Dragon Art 🐲

Contact info--my email address is:  lfalen@isd138.org

We had a busy and fun-filled first week in our Dragon Art class!  Some projects students worked on include:

Tuesday, June 11th

--Drawing a full-body dragon based on a tutorial where students were encouraged to add their own style and personality.  They also named their dragon and chose colors that helped represent their theme.

--I have a perler bead ("melty bead") cart and our classroom has become "Perlerpalooza" during choice time when students finish their assigned project step early.  They pick the idea and it does not have to be dragon related.  I do all the ironing for them to melt the perler beads together.

Wednesday, June 12th

--We used foam braiding disks and students pick their own colors of string to knot a "dragon's leash".  Some students took this home to work on during the bus ride!

Thursday, June 13th

--Students picked a theme to create a nest of dragon eggs, using color-diffusing paper for the eggs and adding construction paper embellishments to create a nest and show their theme.

Friday, June 14th

--We started paper weaving with a castle theme.  Students learned how to do a "plain weave" and move beyond that to do more creative weaving.  The castle silhouette shapes are very dramatic and look AWESOME!  

--Students also have the choice of working on one of two different dragon puzzles in the art room during free choice time.  The 1000 piece puzzle has been very popular!

Monday, June 17th

--Students finished their woven paper castles.  We talked about symmetrical design vs asymmetrical design and they chose which one they thought would be best for their creation.  They embellished their ideas with windows, a door, flags and some even created a moat around their castle for extra protection. 

 They also decorated their large name tag to identify their projects on our huge display wall for Open House.  

Tuesday, June 18th

Today was our field trip to Franconia Sculpture Park in Shafer, MN!  We had a one-hour guided tour with a Franconia employee who is the Public Programs and Education Manager there.  We learned that Franconia has contemporary (modern) sculptures on display and they are created with a plethora of different materials.  

We also had a one-hour art-making session on site, making a "dragon eye".  We could each pick 3 blocks of FIMO modeling compound in different colors.  We designed the iris of the eye and attached it to a clear cabochon after we used a Sharpie to draw on the black pupil.  Then, we sculpted around the eye to give our dragon interesting colors, shapes and textures.  We created an impressive variety of looks with our own unique interpretations of what a dragon eye could be!

Thursday, June 20th

We created a dragon-themed scratchboard project scene today.  Students had the chance to practice with four different scratchboard backgrounds: holographic silver, metallic gold, rainbow color swirls, or bright neon.  We practiced how to hold the scratchboard tool and sketched our ideas on plain white paper first to test out our ideas.  Each student chose their favorite background to work on and the results were very bold!

Friday, June 21st

Students designed an idea for their white, blank, 28-piece puzzle scene and drew it on, using permanent markers and possibly colored pencils too.  They also started their "paint drop" dragon face, which we will finish on Monday by drawing lines/details over the dried paint blobs.  I told them this project was inspired by the Rorschach ink blot tests, therefore they only dropped paint on ONE side of folded paper, then closed the paper like a book, applies pressure to transfer the paint to both sides before they opened the paper up to see the symmetrical design.  They look AWESOME so far!