know teachers are required to get masters degrees to continue teaching), getting art show submissions ready, buying classroom supplies that I ran out of, stocking up my cabinets for the last bit of the school year, oh yeah! AND STELLA! Well crashing hasn't been the same with Stella. But, it has been so much fun for her and I to do everything together. Here are just a few of the pictures I snuck in to our busy schedule this week! 

Stella learned to walk.
Then saw her dad, made this expression, and fell on her bottom!
Really well!
If you think Frankenstein walks well.

Forsythia's bloomed!

Party in her crib. 6 am. everyday.

Yes I know my house is a mess,
you don't have to rub it in!

I don't bother really "folding" her clothes any more.
In and out of the drawers they go!

Strawberry Picnic!

She was having a tantrum before I gave her the WHOLE strawberry. 

Which I had to take away promptly.
Which incited a bigger tantrum.

Watching T.V.
I gave in for our new Sesame Street DVD.
Adam Sandler makes an appearance! I had to.

Playing with MY old dollhouse!

Going back to my old stomping grounds.
Mom's birthday. Window shopping and lunch.

So much has happened on this street of my old town, Litchfield.
Now Stella is walking on the same sidewalks. So cool!

"Litchfield Style" the book!
That just makes me laugh

This is why I smile!