What's Going on in the Classroom: Acrylic Painting and Mixed Media Triptychs

I know it's been awhile since my last blog post. All I can say is that our school's art show has finally come and gone and that is my excuse for taking up all my time and keeping me away from this here blog!
We have been working on many different things in our foundations class, but here are the most recent! An acrylic portrait and a mixed media triptych. These two pieces gave my students experiences with acrylic, chalk pastels, oil pastels, and colored pencils. They also studied different color schemes and coloring mixing during these assignments.
With all that in mind, check out these examples:

What's Going on in the Classroom: Plaster Sculptures

I really wanted to give my foundations students a subtractive sculpture experience this year. So we did a little research on Henry Moore and specifically talked about abstract art with an emphasis on how to show an emotion. Students then carved these plaster beauties below. For my first time through this project, I think it turned out okay!

What's Going on in the Classroom: Clay Stamp and Studio Portraits

Hey all, just a quick update on what's going on in the classrooms in which I teach! My foundations students recently completed clay signature stamps that they will use all throughout this year and on to other years if they continue with their ceramic endeavors. Check them out!

Also, my photo kiddos are working on their midterm which is a studio portrait. Take a look at them hard at work!

DIY: Three Necklace Tutorials

Over Christmas break, I dedicated myself to doing a lot of little projects that had been on my list FOREVER! You saw one early, the Harry Potter Embroidery. These DIYs are necklaces that I've been meaning to make for awhile.

The first one is a button necklace and I followed a tutorial I found online here. I wanted to make this necklace for awhile because I used some of the button collection that was my grandmas before she passed away two years ago. Now it's like I have a little part of her to wear on days when I want to feel close to her. Other items I used included: felt, gold chain, needle-nose jewelers pliers, glue and a glue gun.

The second necklace DIY I did over break was one I came up with myself. I've been admiring this necklace online forever but it is not sold any more and I decided, why not try my own version!

I used the following materials:

Jewelers pliers

Leather cord

Blue beads

Bronze beads

Glue and glue gun

First step was to create the tassel, I used the leather cord and wound it back and forth on my hand. Then wrapped a smaller piece around the tassel and tacked in place with a glue gun. Then I cut the looped ends to make the tassel.

Next a strung the blue beads on to each side. I used 9 beads on each side. Pro tip: make sure to get beads that a big enough for the cord or leather cord that is small enough for the beads. I had a small problem with that and had to do some quick thinking.

I added some small bronze beads to the end as well. 

Here's how it looks when I was finished with these two steps.

 Keeping with the design on the original necklace, I put some of the bronze beads on the ends of the tassel. But you can see my tassel ends are crazy because the cord I bought came folded. So I put it under a heavy stack of books for a couple of days to help flatten it out.

Finished product! You could always add more beads or something like the little feather charm as in the original. I opted not to and I'm overall happy with this DIY.

Lastly over break, I did a necklace tutorial that you can find on the A Beautiful Mess website. I followed their directions and my necklace turned out perfectly! Thanks guys for a great tutorial.

What's Going on in the Classroom: Metal Pendents

Take a look at the awesome metal work my students just finished! Also, check out the last picture to see some of my model students! They work so hard :)