Pinterest Inspiration for the Art Room





So I am totally addicted to Pinterest and all the fabulous inspiration I get from the site on a daily basis!  These are just a few projects I have been inspired to try.  Many of my lessons this year have also been inspired by the site.  If you don't know what Pinterest is all about...hop on board...it is a great resource! You can follow my boards here.

Above, ART collage, finished while the students were collaging this spring...just can't resist playing too!  Below is my start at a color wheel using junk.  It has taken all year to collect stuff, especially the intermediate colors...still in progress!  At top, the melted crayon rainbow.  It is pretty awesome to see the crayons come to life and create a work of art.  I am not quite finished with this either, as the melting crayon fumes can be a bit much! 

Puzzled?

In an effort to keep my mind busy...I decided to finish some art puzzles to display in the art room.  I finished the Mona Lisa puzzle over spring break.  This is a thousand piece puzzle of a photomosaic.  Each piece is made up of about 4 famous artworks from various artists.  It was quite the challenge, yet fun to complete!

This is a Starry Night puzzle that I started about 5 years ago and work on every now and then at school when the kids are working on projects.  I have also had students attempt to help, but it is very difficult!  These pieces are made up of 4 different pictures of space ships and other NASA type stuff.  It has taken so long because I can only work on it for a bit before my eyes go googly trying to figure out the images! 

Surrealist Spaces

After completing a 12 by 12 inch one-point perspective room design,
students work in pairs to create a 22 by 22 inch surrealist
space on poster board with magazine collage. 



It is fun to see what the students find to fill their spaces with,
and also to see students collaborate on a large project!



Spring String Art

 

"String Art Reproducible Patterns" by Annette Schmidt,
1998 Frank Schaffer Publications Inc.

The spring semester is the perfect time for String Art in the art room!  I discovered this great string art pattern book a few years ago.  Some patterns are a bit advanced, so I simplified the ideas for 7th graders.

 

 

We used black railroad board and solid or muliti-colored crochet thread.

We then matted them with coordinating construction paper.

Steamy Spring



It has been raining my entire spring break!  I usually don't mind the rain, but it is making for a very steamy situation!  I have been stuck inside making more steampunk stamples for Mrs. O'Leary's art store using Artful Illusions stamps. 

Here are some of the latest!

new projects

These are a few recent projects I have created
with and for my Altered Artist's group.

This was my response to an altered matchbox challenge.

The inside box nest is pulled down to reveal the inside.

The stamp on the inside is one of my favorites,
"Home is where your art is." from River City Rubber Works.
Then you can pull on the bird, and the nest box goes back into the house.

I had a lot of fun with this challenge. 
 It took a bit of paper engineering, but I love the results!

This is a book I created at my friend Jo's. 
 She was inspired after taking a class with Thomas Ashman.

We all fell in love with her book and we begged her to teach us how to create our own. The binding was a bit challenging, but I stuck with it and voila...a wonderful copper covered book!

I just love the girl and the kitty pic I chose for the cover!

These are two mannequin bust shaped pages for a book my friends Andi and Yolanda are doing.  They each handed out pages to the group members so that when they are finished, each page has its own unique flair!  The one above is the front of Andi's page.  I wanted to do a steampunk theme, so I gathered up my gears and stamps and embellished away!  To the right is the back of Andi's page.  I used some bubbly textured black paper, gears, and gold German scrap.

This is the page I did for Yolanda.  I used a bird, birdcage, swirls, and writing stamps and added a fluffy stringy trim. I love the heart that was already cut into the page!  Below is the back of the page, keeping it simple with a few buttons. 



























This is the second time I completed these pages.  Both of these pages were layered with walnut stained tags, which my puppy loves!  She tore up both of them shortly after I made them the first time.  She can be a very naughty dog!  Good thing I was able to get a few more pages and redo them!

Tree of Life



Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt, 1909

For this year's 8th grade painting collaboration, I decided to use Gustav Klimt's Tree of Life.  Twenty students each chose one of the pieces to paint when they were finished with their other painting assignments.  After the pieces were put together, I added a bit of gold in some of the pieces to pay homage to Klimt's use of gold in his work. 

To see more class collaborations see this other post. 
To see my own personal tree of life, you can go here.