Sisters by Chance - Friends by Choice (Scrapbooking Project)

For this project, we were asked to use scrapbooking paper to create a scrapbook page of a memory. I chose a picture of my family's barn and a picture of my sister. My favorite childhood memories were with my sister, and we often played in the barn; therefore, I thought these pictures would make a good scrapbook page. The quote "Sisters by Chance, Friends by Choice" titles this piece because both my sister and I are adopted. Therefore, we truly are sisters by chance and friends by choice. This project uses some elements and principles of design, such as line, movement, space, balance, and color. I used stickers and pictures as well as paper to create this project. An extension activity for this project would be to have students write a paragraph that explains the thoughts behind the page for an English class.

Four Seasons Window

This project uses color, texture, space, value, and shape. I used different media in each square to create a depiction of what I see during the different seasons. This project shows the different cycles an apple tree goes through during each season. This project could be used in a science class to teach students about seasons and different weather during the seasons.

3-D Art with Pastels

This project used line, color, texture, space, and value to create a scene and a three dimensional object using pastels. While making the mountain scene, I used a condensed part of the above photograph to create the scene and added black and brown to shade the picture as well as white to add tint. This project could be used in a P.E. class to go on a nature walk to get ideas.

This project uses line, shape, and space. This project used a vantage point to teach students about perspective drawing. When making this project, I thought about my hometown and what it would look like if it had a few more buildings. This project could be used in a P.E. class by having students take a nature walk to gather ideas for perspective drawing.

Sounds Reverberating Through Clay

For this project, we listened to music as we worked with clay blindfolded. We then took the blindfolds off and worked with the clay to make any "corrections" or different object that we wanted to. For this particular project, I thought of a sound (the scratching of nails on a chalkboard) and made an object that looked like what I thought the sound should look like. This project used many different principles and elements of art, but the two main ones were line and color. An extension project that could be used for this project would be having students make something with clay and write a short paragraph about the project for an English class.

Christmas Stamping

This project used different types of media (Styrofoam, sculpting tools, construction paper and ink) to create a holiday greeting card. We used the sculpting tools to push on the Styrofoam to create a stamp with a design of our choosing. Then we covered the stamp with paint-like ink using a special tool and stamped our project. The principles and elements of art that I used to create this project were space, line, texture, and shape. This project could also be used to teach students about the different holidays, or it could be used in an English class by having students give a short speech about their stamp and why they chose the design that they did.

My Treasure

This project uses many different elements and principles of art including color, texture, and shape. To create this project, cement was placed in a pie pan with beads as well as a piece of glass and necklace clasps. I created this look for the project because, in my mind, a girl's necklace happened to break over the cement and as she reached in to get the pieces she left her hand print. This project could be used to teach students that they are all different; therefore, everyone's project is different. It could also be used in an English class by having students share with the class their thought process behind their project.