"Hope" Origami mural created by 5th grade inspired by Mademoiselle Maurice

 

Since my school is focusing on the theme of "hope" this year, I decided to create some thematic artwork with my students. My 5th grade artists studied the French contemporary street artist, Mademoiselle Maurice. I discovered her on Instagram when searching through street art hashtags. I knew my students would appreciate her art since it was bright, unique, and origami. My kids love origami.

I introduced Mademoiselle Maurice with some videos.

Then I shared with them several examples of her mural work around the world. I asked them to describe her work in each example. They came up with descriptions like colorful, fun, creative, positive, beautiful, unique, and brave. I then asked them if they could figure out how she created her words in her ephemeral street murals. They discovered that placing the edges of the origami forms along the letters edges would create a negative space.



 Then I showed them a video of her folding an origami bird, which is the form we were going to create for our own murals.

I had sketched the word HOPE on a large piece of craft paper and asked the students to create origami birds to then tape to the contours of the letters.  After the first day this is what we had.



After the 2nd day we had these. The kids seemed proud of their accomplishment and satisfied that they collaborated to create a cool piece of "street art" for their school.


 

I then displayed their work in the 5th grade wing hallways.

So I shared their work on Instagram and tagged Mademoiselle Maurice, she commented back with this!

 

I agree, they did a great job! Thanks for stopping by!

Baron Batch inspired Reduction prints

 

Reduction Print is a multi-color print in which the separate colors printed from the same plate at different stages. 

Reduction printmaking with foam plates was a home-run! I want to thank Mr. Stoller at Thomas Elementary Art Blog for the informative and captivating post about relief printing with his 4th grade students. I knew my students needed to learn the foundations of printmaking as most of their only prior knowledge of printing was stamping and computer printing.  I also knew my kids like to be challenged and that they would appreciate a the task of reduction printing.

I began the lesson by introducing a contemporary artist as inspiration. I presented Baron Batch. A former NFL football player and artist. We focused on his "Free Art" street painting examples for our direct influences. I chose his "Elephant" painting as the prime example for animal portraiture.

These were student objectives through the process of creating authentic art inspired by Batch:

• I asked the students to look through wildlife magazines and choose a photograph of an animal.
• They had to sketch an animal portrait in their sketchbooks for my review
• They then drew a contour drawing of their chosen animal
• Then traced that drawing onto a foam plate 
• They had to print one color onto a piece of white printing paper
• The next class they added more details to their animals' faces and traced it onto their plate
• They cut away (reduction) their animal from the late and inked a 2nd different color 
• They lined up that foam piece and pressed to print
• Some students had time to choose one detail to cut away and print a 3rd color 
• They numbered their editions, wrote titles, and signed their work for our print exchange

Here are some of my Youtube tutorial videos I used for my classroom printing my "Electric Elk"

Here are some of their results.

 These kids were so engaged in the process of printmaking because it was new and they could judge their successes by the quality of their prints. They had choices along the way that allowed for their individual expression and exciting Baron Batch neon colors to use in their designs.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comment section below. Thanks for stopping by!