Meramec Choice Art: art

Thursday, April 2, 2026

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/

Tuesday, December 2, 2025

abstract art in all studios

What in the world is Abstract Art?

Key stage 1

Abstract art is a way for artists to be creative and not worry about making things look exactly as they do in real life. You can think of abstract art as a visual puzzle where you look at the shapes and colors and decide what it makes you feel or think of.

Keystage 2

Now that we know that Abstract Art is a modern style of art that uses lines, shapes and colors to express feelings or ideas instead of showing real things, let's look at how Abstract Art might be created in many of our studios.

Abstract Art in the Fibers studio might look like cutting fabric into lines, shapes and colors and sewing the pieces in place. The stitches can become interesting lines in the art.

Fibers tends to be abstract.

Do you notice Lines, Shapes and Colors?

Abstract Art in the Drawing Studio can still include portraits, a still-life and landscape but they will not be true to reality but gives more of a feeling or idea of a portrait, still life or landscape.

The idea or feeling of a face. The idea or essence of the sun and mountains. The gesture of a dog. The form of a tea kettle and pitcher.

Can you tell what creature this abstracted art is trying to represent?

Abstract Art might look like this in the Printmaking Studio.

Using Stamps, bubble wrap, rollers and paint, you can create a colorful printed design by pressing shapes and colors onto the surface of your paper.

You can create abstract art like these Gelli Prints by using shapes and color.

Abstract Art in painting might look like painting large colorful shapes and areas on your paper and the following class coming back in and painting lines, dots, shapes in black paint.

Wet on Wet Watercolor circles. This young painter brushed on one color in a round shape then dabbed another color of watercolor on top of the wet paint to create blended color circles.

Draw Lines and Paint Shapes on top! Voila, Abstract Art.

We can tell this represents a landscape but it doesn't look true to reality so it is Abstract. Abstract can look like something we know such as a portrait or landscape but when it doesn't look like reality we say it's abstract.

Abstract in collage

Collage tends to look abstract. Torn paper, overlapping, patterned paper and paper shapes don't look like the figures and landscapes we see in the real world. Artists can create a reality that doesn't exist. How cool is that!