Wooly, Wet And Wild!!!! (or Wet felting workshop with 85 4th and 5th graders.)

Well, October 15 finally arrived and after several days of planning and kit making and more planing for every eventuality. I arrived at Fredericksburg Academy at 7:45am to set up the room. At 8:45 the fourth graders arrived all ready to go and get their hands into the roving and create felted collages!!! They were ready, I was pretty nervous! In the picture above you can see the lucky kids with their fabulous Art Teacher Ms Mirinda Reynolds. This was my third year working with Mirinda in the Visiting Artists Program and I will gladly return whenever I am asked!!

This is a small sampling of the glorious wool roving that we purchased in Scrap Bag pound portions from Blue Goose Glen Farm in Western Pennsylvania. They have a fabulous farm and thriving wool business and offer outstanding customer service and an awesome supply of wool products ( as well as bamboo, tencel, mohair and alpaca fibers) for spinniers, felters and fiber artists! You can check them out here!

Here we have two young men laying down their first layers of their fiber collage.

All the students were able to pick thier own kits. Each kit had a neutral wool hunk for base felt and several colors of bright roving for the top layers. I also included several colors of wool yarn, some colorful synthetic ribbon yarns and some plastic mesh vegetable bag bits and gold mesh. I added these last bits so we could see how the wool fibers could trap non wool materials. those bits also served to add texture sparkle and added textural interest.

Yes that would me, holding up one students layering of wool to show how even the layout of the fibers needed to be to support the felted sheet.

After the wetting and rolling process , we sent the kids outside to the breezeway with their felted collages in their labeled zip lock bags. We had the kids throw their pieces against the wall as hard as they could to help shock the fibers into place. Needless to say, this was a highlight of the process for some and great fun for all!!

The kids then left the collages with us in their name labeled bags and we spread them out on open shelving to dry over the weekend.

We all had a great time and I am really looking forward to returning to the school to work with one of the 5th grade classes to use up the remaining roving. We plan to make wall hangings that the kids will donate to the annual fundraising auction to raise money fro specail school projects- the Visiting Artistis Program for example!!!

now I will give you a chance to look at some of fabulous creations that these wonderful kids created in their whirlwind one hour adventure in Wet Wool Felting!!!
(Mind you, this is only a very small sampling of the fabulous work)

Some pieces were very balanced and precisely laid out.

Others were fabulous abstract creations showing a wonderful eye for color and design.

This artist obviously had a plan and executed it beautifully!

Doesn't this post inspire you to go and have a good messy play with some color? It certainly inspired me, I have been fiddling with wool ever since I got home last Friday!! More about that in another post!

Fabulous Inspiration!!

Working with kids and learning from kids and creating with kids is one of my main sources of INSPIRATION!!!
Last Friday, I returned to Fredericksburg Academy to help the 5th grade students finish up their collaged clip boards. The students were also working on a gift for their mom's for Mother's Day. Their stupendous art teacher, Mirinda Reynolds, had combined a coiled clay pot lesson with the study of Ikebana (Japanese Flower arraingment) for a wonderfully creative and culturally expansive art lesson for the children. Mirinda does not let a single lesson get by without tying the creative endeavor into a world history lesson!! She is an AWESOME teacher and a wonderful artist!!
Several of the students had experienced some of the sorrows of kiln firing and had lost their pots in that part of the process. They had time to create new pots and fire them once but the glaze process had to be left behind. Together with the students, we came up with a very creative and colorful solution to the unglazed pots. With several decorative napkin tops, some matte medium and a bit of gold ric-rac , they put together a Mother's Day gift that any Mom would be thrilled to recieve!!! We were all very pleased! The students were also very proud of their inventive solution and realized yet again, that almost anything can be used in the creative process. Here are the modified glazed pots- our colorful collage pots!!!!


Now I will share with you some of the creative expressions in mixed media collage created by the 5th grade classes!!!

They were all so very proud of their work and excited to explore more collage projects.

The same days that I worked with the 5th graders, I also worked on projects with 47 4th graders. I posted about our project previously, here.

The students painted using acrylics on Art Wipes (our term for Baby wipes).

Then we strung our flag shaped painted pieces on a string with barrel swivels tied to it, to allow the flags to spin on the string. The kid's added embellishments and then picked favorite affirmations to place on each flag. As we were creating we talked about the meaning of the word affirmation and the traditions of the Tibetian Prayer flag and what those flags represent.

At the bottom of each banner we tied a small bell. It was a very successful project.

I had a fabulous time and I am very excited to be planning for next years projects. Mirinda has requested that I return in October!! Whooo Hooo!!!

Fredericksburg Academy Art Stars

This year I was very honored to be asked to return for a Teaching Slot as a Visiting Artist at Fredericksburg Academy. In 2009 I had spent a gloriously hectic and creative morning with two classes of fourth graders and two classes of fifth graders. We created book covers for their Artistic Experiences Journals using gelatin monoprinting and bubble wrap. Apparently, this project created quite a buzz about the campus and anticipation was high for my return. I had to top the gelatin and bubble wrap experience!!! For a refresher, you can read about that event here.

The wonderfully talented Art teacher and my Hostess for these classes, Mirinda Reynolds, and I came up with several new collage projects. With the Fouth Graders,we would be creating Affirmation Banners using painted baby wipes (which we renamed Art Wipes) and with the Fifth Graders we would be working on mixed media collage with clip boards as our suface substrate.

I don't seem to be able to locate a photo of my sample banner and I have left my sample with the class as my gift. We designed the simple banners based on Tibetian Prayer Flags with the painted Art Wipes serving as the flags and postive words of the kid's choosing, being added as affirmations .
I do have photos of the fifth grade project.

This was one sample clip board.

This was another sample, with front above and back, below.

We discussed layering and patterns and transparency and tranluesence. I provided all sorts of text pages from many different discarded tests, everything from maps, to dictionaries, to russian math texts.

Then came the glue and the overlaping to create the first layer.
We accomplished a first layer on front and back during my first visit.

The second trip (Friday April 16) involved adding the colored layer in either painted paper towels, colored tissue papers or decorative napkin tops. The kids had a messy and creative blast and so did I! Several times I found myself listening to the creative chatter in the room and I heard many exclamations of 'Look at this" and "Look at what happened when I put this on".
Music to a teacher and mentor's ears, don't you think??!!!

You can get a glimpse of the fabulous Mirinda Reynolds there in the top right corner of the shot, above.

Several students opted to add bits of torn tuille netting as the third layer fo their collage clip boards. Once the glue dries the netting will add a wonderful texture to the finished piece. Here is just one example of the wonderful work done by all of the fifth graders.

Didn't she do a fabulous job???? Look at that beautiful, happy face!!! I plan to return to the classroom later in the month to help finish off the clip boards. We will add sealing coats of Matte Medium and edge the boards with a Gold Krylon pen. I will have more pictures with more of our Fifth garde artists, to share with you then!!

Now back to the Fourth Grade Affirmation Banners. The truth is that the painting and stamping of the Art Wipes was so fast and hectic that I did not have a chance to snap pictures till the kid's had left the room. I did manage to get some shots of the Art Wipes as they were laid out to dry.

On the second visit, we matched the painted wipes back to back and cut the piece into three triangles. Then the task was to glue the shapes on either side of cording to create the banner.

All were happy glueing and creating till it came time to pick it all up to move to the drying area. Disaster averted and all left anticipating dry banners ready for addition of affirmations and possibly streamers for a colorful finish. Upon my return I will be sure to snap some shots of the finsihed banners!!! Don't despair Fourth Graders, you will star in your very own post, here on my blog!!!!