Solar Pillows - Student Work

The Beginning 3-D kids have fun with this photo-sensitive cloth.  They make or bring in flat items to lay on top of their 8" by 8" piece.  Because the fabric is coated with photo sensitive chemicals, we do this in my darkened kiln room, and only turn the lights back on when all the kids have placed their designs down and secured them into place.  I give them each a 9" by 9" piece of foam core board and a bunch of T-pins to secure both fabric and designs to.  This way if there is any wind the whole thing won't get blown away.  The kids place their cloth with design into the bright sun for 20 minutes then bring them in, take all the pins out and wash the chemicals out of the cloth.  They hang them to dry overnight and magically the design appears.

The super cool snowflake above was created by junior Julia Faith Chanco, and the beautiful button and lacy work was done by senior Shivanti Kariyawasam.  What I love about both these girls is that they always give me everything they've got into all their work, and that's why I feature their pieces so often.  Makes sense, right?  

The students are required to embellish their cloth with whatever goodies they could still scare up from the near empty art room, since this was their 4th Quarter Final, and almost everything was either put away or used up.

After embellishing they pick out a piece of cotton for the backside, and sew their work into a pillow.  They do this by hand using a backstitch.  The stuffing for the pillows was donated by alumni Rikaya Obilio's mom. Thank you for your generous gift!

Above is junior Hannah Park's very sweet & colorful elephant.  As you can see in all the pillows, these kids can really sew.  I'm so proud of the stitchers they've become.

 I felt that junior Lily Lin did an outstanding job with her design.  What a great piece Lily!!