Convexity and concavity. Sculpture and relief. Topography and amphitheatry.
Am I warm? Am I cool? Am I big? Am I small? Am I winter? Am I summer?
Graphic identity
Our PYP unit in Grade 3 was about markets and services. We spoke about fair trade and made graphic identity: logos, stamps and posters, for imaginary fair trade services children had chosen.
Still lifes now again and forever
Our still lifes were made with observational drawing of real fruits and vegetables. Children observed the surface and the colour, the shape and the size and tried to capture it in our drawings.
Paintings are made with aquarell paints on aquarell paper.
In addition we used inks and wooden sticks to add the outlining and incorporate the writing into our artworks.
I tried to do the writing in this particular project with kids before but since they are only 6 and many struggles to write I was about to give up.
Yet sticks and inks turned out wonderfully. It was much more of a play than serious writing. And the works are stunning!
Black holes and everyting else
We love books. All kind of books; comics, art books, history books, books about nature and birds, flowers and insects, fantasy books…
So we are very pro world book day-ers! We celebrated it by making an illustration inspired by a book that is dear to us. What else!
We hung our works on the walls of our schools’ library, right where they belong.
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Send me an analog email
We discussed Mail Art and Fluxus (there are many explanations to the meaning of the name but of course we loved the one connected to the toilet the most!!) across the Grade 4.
I always wanted to do this with kids but it’s a bit complicated since you need people to send mail to. And they have to know what it is about when they get the mail. So it’s a bit of organization involved.
I can’t believe I’m saying this but here Covid actually worked in our favour.
Since new regulations divided our classes in half so half of students don’t see each other any more, we decided to write each other letters, print stamps, draw, make objects.
It was really exciting to go and pick up the mail they left for us from previous week and add something to it. The free interpretation and creation are something students really loved.
Must be time for the last supper
Printing is always amazing. So many Oh-s and Wow-s produced during a class. Also some Oh no-s, sure.
Kids made beautiful prints of The last supper. We couldn’t decide which were better, the actual prints or the matrix.
Frida Kahlo visited C104
There was a lot of self portraying in our classroom lately. These amazing works are of Grade 2 students. They were insired by Frida Kahlo. A lot of privacy and backrounding.
Folk Art, monkeys and musquitos
Believe it or not, this is Grade 1 working on Folk Art and German flowers with intense symmetry. I can’t get enough of them. These children are 6. I find them stunning!
The girl and the song, Stop-Motion animation
Here it is!! Our Stop-Motion! We have never been this cool!
Be patient please. First part is slow. We were all very shy, not sure about what we can actually do. But it gets really good.
This project means a lot to us. First I thought how it is strange, this 70′ story from a communist country. I do love the book though, obviously. But to translate this and place it in a world 50 years later.. one has doubts. Anyway, I was watching it this week over and over again with every 3rd Grade and many others and every time it gets better.
And it means so much because it was a project that took a long time and I got really wrapped in. It has steps that follow like an alphabet and you are fixing them, adding, making a better version, leaving parts that are obvious mistakes. Like how many times we started filming forgetting to put the lights on. And then we put them on once in between anyway. Or where the kids moved the tripod and the whole picture moved to the middle of the scene leaving whole frame half out of it.
I most love the voices. The strength the kids put in them. They are sometimes so dramatic and theatrical. They just knew what to do. The last neighbour is Nick Cave like sensible, AND the clock! The Clock should be employed at Shakespeare’s Globe when it’s old enough.
It was also great to connect with the music teacher where the students did their own music. And not to mention the translation done by my friend Erica. She did an extraordinary job!
Really, many precious steps.
Anyway, enjoy it and like someone called out once in Yugoslavia:
Let us be human together,
together without fear.
All humans need someone to listen and love
and too often we forget to look around and above.
Stop-motion is f.u.n.!
We are still working hard on this…
Painful joints, broken backs, numb legs, shaky fingers, stiff necks, … but if someone already made a dog that was not supposed to be in the story, we will move it across the room, lay it down and shake all the fleas out of its bum with its left leg even if it takes another 736 photos!
You know it’s fun when you can’t stop it!
First we spoke about a story we would like to make the animation after. We spoke about passing time, importance of it, who do we like to spend it with. Then I remembered an old Yugoslavian book (Croatian to be precise) I have, called The girl and the song, written by Slavko Mihalic and beautifully illustrated by Nives Kavuric–Kurtovic. And we went for it.
We’ve made our storyboard, the characters and two scenes. Then we went back to characters because we realized all of our female figures are flat. “Woooaah kids!! Where are the breasts??” So our hour was devoted to rolling the boobs. I even got some extra ones. Thanks!
Then much clicking which is still taking place and it might be so for a while. Then comes the translation which is already been taken over by a native English speaker Erica, my friend, mucho gracias! Then after, in der ferne, we will be doing the voice over because apparently it is how it is done and… who knows, we are only learning.
