Archives for February 2019

 

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!

 

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?