Friday, September 10, 2010

Fantastic teacher workshop!

I just attended a fantastic teacher workshop today and learn very interesting art activities to do with my classes. The Cheekwood and Frist Center staff got together to co-host a Chihuly workshop. This was a day and a half (well, a day and 2 hours) long workshop that was at both museums. We started out at Cheekwood for a tour of the nighttime Chihuly exhibit. Then we reconvened at Cheekwood this morning, toured the mansion, and then trekked over to the Frist center to see that exhibit and work on hands-on art activities. One of the really interesting projects utilized acrylic gloss medium and acrylic paint. The gloss medium and paint are mixed together (the less paint you use, the more transparent the finished project will be) and poured out on parchment paper or lamination film and a cookie sheet. It is allowed to dry completely, and then it could be cut up and wrapped around objects or attached to itself. The gloss medium sticks to windows and plastic without the aid of glue.

Embroidery floss can be added into the wet gloss medium to simulate Chihuly's baskets that use strings of glass to mimic the woven designs of Navaho blankets. I can't wait to try this with my class.


6 comments:

Barbara's Thought of the Day said...

Wow! Janet! That sounds like a fantastic workshop. I'm really interested in exploring this idea...how long did it take to dry?

kszwahl said...

I want to try that too! Is there somewhere I can get more information on the details?

Janet Malone said...

It takes at least a day to dry, could be two.

Janet Malone said...

This is the web link to the lesson at Dick Blick, which is what the presenter based their lesson on.

http://www.dickblick.com/lesson-plans/acrylic-mosaics/

Nicole said...

I tried this at home with my toddler and it was fun. It took 24 hours to dry. How did this work in your classroom?

Janet Malone said...

I have not actually tried this in my classroom, this was a workshop.