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Library Card Art

Hi, Janell here. A fun fact about me. Along with teaching art to awesome kids I’m also an illustrator. (janellgenovese.com) I’ve had some super fun clients and have created illustrations for a variety of markets including books, magazines, toys, bedding, posters, etc.

One day while teaching at my local library I was approached by the director about doing an illustration for their new library card for children. I was thrilled! The library was one of my favorite places to go when I was a child. I can remember getting my new library card and feeling like I’d been given something special that was all mine. Now the kids in my town would get their new card with one of my illustrations on it!

When starting an illustration I like to make a list of words that help me set the mood for the visual. For the library card I wrote:

  • cozy  
  • adult reading to child  
  • imagination  
  • home
  • adventure/fun
  • books
  • safe  
  • for everyone

My specialty is drawing anthropomorphic animals. I chose Hedgehogs to be the characters in my illustration. If you look closely, the hedgehog family is reading one of my favorite children’s’ books, The Little Red Hen.

Here is the finished illustration.

I’m so proud to have my artwork on something as special as a library card.

 

Love Bugs

 

After taking the $5 challenge to make a Valentine’s Day project (take two)  I taught the project to my fourth grade class. You know when you put together a project, and then release it into in the hands of a child and it falls apart? Literally— the floral foam we used for printmaking crumbled before my eyes! When I teach printmaking, I always tell the kids to practice on a scrap piece of paper to decide how much paint and pressure they need to apply before they make the finished print. In this case, it was bad advice. By the time they got to make the final print the floral foam was falling apart for half of the kids. The next day, I had to scrape bits of floral foam out of the dried paint!

After the printmaking crashed and burned I was nervous about the next week, so I modified the legs of the love bug and used strips of card stock instead. Luckily, the assembly was a success!

Look how this student not only made a face with a heart but she made a tail as well. I love the double layer of doilies for the wings.

This student complained that his didn’t look like all the others, but I reassured him that his was a unique solution. He turned the bug body upside down and used it like a taco. Those doily wings make a yummy filling!

Look how this student used two doily hearts facing in opposite directions to make the wings.

This one wins the prize for the tallest love bug!

This boy has a crush on Katy Perry and I like his candy-heart-worthy phrase Lift off to Love!

If you use this project with your kids we’d love to hear about it. Give us some love– please share this post!

 

Stop Motion Animation Hack

Over the summer, the location of the art room changed, and without my knowledge all of the supplies and equipment were moved to the new art room. If you’re an art teacher, you know that most people’s trash is your treasure! One “treasure” that was thrown out, during the move, were 10 cardboard boxes I had scavenged from BJ’s Wholesale Club. They weren’t just any cardboard boxes, they were for the stop motion animation club. All I did was turn them upside down, cut a hole in the top, place the iPad so the viewfinder is unobstructed and taped the iPad to the box. They are very handy and of course free! One drawback is that they’re bulky and can’t be stacked. Students are also limited to filming from above.

Just before this year’s stop motion animation club I realized that eight of the 10 had been thrown out–aargh! As I rummaged through the storage closet I came upon two dozen coffee cup trays and inspiration struck. As you can see in the photos, it’s a simple cut with a box cutter or X-Acto blade to make a free iPad stand for stop motion animation. The red indicates where the iPad should be inserted. If the tab on the cupholder breaks just rotate the cupholder and use another side. To make the iPad perpendicular to the table I inserted a marker between the back of the iPad and the stand.

   

Now, I can offer two ways for the students to take the pictures for their animations. They can use the boxes from BJ’s to film from above or use the cup holder to film in front of their subject. By the way, the cupholders are easy to stack and take up little room. Now, what about the backdrop for the animation? In the classroom, I put a chair on top of the table and tape a piece of white paper to the seat. For a portable solution, make our DIY Social Media Photo Booth.

Like we always say at Pop up Art School, “Cardboard is an art teacher’s best friend!” What free and easy hacks do you use in your art lessons?

 

Collaborative Project

Recently, the school where I teach had an International Night for students and families. I volunteered to put together a collaborative project to display. It brought to mind a project that Pop up Art School did with a public library that was celebrating diversity in their community.

