Creativity First!: April 2015

Friday, April 17, 2015

Fiber Arts- Stitching in Burlap

5th grade artwork

4th grade artwork

If you look closely at the work here, you'll notice various techniques were used by the students.
They learned how to do the running stitch, the satin stitch, adding beads, and the back stitch. More importantly, they persisted until they got it just so. That's one of the things that I always notice when we sew, although it is challenging at times, it is also just as engaging and even more so, rewarding.

4th grade artwork

5th grade artwork

4th grade artwork

5th grade artwork

4th grade artwork

4th grade artwork, applique and stitching

Shibori

We also did Shibori techniques with construction paper as experiments

For the past 2 weeks or so, the middle school students have been learning about Shibori. Shibori is the ancient Japanese art of manipulating fabric in particular ways and then dying it. It's similar to tie-dye here in the West but Shirbori is for me, more thoughtful and artistic. Here's a great video we watched about this traditional craft.

We used Rit Dye in turquise and we also did reverse Shibori with bleach. We kept our doors open to ventilate the room and used gloves for protection. I wish I had taken more pictures but the students took their shirts home right away so time got the best of me.

Working With Paper Pulp

There is something wonderful and rewarding about feeling paper pulp in your hands, the water squeezing though your fingers, feeling the fibers...and then making a form.

Here we've used paper pulp to make artistic bowls. We blended torn paper with water in a household blender and used bowls lined with saran wrap for the molds. The color is purely from the paper, paint was not added. The students enjoyed mixing various kinds and colors of paper to come up with unique colors and textures.

(6th-8th grade artwork)