Fun Friday: Tie Dye

About every-other Friday, my high school classes are offered a "Fun Friday." Fun Friday exposes students to art forms they may otherwise not experience. This fun Friday, we did sharpie and rubbing alcohol tie dyed shirts. This form of tie dye is cool because you have a lot of control over the colors, shapes, and designed. Students experimented with the materials all class long and created some intricate and complex patterns and designs.

 

 

 

Clay!

This semester we've been doing a lot of clay at both the middle and high school levels. Below you can find a lot of examples! I will write the grade and/or project under the picture. Enjoy!

 



8th grade birdhouse

7th grade fairy house

8th grade coil pot

 

8th grade luminary

 

High school cup (focus: texture)

High school ceramic sculpture (theme: good and evil)

 

8th grade bird house

8th grade luminary

High school bowl

8th grade mug

8th grade fairy house

 

8th grade ceramic sculpture

High school mug (theme: good and evil)

7th grade turtle bowl

High school bowl (theme: good and evil)

High school bowl (theme: good and evil)

High school honeypot bowl (theme: good and evil)

High school jug

8th grade hand sculpture

High school mug

7th grade mug (focus: texture)

High school bowl (theme: good and evil)

8th grade hands

 

8th grade cup (focus: texture)

 

Ink Blowing!

Every other Friday, the high school art classes are treated with "Fun Friday." Fun Friday introduces art students to new and interesting mediums that they might not be exposed to otherwise. For this Fun Friday, we experimented with ink blowing and watercolors. The students' art turned out to be very complex, colorful, and Kandinsky-esque. I've put and example of a Kandinsky painting at the end of this post (he was a famous Russian abstract painter).

And here's a work by Kandinsky (see some similarities?):

Exploring Memory

For high school introduction to 2D and to 3D art classes, students were to create a work of art themed around memory. The only other requisite for this project was that 2D had to create a collage, while 3D had to create paper sculptures. Everyone was encouraged to interpret the theme of memory however they pleased. Some chose to illustrate memory loss, others examined the troubling memories of soldiers, and a few students drew upon their dreams and nightmares. Below you can find images of them working, as well as beautiful picture of their final projects. Everyone worked extremely hard and it shows in their meaningful, thoughtful, and symbolic work.

This student did her project on phosphenes, or colors and lights you see behind you eyes -- especially when you rub them. Very cool and abstract idea.

 

Here's a picture of a student as he's finding his grandparents' wedding announcement in the old newspapers (from the 1960s) we were using for collage. He cut out the announcement and brought it home for his family. What a cool coincidence!

This student based her project on memories of the American Civil Rights movement. The gray flowers represent African Americans, while the more colorful flowers represent the oppressive majority. The gray color embodies how African Americans "were not allowed to express themselves freely" and often "faded into the background and weren't noticed" (quoted from the students' artist statement). She separated the rose flowers and gray flowers to remind the viewer of segregation. Even cooler -- the newspaper she used for this collage was printed during the heart of the Civil Rights era -- the early 1960s. 

 

The coolest paper fish I've ever seen! It's about 3 feet long! A lot of engineering went into the creation of this fish. This student worked tirelessly and it shows!

 

This beautiful project reads left to right and represents memory loss, or the fading of memory over time. Notice how even the background fades to white. Very thoughtful.  

 

Here's the same project from a different angle.

 

 

 

Memory of riding an elephant. Red symbolizes how elephants are endangered in some places and should be protected.

Check out what's inside the pupil...! PS this collage is almost three feet wide!

A collage about New York City ("the city that never sleeps").