GET OUT YOUR SAWS LADIES

PRELIMINARY WOOD EXERCISES

BEGINNING 3-D ART

wood scraps, saws, drills, jigsaw, sand paper, paper collage, 

wood burning tool, dremel set, staining w/ acrylics & watercolor

Drilling and sawing for the very first time is really scary.

But after several safety demos.,

 the kids took a deep breathe and went for it under my watchful eye.

Each one of them had to take a turn showing me that they could successfully use all the power tools before they could even begin working on their preliminary pieces.

It took two full class periods to accommodate all of them.

Here we see 8th grader Malia Pulido trimming down her wood piece.

And below her finished prelim.

The kids had quite a few hoops to jump thru on these little practice pieces.

Drilling a hole to fit their dowel  

sanding it all, 

wood burning designs,

staining the wood with both watercolor and acrylic to see which paint they liked best,

paper collaging,

and then a little bit of re-staining over the paper to see how that would affect the look.

Malia made one of the class favorites.

We were all so impressed with the amount of time and effort she put into wood burning 

all the cool designs below.

And then her paper collaging was lovely a well.

And all with such precise craftsmanship.

She is such a super star!

Now here is junior Cheryl-Mae Mallabo using our Dremel tool to drill with,

and below her finished piece.

She had the other class favorite.

These kids are incredible,

the amount of attention they give to just practicing.

Senior Hapshiba Kwon thought to paper collage dimensionally with those sweet butterflies,

and senior Elias Rodriquez uses his incredible zentangling skills with the wood burning tool,

 and then senior Eileen Wang is also creating amazing design with the wood burning tool

along with her sensitive use of paint staining.

And lastly,

our dear Mrs. Parks,

happily making a pencil/paper clip holder for her teacher desk.

Pretty darn clever Deliana!!!

We love you

xoxoxox

Too Drill or Not to Drill?

PRELIMINARY WOOD UNIT

BEGINNING 3-D ART

scrap wood pieces, wood burning tools, saws, drills, sandpaper, miter boxes, c-clamps,

various scrap papers, acrylic and watercolor paints, Mod Podge, small sponges

Actually, 

they had to drill,

 that was part of the unit  :)

They also learned to saw, sand, & wood burn.

They loved it!!!! 

So these are the sweet little pieces they made from scraps 

before I allowed them to go on to the real assignment.

I felt the coolest one was created by junior Hazel Cruz.

I love how she distressed the bottom of the wood piece, 

and wood burned the roots into that area.

These sweet little houses were made by sophomore Amy Wang above,

and senior Anna Lee below.

Sophomore Shreya Shreth really went all out,

 as she always does,

 with the imaginative piece above.

I forgot to mention we also used these pieces to learn paper collage and wood staining.

How clever of junior Liana Chie to turn hers into a pinwheel  :)

Another of my favorites was this one by junior Joshua Bok.

So expressive!

Preliminary Wood Unit - Student Work

I think the favorite project this year for my Beginning 3-D young ones was learning to work in wood, making a sampler then a one of a kind sculpture that I will post at a later date, like maybe tomorrow  :)

Anyways, I love watching the kids work with the power tools, they get so into it that I just have to take their pictures.  Up top we have 8th graders Jacqueline Yu and Jenna De La Paz, and down below junior Derrick Lin.  

An important note:  before I let the babies anywhere near these tools, I give them an hour of safety demos., then I take each child and have them show me they can successfully use all the scary tools.  Then forever more, whenever a student is using the tools, either myself or my T.A. Phoebe, watch them like hawks.  Just saying  :)

And did I mention that Derrick was one of my most hardworking youngsters this year as well as most improved.  OH YEAH!!

So anyways, in these prelims., the kids need to drill a hole, sand the block, saw the dowel, stain the wood and paper collage parts of both.  I only give them a few days to do this so we can move on to the originals I'll show off tomorrow, so most of the kids turn in something similar to the one above and below.

I do love how senior Mylan Jefferson recycled her Starbucks labels.

And senior May Luong found some cool text and music to collage with.

Now senior Eugenia Jacob took hers one step farther and sawed off her corner edges to make her block more appealing.  That took a lot of extra time and sweat  :)

And isn't this next one clever by senior Celine Phong, made to look like a Popsicle?

And then was senior Alison Lee, who made this lovely sailboat.  I loved this prelim. so much that I put it in the Open House show.

But the one that really impressed us all was done by sophomore Reis Misaka.  

So much extra time, brilliant Reis!

Wood Samplers - Student Art

For many of my Beginning 3-D students, they seem astonished that I'm going to require them to drill and saw wood, and are a bit intimidated at first, but once behind the wheel, so to speak, they are like ducks to water, happy drilling and sawing away.  The sanding gives them an excuse to go outdoors and chat.

Junior Phoebe Liu did the sampler above, and junior Nikeeta Shah and senior Megan Machado did the lovely samplers below.

In these samplers they are required to drill at least 1 hole, sand the block, saw a dowel and fit it to the hole, then embellish with paper collage and stain the wood with watered down acrylic paint. 

I really like how junior Alex Rendon used a piece of his preliminary paper tye-dye to collage to his block on the blue/green one on the left above.  Junior Sara Shams has found some really pretty paper in the center piece to collage with her orange/pink stains, and junior Julia Faith Chanco found some gorgeous black handmade paper to collage down over top her stained wood on the far right. 

Preliminary Wood Exercises - Student Work

Two days ago I posted the Wood Angel recycle assignment, but what I forgot to show you were the exercises leading up to the project. To learn to work with the wood I demonstrated to the kids how to saw, sand, stain and drill. They then drilled a hole into a wood block and sawed a piece of doweling. Plus they used their staining and collage skills to decorate part of the prelim as well. Below is senior Marisela Herrarte's prelim that she also did some wood burning on. Look at how cute it turned out. Marisela, you are such a clever girl! Love you.

Wood Working Exercise - Student Art

The kids (especially my young 7th grade boys) really enjoyed this exercise in drilling, sawing, sanding, staining, and surface embellishment on top of wooden blocks and dowels. We ran out of time to take the exercise any further (my fault, I goofed up on time allotment for another assignment). Usually after we do the basic exercises we turn these blocks and dowels into flying angels that are suspended from walls and ceilings at Open House time. I know the students were disappointed that we didn't get to carry that thru. Sorry guys! These are their finished trails. After they practiced sawing, drilling, sanding and staining the wood, I had them do further embellishments with collaging tissue paper and text from magazines, then re-staining over parts of that to see the different results they could achieve.

Here is one of my more talented designers senior Connie Pae drilling for the first time. She's using her hoodie to keep her hair from getting caught in the drill bit.

Here are seniors Shabina Toorawa and Emily Choh getting ready to drill into their blocks of wood and saw through their dowels. Looking good ladies!