INSECTS- Upcycled!

  

This Spring it was hard to walk anywhere in my neighborhood without seeing THIS: 

We were overrun by the 17 year cicadas coming up to say hi, loafing on our plants, enjoying the sun and making my dog very very full. Depending on how you feel about cicadas this was either a good time to hide in your homes or to venture forth as the local welcoming committee. At my house we welcomed them with open arms (or in the case of my mini-schnauzer, open mouth.)

So it was only natural to turn to art as a way to honor the little guys. Of course the 5-6 year old class preferred butterflies. Close enough! I got to use up my lemon juice containers to make insect bodies and we added little pieces of hardware and pipecleaners and cut cardstock wings. Sharpies work wonders on carstock. The insect goggles (thank you to my friend Eileen who donated a bunch of avocado cartons) were more free-form-insect-style. 

Pipe cleaners made great legs, antena, and even proboscises, their tubelike feeding structures!

 In any event, it was a really fun project and all the insect artists had great time! Aren't you impressed that I didn't try to make any insect puns? 

A Cheery 2013 to You All

I don't consider myself to be superstitious  but I do love the number 13 and I'd like to think that it's my "lucky number". I've had a surprisingly number of happy events occur on Friday the 13ths and so I would looooove to hope that the year 2013 will be a wonderful year. For all of us. I suppose my ancestors from the old country would think that I was tempting fate by voicing this hope. So when I'm done blogging I'll go throw some salt over my shoulder and find some wood to knock.

A nice way to welcome in the New Year is some bright cheerful flowers. And nothing says cheery like flowers created by my 4-5year old class. Toss in some bright colors and recycled objects and you have the makings of some uplifting artwork.

 I had the young Artists select colored papers and create vases from card stock. I wanted them to draw the vases themselves and cut them out themselves. They often want me to cut items for them but, darn it, these are skilled Artists and they need to recognize that they can control those scissors!

I showed them paper with low-key colors: cut up paper, ripped up vintage maps (which have lovely pastel colors) and plain paper. I gave them scissors and paper punches to make shapes. Some chose the punches, others went to town cutting and ripping. They used these to collage their vases. Then they placed their vases against some high-key colored backgrounds. They chose bright red and blue. They painted cut up cardboard egg cartons in low key colors to match the vases and glued the vases and flowers down on the paper. Then they chose recycled objects to fill the flowers: buttons, shells, etc.

I explained that it would be nice to place their flower vases in space rather than have them float around and they all drew in a horizon line or table top. They were then able to "decorate" their tablecloths. Most chose to use marker although one Artist glued down buttons. Didn't they do a wonderful job?

A HAPPY AND PEACEFUL NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL! 

Now off I go to find some salt to throw and wood to knock on. 

...the Bronx Is Up and the Battery's Down...the people ride in a hole in the ground....

I'm looking forward to representing Picasso's Basement at the upcoming Fanwood Green Fair on June 26th and that got me to thinking about the wonderful projects the kids have done with recycled items. I always save and reuse what I can, from cereal boxes to yogurt cups to bottles.

Months ago I told you about our  Upcycled New York City. Well here it is! I still have to poke the holes in the background and add the strand of lights so it will look like night stars. But I figured I'd better get this posted before another 2 months pass!

Watch Out! King Kong is on the loose!

St. Patrick's Cathedral

Lincoln Center complete with taxis

Chrysler Building with Empire State Building in the background

Fabulous Cities

May I gush about another wonderful children's book writer and illustrator? Oh heck, you can't stop me.

The late Simms Taback wrote and illustrated books full of humor and charm complete with quirky colorful folky and funny illustrations. All of them are incredibly clever and, though silly, are amazingly beautiful and contain details that make me want to look at them again and again.

My favorite is his Caldecott winner, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, a retelling of a classic Jewish story of a poor man who has an old ripped coat and continually cuts it down so he still can use it. First it becomes a jacket and then gets cropped into a vest. By the end it's only a button and soon even that is lost. But the story leaves you with a moral about creativity and resourcefulness and seeing the glass half full.

OK, OK, you say. Get on with it, Paula! What did YOU make from this book? Me? Nothing. But the kids in my Pre-K group made some lovely crazy buildings and cities. What might be difficult to see in the scan of this wonderful spread from the book is the quirky details. Simms added crazy photos of people making all sorts of faces in the windows of the city. He also put in pieces of material and newspaper clippings made to look like old Yiddish (Jewish) papers.

A trip to the city for our hero!'

Together we read the book and looked at the pictures. 

The Picasso's Basement PreK artists used cut and torn paper to make their wacky buildings. They clipped pictures out of magazines to fill  the windows with faces. I told them to feel free to add any kind of details with markers and scissors. One resourceful artist even added a button she found on the floor which was very much in the spirit of the book! 

Well done, artists!