For the library we created a custom workshop that resulted in a collaborative art piece that is still on display. The project was designed so that the kids would have something to take home. Each student made a “quilt” square on an 8 inch square of paper. On it they painted concentric circles with colors and shapes from a world flag that represented their family’s heritage. On a separate piece of paper they drew pictures that represented something from that country. It could be a favorite food, a popular sport, a holiday, etc. At the end of the workshop we cut the squares into four smaller squares and gave each student a square from their piece to take home.

After the workshop, we took the cut squares, shuffled them and assembled them, so that each circle was comprised of four different artist’s work. The circles were mounted on poster board and made a colorful paper quilt for the library to display! We called it the Diversity Circle Quilt.

For my school I decided to have grades two through five make the quilt squares. There are 74 students in those four grades, so I knew that I had to make the quilt squares smaller than the original 8 inches. Otherwise, I would have a mammoth paper quilt that would be hard to hang. I used 4 inch squares instead which made it a manageable size.

First, students filled out a worksheet that asked them about their family’s heritage. Next, they identified the colors and shapes on the world flag associated with the country and painted their concentric circles. My favorite part was the variety of things they drew to represent their country: shamrocks, bowls of rice and beans, the Eiffel Tower, maple leaves, stars, slices of pizza, dogs, hockey sticks and cuckoo clocks!

The finished collaborative project measures 32″ x 36″ and I changed the name to World Flag Circle Quilt. The finished piece visually represents the many countries that Americans have immigrated from and how we weave our lives together under one flag.

STEAM Art Project

Student balancing a circus performer on a pencil. Get the Free PDF download form Pop Up Art School.

Balancing Circus Performers can be used in a variety of settings and as a complement to lessons in art and science. Use them in your classroom or library to spark discussions about balance, bilateral symmetry and center of gravity.

Start by balancing a completed performer on your finger. Have the kids guess how it’s able to balance and sway on your finger without falling off. You can let one or two kids touch it gently so they can feel the weight of the pennies hidden inside.

Here’s how to make one::

  • Cut carefully around both copies of the performer.
  • Color both sides with markers.
  • Lay one figure face down. Tape a penny onto each hand.
  • Put the second cut out figure on top, so the pennies are hidden.
  • Tape around the sandwiched copies so you don’t have any buckling or big gaps.
  • Test how well your figure balances.

Our favorite part of this project, is when the kids experiment with all the places that they can balance the circus performer. Before you know it, all of them will have a balancing circus performer on their noses!

 
Free Circus Performers PDF

Five Dollar Challenge-Take Two.


I challenged myself to put together a lesson for Valentine’s Day. It had to be for a class of 25 and I could only spend five bucks. Last week, I attempted making a Valentine with the same supplies. I was happy with my discovery of printing with floral foam, but the end product was so-so.

Here is take two.

I’m really happy with this week’s results. It’s a Love Bug! I completely transformed the doily by cutting it apart and turning it into wings and legs for my love bug. Here’s how I did it:

Make the texture print like before.

Cut out the body and eyes.

Cut the outside trim off of the doily heart. This will be used for the legs.

Cut out a heart from the center. This will be used for the head.

Use all the pieces to construct an insect with a glue stick. After it’s put together use the red paint to add detail.

Now students can play with the pieces to make the insect unique. The finished bug is glued down on another piece of paper so it looks like it’s standing.

Five Dollar Challenge

Here’s the story of a Valentine’s Day project that didn’t quite come together in the end. The creative process isn’t a straight path that always leads to beautiful results. Keep that in mind as I walk you through my attempt.

I challenged myself to come up with a project for a class of 25 students with only $5. Dollar store–here I come! I wanted to make something that’s not too crafty, so that I could touch on the standards that art teachers need to cover. Nothing says crafty like heart doilies, but I bought them anyway along with black paint and red paint and some florist foam.

I’ve been wanting to experiment with florist foam for awhile. I thought it could work well for printmaking. The store had big blocks of foam so I cut them into 25 pieces with a bread knife. First, I drew designs in the foam with a pencil but it didn’t print well.Then I tried pressing into the foam with the eraser end of the pencil. I painted the foam and used it as a printing block.The result is a polka dot pattern. I liked the results and I figured out how to do printmaking with florist foam! It also touches on a few art teaching standards: printmaking, patterns, positive & negative. Success… but wait, what to do with the heart doily?

