April 20th, 2008

A Lesson on Mixed Media - based on the artwork of Marian Steen.

We had a wonderful experience researching Marian Steen, doing a project based on her artwork and meeting her for student discussion. I can’t tell you how excited the students were and how much they enjoyed meeting her. Many students wrote her thank-you cards expressing their new inspiration to become artists.

We started our lesson by looking at her piece on display at school and her web site to get an idea of what mixed media was and what media and methods she employed in doing her artwork. For the first part of the lesson, we wet 8”x18” pieces of watercolor paper and began to lay colored tissue paper shapes down to the wet paper. As the tissue dried, the dye ran out onto the watercolor paper leaving the shapes the children had cut and arranged for a watercolor effect. That was it for the first day.

The second class was wonderful! We got a surprise visit from Marian, herself, and the children were thrilled! For 40 minutes they asked her questions listened to her explanations of what inspired her, why she became an artist; how she worked and why she made certain decisions in her artwork. The children were able to use a lot of their background knowledge from art class and really asked insightful questions. It was a fantastic experience for my fifth graders. The third class we followed up by first redefining some of the shapes we had made with the colored tissue paper and adding texture with oil pastels. Then we continued to add texture, shape, contrast and line by adding cut paper shapes, raffia, sandpaper, string, feathers, colored glue and glitter glue. Some students added the distinctive checked line on cut paper strips that Marian often uses.

We really appreciate that Cultural Festivals, presenters of The St. Louis Art Fair Public Art Collection sponsored by Civic Entrepreneurs Organization, made this exhibit possible for us and would encourage other schools to do the same. If your students would like to view the exhibit on line or contact the Cultural Festivals you could go to their web site: stlouisartfair.com.

Roberta Winingham

Elementary Art Teacher
Ferguson-Florissant School District
Florissant, MO, 63033

 

April 20 th, 2008

A Lesson on Weaving based on the Art Work of John Gunther

As the art teacher at Walnut Grove Elementary School, I recently had the privilege of having the Cultural Festivals Public Art Exhibit displayed at our school. The display included glass, ceramics, paintings, sculpture, mixed media and photography. It also included some fiber art.

One of the pieces on display was a large heavily textured weaving by John Gunther. This particular piece had a lot of black and gray yarn contrasting with rich brightly colored yarn. I decided that this would be a good piece for my students to learn from. We read the artist statement and the students did notice that the heavily layered weft threads gave the piece an almost sculptural quality. In keeping with this theme, we chose very thick brightly colored yarn for our weft threads to contrast with the thick gray and black warp threads. We wrapped this brightly colored yarn onto a small piece of cardboard to use as a shuttle. I decided that my students should learn to weave, as much as possible, like a weaver on a conventional loom. So we wrapped our warp threads on inexpensive cardboard looms that were notched at the top and the bottom. We then wove a 2”x11” piece of cardboard through alternating warp threads. The next step was to simply twist the cardboard into an upright position, which would push down and pull up the appropriate warp threads. Therefore allowing the students to throw their shuttle through the opening and damp down the threads before removing the cardboard and weaving it back in using alternating threads (opposite of their first row). Once they got the hang of it you couldn’t get them to stop. They did reach a point in which they could no longer weave the cardboard in and twist it allowing enough room for their shuttle. So they began weaving in just the shuttle and then just the yarn taped to a craft stick. When they could no longer weave the yarn in, they cut the weavings from the looms and found ways to secure the weft threads with the warp threads by tying them off, braiding them, etc. They loved the assignment so much it was difficult to get them to stop to give a new direction. I was proud of the fact that they had to switch their technique several times and could still keep up.

Roberta Winingham
Elementary Art Teacher
Ferguson-Florissant School District
Florissant. Mo 63033
bwiningham@fergflor.k12.mo.us