Unlocking the Drawing Studio

 

Meramec artists in grades 1-5 unlock a different studio each week by demonstrating art skills and completing techniques in their studio book • as student artists explore and experiment with art mediums and tools, the book becomes a reference for students to access throughout the year • work in the studio books also becomes an on going assessment as well as a place to plan and reflect on artwork

Unlocking the Drawing Studio

Let's Draw!

This week we are experimenting with materials that we use for drawing...art mediums! We will show what we know about drawing in our Artifacts Book. We will know how to use materials to prepare us for our work in the drawing studio.

materials that we are using this week:

* Did you know that there are soft and hard lead pencils?
* Is it difficult to draw lightly? We can hold our pencils a new way to make it easier!
*If you don't have a blending tool, what could you use?

Hatching                            Cross-Hatching

Shading Value.  There are many ways to get pencil darker or lighter.  Can you name a few?

Sometimes we use colored pencils for our drawings. 

 You can create value with color too! 

You can make new colors by blending different colored pencils. 

Do you notice the blue, green and yellow pencils blending?  What colors did the artist blend to color the leaf?

(credit Maryellen Picker)

We have so many different materials to add color in the Drawing Studio.

Fine point markers are great for details like eye lashes on a portrait, blades of grass or legs on an insect.

Chisel tip markers fill in large areas like a big sky, a large ocean or the green field of a landscape.

Try blending chalk together.

Try Texture Rubbings with crayon.

Combine more than one technique

A Focus on Fibers Studio

Wear a Weaving!

Think of the variety of materials and tools we have in our Fibers Studio.  Yarn, string, fabric, buttons, looms, pom pom makers, felt, patterns, pins, crochet needles, sewing machines, tapestry needles and thread. 

Let's make a woven bracelet.

First, do you remember how to weave?  (hint:  over -under- over- under).

Second, do you remember how to thread a needle?  You will use yarn and a tapestry needle. 

You will also need cardboard and a few rubber bands.  

Use two arm lengths of yarn.  You will use your needle to go over and under the rubber bands.  Back and forth or side to side.  Continue all around your cardboard until all the rubber bands are covered.

Tie on a new piece of yarn when you run out.

Stretch your learning by adding beads, sequins and changing colors as you go.

Felted Fibers

Wool is a natural fiber material that comes from a Sheep.  When we say a material is natural it means it comes from nature.  Artists work with wool in many ways.  It can be twisted and spun into yarn or felted into artworks.  
Wool can be felted wet or dry.  When an artist felts wool, they are interlocking the fibers.  Using a needle that repeatedly jabs the wool or heat (hot water), soap and friction, loose little strands of wool bond or stick together to create a stable piece of thick fabric.

Dry felting uses a special barbed needle to push and bond the fibers together.

Wet felting uses hot soapy water and friction by rubbing and pressing wool to create a wool material. Wet-felting is one of the oldest ways humans have made fabric.

Let's try wet felting to make Felted Flowers.  

Choose a few small pieces of wool that will become the petals of your flower.  Create thin layers of wool  into a round shape. 

Place into a soapy cup of hot water and agitate.  Keep rubbing the wool under the water until the water cools.  Repeat this process two more times.

Find a button for the center of the flower and a pipe cleaner.

Push the pipe cleaner through the felt and the button.  Bend the pipe cleaner back down through the button and felt and twist.  Add leaves.

Extensions:  try wet felting beads or felting a tennis ball to create a small bowl.

"The beads are easy and fast to make. Just wrap some wool around 5 pencils, wet and roll in you hands. As it shrinks you remove pencils until you are down to the last one. When it’s tight around the last one, that’s it you have  bead."

https://feltingandfiberstudio.com/2016/03/20/a-mini-maker-fair/