Chinese New Year Lions

The kids and I have been working on a great project for Chinese New Year. I designed a puppet that takes inspiration from Chinese New Year Lions. My family and I visit Chinatown in nearby NYC for the Chinese New Year celebrations and have followed the lions through the streets as they visit shops to collect small red envelopes and to give the shopkeepers their blessing.

It began with the idea of cutting a plastic plate in half and hinging it to make the mouth of the lion and it developed from there. Here we are creating the mouths and feet.

We created the bodies of the puppets with Smart-Fab who coincidentally were another exhibitor at convention. A little while back, they sent me some fabric to try and blog about. This was the first project I used it for. It's easy to cut, and we used tacky glue and hot glue guns to construct our projects. The Smart Fab stood up to it all. Thanks to the company for giving me an opportunity to try it out!

 And here are some of our final creations. It was hard to keep everyone still to take pictures! As you can see, I had a large age range and everyone was happy with this project! When I have older kids and younger kids together, the older ones always love to help the younger ones. It is a nice place to be. Not to mention that I even get to be in a picture!

Can you see all of the parts to construct these lions? A plastic plate, a plastic bowl, egg carton cups, paper tubes, and Smart-Fab. We used tissue squares and Mod Podge to cover the head, felt for the ears and tails, yarn, gems, pom poms, wiggle eyes, and jingle bells. I love this job! Enjoy.

Three Sisters Patterns

During my teaching assignment last fall I tried out a new lesson plan with first graders to learn about the Thanksgiving holiday, creating a pattern, and to highlight a living artist's work.

We discussed the companion gardening technique of the Wampanoag people, and why they called beans, corn and squash The Three Sisters. While researching this assignment I came across the website of a New England artist named Janice Schupak Frishkopf, whose works inspired my students to create their own autumn harvest patterns!

To make our patterns I provided tracing templates for ears of corn, beans and various types of squash. Students were asked to show each of the Three Sisters in their patterns, to repeat shapes, to let their shapes reach outside the border of their paper, and to start with the largest shapes first. They could also let shapes overlap. The first class they worked in pencil to trace out their patterns.

After the pencil drawings were finished, I placed ears of dried Indian corn, and decorative squash at each table. We looked at all of the different colors and textures, and then added color to the drawings with oil pastels. The last step was using cake tempera to add a wash of color to the background and/or as a resist.

Their color choices and attention to detail were more than I had hoped for! And they really had fun creating their own distinct patterns. I actually left this lesson in progress for the returning art teacher, and she finished up the assignment with the children. When I had a chance to sub again I saw their finished pieces on display. I just had to take a few pictures! Thank you Emily for letting me introduce this lesson in your class room, for helping the children complete their art, and for letting me share this lesson on my blog.

Calaveras Portraits Inspired by José Posada

My fourth graders are learning about the works of José Posada, an artist from Mexico who illustrated political cartoons which poked fun at the members if High Society. He was also influenced by Dia de los Muertos, hence his portraits rendered as calaveras (skulls).

My amazing family of artists helped me to create some sample pieces for my classes. Here are our creations. Students' work to come soon!