Mosaic

I had a chance to work with the Chenowith Elementary School  student in The Dalles, Oregon to create 6 mosaics to beautify the front of the school.

This is where the mosaics were to be installed once they were finished.

Boxes of ceramic tiles were donated to the school in a variety of colors.

The school grounds are beautiful, with a courtyard, flower garden, wildlife and a pond.  We used this as inspiration for a handful of the mosaics.

I had each of the classes brainstorm ideas for the mosaics after giving them a topic.  The students each drew pictures and I used those as the inspiration for the designs.

Kindergarten- playground

1st Grade- Courtyard/ Garden

2nd grade- Pond

3rd Grade- Native Animals

4th Grade- River

5th Grade- Landscape

Each of the students had a chance to break the tiles with a hammer then sort them by color to prepare for creating our mosaics.

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Now we were ready to begin arranging the broken tiles on hardi board and gluing them on.

Here are the 6 panels start to finish

Kindergarten- Playground

1st Grade- Garden

2nd Grade- Pond

3rd Grade- Native Wildlife

4th Grade- Columbia River/ The Dalles Dam

5th Grade- Landsccape

 Once the pieces were installed, the teachers helped to grout them in.  I chose gray for the grout, but since the pictures were taken when the grout was still wet, it looks really dark.  

Louise Nevelson inspired collages

While teaching a lesson on texture, I decided to introduce the class to the art of Louise Nevelson.  She used found objects to create sculpture.   She then painted her pieces all one color.  This is what the kids tried to recreate.  I brought boxes filled with random objects.  The students glued them on platforms made from crafts sticks.

Once their projects had dried overnight, they chose one color to paint them.   These small jars of tester paint were donated to the school I was working with.  They were perfect for our project.

We loved how the project turned out and all agreed they looked like something Louise Nevelson might make.