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? 

Cigar Box Showstoppers

I can't believe I forgot to blog about this project with the 6-7th Grade Picasso's Basement Artists. This dates back to November I think.

I had toyed with doing a particular project based on the art of Joseph Cornell who created beautiful delicate assemblages within boxes. 

OK, I know I should have added a real Cornell photo here but this kept you reading, right?

Traditional Retablo

I also wanted to eventually do a project based on Mexican retablo art, devotional paintings often within a wooden box or frame to create a home alter. A recent trip to a wondrous cigar store left me only $25 poorer while I carted home 40+ stunning cigar boxes. I realized they would come in handy someday and I found the perfect project. I thought I'd wait on the Cornell and focus on the retablos.

But once I let the students loose in my art room, complete with old magazines, shells, vintage bottle caps, antique cards, little wooden findings and boxes of old door knobs, they let their imaginations take over.

I'm sorry to say I only have pictures of 2 of the boxes but they are pretty incredible!

Glad being a craft-material hoarder has finally paid off for someone!