First, I drew on it with crayons and painted over it with watered down red paint, But I didn’t like the results. However, it made a nice negative image of the doily on the paper I put behind it to protect the table. Maybe I can do something with that? …Nope! I tried but it just didn’t come together. That gave me the idea to paint and cut out a red heart to put behind the doily for a pop of color. I wrote I ❤ U using two fingerprints to make the heart.

Overall … eh. I’m happy with the printmaking results, but the doily part needs more work.

Stay tuned, the next blog post will show how I resolved the project.

DIY Social Media Photo Booth

Photo booth blog

Here’s a cheap and easy way to make a clean backdrop to photograph artwork during workshops. This is lightweight and can be set up anywhere. No one will know you are photographing Suzy Q’s art on top of an old chair with posters in the background.

 

You’ll need:

IMG_1377

2 pieces of corrugated cardboard 16.25″ x 20.50″ each.

Clear packing tape or duct tape

4 medium binder clips or clothespins

white paper 37 inches long by 21 inches wide

First, you’ll use the two pieces of cardboard. Lay them flat with the long ends together. Tape them together on both sides. The tape creates a hinge, so that you will be able to lift one of the pieces up so that it is perpendicular to the other

For the white sheet of paper I use photo backdrop paper which has a nice weight to it. It won’t easily wrinkle. Lay the paper over the cardboard. Fold 2 inches over the short end of your cardboard and secure with two binder clips. Fold one side of your cardboard up so that it looks like an L. Place it against a wall so that it stays upright and drape your paper so that it curves where the cardboard bends. Secure the other end of your paper with the binder clips. Now that you have this pristine white box what happens if the artwork has wet paint? No problem! Just take a clean piece of paper (we always carry some 8.5 x 11 copy paper) and place it under the wet artwork.

Now that your artwork is ready for its glamour shot set the picture format on your camera phone to square. Make sure that you aren’t making a shadow with your body or your phone. Move your photo booth around until you find the right place in the room. Place the artwork in front of the curved paper and take a few shots at different angles.

IMG_1367

Five Reasons We Love Librarians

Five reasons-blog

Here at Pop up Art School, we get to meet a lot of librarians and we feel a kinship between teachers and librarians. Here’s why:

  1. Librarians are unflappable. They work with the public, and ahem, have to deal with the public. Just like teachers, they have to juggle multiple tasks and personalities, all while remaining calm on the surface.
  2. Even though it’s not in their job title they are teachers at heart. Through experience, they understand the logistics of leading a group of people in a program or lesson.
  3.  Like teachers they are not getting paid the big bucks but they value the satisfaction from helping someone and making a difference.
  4.  Librarians work hard to connect to their community. Having already done the “market research” they intuitively know what programs their patrons will value. Teachers value connecting with their students and develop a feel for how to be effective in the classroom.
  5. Teachers and librarians know that reading is the foundation of learning. Both professions nobly strive to spark a love of books and knowledge. 

Sketch Artist Game

Sketch Blog

It’s a teacher’s worst nightmare; the early finisher. You need to give them something to do and you need something fast. Sketch Artist to the rescue! Everything you need for this game fits in a manila envelope, so it’s easy to take it along to workshops. This game has never failed us and we’ve used it with children as young as 6 and as old as 18.

Here’s how it works:

2-3 people play the game, one person is the “witness” and the others are the Sketch Artist(s). The witness has an envelope with a picture of a “suspect”. Without revealing the picture the witness must describe the suspect in great detail. The sketch artist draws what the witness describes. Once the “witness” thinks the drawing is finished they show the photo and everyone sees if it is close. After that they can switch roles and get another envelope.

Something about the game allows the players not to get too hung up on how “good” their drawing is. Because let’s face it, it’s hard to draw someone from a verbal description. Everyone shares a little giggle when the picture of the suspect is revealed. The game teaches observational and verbal skills for the witness, listening and drawing skills for the sketch artist.