The Overhead Project

We have begun a multi media class in The Living School with another parent as the teacher. The children have begun to write their own screenplays, shoot, direct and edit some of their own short films. The goal is to be ready for the Youth Silent Film Festival this June.

So, I have decided to flesh that out with a little history of photography and the moving picture.  The previous exploration of the flip book phenomenon was part of this concept. Next, we talked about the Camera Obscura, (meaning "Dark Room") whose invention can be dated back as early as the 4th century BC, with writings about it attributed to Aristotle.  It is considered the seed that grew into the film camera we know today. There above, you see a drawing of what one looked like. The idea behind this contraption is that if a bright light is shone through a tiny pinhole, the image on the outside of the box is shone upside down on the inside of the box. This instrument was  used  presumably by artists to project and copy images for paintings.

Today, we have other devices that project images on the wall to help us enlarge and copy as well as other uses. The overhead projector is a more common instrument that we use today. It uses reflection instead of a pinhole to project and image but it is like the camera obscura in that the image is upside down.

 

Keri, our patron saint at SCRAP,gave us a huge bag of clear colored plastic items she had been collecting to play with on our projectors. I wanted to get the kids thinking about shadow puppets and gave them all of this 'junk' to play with to get the creativity flowing. I also showed them some overhead projector shadow puppet plays on YouTube that were very well done. They were doing color-mixing, exploring textures, cutting out their own shapes and letters for title cards and using all of the parts of the projector for various effects. By then end of the class time we had 3 different plays being created and one wildly colorful psychedelic/disco light show, complete with soundtrack, happening on the wall.

Time Machines 2011

Since we all recently 'traveled' from the year 2010 to 2011 and since the children have been studying the concept of time we made Time Machines in art class this week.

I asked them all when they would like to travel to. Among the responses were...

 Sosaia,8, whose older sister, Elizabeth is also in the class, said he would like to go to the time before his sister was born so he could be older than her.

Shaun, 6, said "to the time when I meet boyfriends." Ezra, 5, added,"They'll be driving rocket cars by then!"

Xenia, 8, said she'd go to the future to see " a girl president!"

I based this project on one I read about it the book Beautiful Stuff!Learning with Found Materials
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Stuff-Learning-Found-Materials/dp/0871923882
This is a Reggio Emilia inspired book that documents children bringing in found objects, organizing them and then using them in art projects. It is a huge inspiration for my class. One fundamental use for the objects is to build a sculpture and then do a drawing of it. When we are done, we return the objects for use in future projects. We  have our beautiful drawing to preserve the memory of our creation.

First, I had them take turns grabbing a few objects from the reuse materials. When everyone had 2 or 3, they could go back and gather more.

Then, they  began  to build enthusiastically. Their imaginations were running rampant about all the things their machine could do, the places it could go and the ways it would work. As an adult, I envy their wealth of ideas and energy for attacking them.  They were willing to share ideas with each other, being respectful about not stepping on toes and trying to be helpful. I encourage this kind of sharing, rather than hoarding an original thought, because working together, melding ideas, is how we can improve things. (This works on a bigger, global scale as well!)



















When they were done building they got a piece of watercolor paper and sketched it in pencil. Finally, a finishing touch of watercolor brought it to life. The machines seemed to actually work, if we all closed our eyes.

 The Future Machine

 The Silver Arrow

Snow Globes

The month of December was spent making gifts, mostly crafts, for our loved ones.  We had several projects going on so that the children could pick what it was they wanted to work on during art class. Book making, magnets, cards and coloring books for the younger siblings were among the ongoing projects.

The final week before our Winter Break we made snowglobes using found material. Old jars and discarded ornaments or salt shakers are transformed into something magical and dazzling with little effort.

What we used:
*A wide mouthed jar, one that will not tip over when turned upside down
* a figurine or other object(s) to glue to the lid, creating the inner "world"
*Silicone adhesive
* distilled or bottled water ( to keep microbes at bay)
* liquid vegetable glycerine ( I found this at the natural foods store)
* glitter or fake snow ( I have heard crushed eggshells work but I haven't tried this myself)

For several weeks beforehand, we saved cool looking,  wide mouthed, glass jars and I found a huge bag of mismatched or broken Christmas figurines at Goodwill for $1.99. I tried several kinds of adhesive, including Gorilla Glue, and found that silicone worked best and dried the fastest.

I had the children each select their object and I helped them glue it to the lid. The silicone is messy and somewhat toxic so I handled that part, while they did all the designing. They then added the glitter that they wanted, choosing from a few different colors.
Then, we added the water and 10 or so drops of the liquid glycerine to help things float and swirl nicely around in the H20.
Finally, we turned our object, glued and dried on to the lid, upside down and into the water-filled jar. Once we were satisfied with the look, the water level and amount of glitter, we sealed the lid of the jar with a bead of silicone. This keeps it from leaking. If you like, you might add a little ribbon around the base for a little extra flair.  Now, Shake it!