Dale Chihuly: Coffee Filters in the Rain
Our Specials schedule this year is
- Mon - Nature Study & Form Drawing
Tue - Farm Day
Wed - Handwork & Philosophy, Science Club
Thu - Art History & Structured Word Inquiry
Fri - Forest School
In my Art History 2022-2023 blog post, I decided April would be Dale Chihuly. Here are some resources and my planning notes:
1941 -
also
Chihuly the Artist: Breathing Life into Glass
Classroom Chihuly (PDF)
lesson plan from Dick Blick - uses Dura-Lar
Grafix Dura-Lar 8.5 x 11”, Pad of 100 – .007”
Dick Blick carries the .015" width, which is more expensive
Faux Glass Flowers (PDF)
also uses Dura-Lar (.015")
Dale Chihuly Inspired Sculpture blog post
uses Shrinky Dink paper
Shrinky Dinks Creative Pack 10 Sheets Frosted Ruff n' Ready
the Ruff n' Ready is good for colored pencils
I do have an old toaster oven (no longer used for food) that I can use for this... apparently, you can also experiment with a heat gun!
Glass artist Chihuly will bring ‘most ambitious’ exhibition to Missouri Botanical Garden
Jan 25, 2023
I wanted to end each school year with a still-living artist. If you've been following this year -- my first attempt at teaching Art History -- you'll know that I originally planned to end the year with Faith Ringgold. When I heard about the exhibit at the Missouri Botanical Garden, however, I swapped her out for Dale Chihuly. Faith Ringgold is now in our list of artists for next year.
This week I made another change. Because May is a PPI month (Projects of Personal Interest) for my older students, it will already be very busy lesson-planning wise. I don't want to be rushing around trying to jam another artist in there as well. So I moved Claes Oldenburg to my list of artists for a future year, and moved Dale Chihuly to April. This way we can study him in April, go see the exhibit in St. Louis in May, and wrap up the school year in style!
Special Note:
- We will start our study of Dale Chihuly by looking backwards. We've had some nice connections happening here lately between what we are studying now and our work from the beginning of the school year!
Read Aloud: Our current read-aloud story, Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Lee Latham, takes place during and after the Revolutionary War, so many of the professions mentioned in that story are ones we are familiar with from our Colonial America Living History Day in Week 6.
Art History: Another connection, which now comes in handy for Art History, is that we had a Glassblower as a Special Guest. And I'm thrilled that I have several examples of hand-blown glass I can show.
So, this week we will reread The Glassblower. If you're interested in those Week 6 notes, I've put them below.
The Glassblower (Colonial People)
by Christine Petersen
Thursday, Oct 13 - Colonial America Living History Day
Many thanks to our special guest, glass artist Chad Goodpastor, who presented the profession of Glassblower.
The children spent a lot of time on their research, backboards, and notecards. The results were wonderful! The driveway was set up to be a street in a Colonial village, and the professions represented were
- Apothecary
Blacksmith
Carpenter
Cook
Dressmaker
Gunsmith
We also had a delicious feast featuring five authentic Colonial America dishes! All of the detailed notes for our planning can be found below:
- Living History Day - Colonial America
Sep 11
Colonial Trade/Occupation Research
Sep 16
Colonial Costumes
Sep 23
Colonial America Menu
Oct 10
week of Apr 10:
- Thu - read chapters 1 & 2 of The Glassblower
week of Apr 17:
- Thu - read chapters 3 & 4 of The Glassblower
this book would have worked out better if we had read one chapter each day, Mon - Thu (the chapters are quite long... but interesting!)
week of Apr 24:
-
Wed - read prologue and chap 1-3 of
World of Glass: The Art of Dale Chihuly
by Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan
Thu - finish up The World of Glass by reading chap 4-8
this book would have worked out better if we had read three chapters each day, Mon - Wed, and then done the Macchia artwork on Thu
other good connections with this book about Dale Chihuly could be
- p.7 - looking at my large glass Japanese float
p.7 - playing marbles
p.21 - watching a fox use both ears to judge distance between her and her prey, doing experiments with depth perception
Wild Isles with David Attenborough, episode 1 (24:30 - 26:45)
p.29 - looking at Native American blankets
Coyote Steals the Blanket retold by Janet Stevens
look at examples of artwork in 2023 wall calendar
make Chihuly-inspired Macchia (PDF)
uses basket coffee filters, plastic cups, markers, water, spray starch
week of May 1:
field trip to Missouri Botanical Garden to see the amazing art show!
week of May 8:
- less Chihuly-inspired and more just for fun... to play around with the Shrinky Dink paper, and to finish up our Mycology lessons in Science Club... we are going to make Shrinky Dink mushrooms! we can trace the mushroom designs from our coloring books (trace on the smooth side with a Sharpie, color on the rough side with colored pencils)
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