"Take My Word For It!" is getting grown-ups in on the act! We're starting with a series of Mother-Daughter Creative Writing workshops in San Francisco and the East Bay...
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arts& crafts
The Art Edition:
On Wednesday, students created wire "characters" to sketch in different poses to aid in drawing their book characters. We learned about perspective to create backgrounds and different points of view. We discussed "visual flow" to make our book and story look interesting with recognizable characters throughout.
Today we had a busy and productive afternoon- it zipped by! All the students created their book cover and began pasting in the art they created and adding illustrations. I worked with each camper individually so they felt confident about pulling their book together. Tomorrow everyone will paste or write their story into the book. WOW!
Take a look at preview photos of some of their book covers and illustrations.
-Laurie Croft, Art Teacher
The Writing Edition:
We started off the morning talking about kids who don't have access to books and don't have a bookshelf crammed with their own favorite books at home. Campers brought in some of the books they're ready to part with to donate to The East Bay Children's Book Project. Founded and run by retired librarians and teachers, the EBCBP get books to kids who would otherswise not have them. www.eastbaychildrensbookproject.org.
To get the creative juices flowing, our first writing activity today was a free-write prompt: "What I hate about being a kid is..." Here are some of the sentiments expressed:
"What I hate about being a kid is I can't go to the moon, I can't drive, I can't stay up all night, and I don't got dat ca$h..."
- Adrian
Adrian and Claire (Instructor)
Amira
Milagro
Fatima
Diego, Lucas, and Dante
Emily and Simone
Tyler
What I hate about being a kid is that grown-ups never understand you when you are explaining something."
-Arielle
Arielle
Sophie
Elizabeth (Instructor), LyLy, and Alicia
"I hate that I have to live with my family. (Actually I don't hate living with my family, it's just that I want to live by myself!)"
- Alicia
We spent the rest of the morning finishing, editing and proofreading our children's books which are shaping up to be quite impressive.
The Art Edition:
The students are excited about writing and illustrating their Children's books and so am I!
On Monday we looked at books and different illustration styles, tecniques and mediums artists use. We experimented with different tecniques and materials exploring pencil, sharpies, and watercolors. Students learned how to incorporate illustration into letters by creating their name as flowers, animals and patterns. The campers all received newsprint sketchpads and spent the end of the day sketching ideas for their book characters. On Tuesday we continued exploring different art mediums so each individual can choose a material they enjoy using the most. We got tempera paints out, learned how to mix colors and created paintings. We also made bold oil pastel drawings on black paper. Students pulled out their sketchbooks and we practiced drawing faces that show different emotions. I've been talking to the campers individually and working with them to develop their character and background art and some of them are already sketching illustrations for their book.
-Laurie Croft, art teacher
The Writing Edition: Bedtime Story Excerpts
Tyler- My character’s name is Bob, and he lives on a farm.
Adrian- My character is fat kid named Poncho and his challenge is the Super Taco Grande Mucho Gigante.
Arielle-My character’s name is Saddy, and he is a blue sphere.
Diego- My character’s name is Bob-John-Joe-Jack and he can fly.
Simone- My character is a little boy named Tommy and he gets lost from his family.
Amira- Mine is about a boy named Carmu who dreams of being a farmer.
Jiana-My character’s name is Cleo and she lives in a cave.
Dante- My character is a kid named Jimmy Bean who lives in Mexico and his parents work at Mexicano McDonalds.
Milagro- My main character is named Shirley and whoever makes her mad in the story falls into mud.
Fatima- My character is named Speedy-Deee and he is a dinosaur who can outdrive the police, in a sports car.
Sophie- My character is a pig named Scooey that goes to Piglet High School.
Alicia- My character’s name is Payson. She is a swimmer and she is an Olympic gold medalist.
Grace- My character’s name is Graffiti Can Sam, and he is a can of spray paint who goes out and paints stuff.
Emily- My character’s name is Amanda Bobbleton, who does not want her baby sister to be born.
Lucas- My character is a kid named Freddy, and he lives in a casino in Las Vegas.
LyLy- My character’s name is Emily Roberts and she has a magic teddy bear that takes her to different places in her dreams.
Aaron- My characters is Mader and I am still deciding what he’s going to do but it has to do with movies.
Sophia and Milagro
Diego and Adrian
Simone and Emily
Tyler
Arielle
Giana, Alicia, and Amira
Lucas, Grace, and Dante
The Art Edition:
We started off Wednesday morning with some Observational Drawing. Campers first did warm up drawings called Gesture Drawings which are quick- sometimes only 30 seconds. From there we did extended Contour Drawings. Then campers selected a Gesture Drawing to translate into a 3-dimensional wire sculpture. Students spent the latter part of the morning working on preliminary sketches that tomorrow they will begin to transpose into illustrations of the stories they have been writing.
Mira with Gesture Drawing
Noah Drawing
Maddie with Wire Sculpture
Izzy's Wire Sculpture
Charlotte's Preliminary Sketch
The Writing Edition:
Today campers finished up their stories, revised, and began neatly copying their final drafts on notebook paper to be glued into their books that they began this morning in art. They look great!!
Looking forward to the reading and exhibit tomorrow!
Here are the sneak peeks:
Sally's First Day by Maddie
page 1 by Maddie
Thank You, Carrie by Charlotte
page 1 by Charlotte
Those 28 Words by Mira
page 1 by Mira
Deep in the Golden Bubble by Marley
page 1 by Marley
On My Way Home by Izzy
page 1 by Izzy
A Turtle That Sprints by Noah
page 1 by Noah
A Skweeky Story by Nina
page 1 by Nina
The Art Edition:
It's been a busy couple mornings of art making. We've looked at various books for story illustration inspiration. Tuesday we focused on the painted paper collage work of Eric Carle. We've also talked about various media artists use: collage, watercolor or photography, for instance and have focused on developing painting techniques such as color mixing and watercolor paintbrush techniques. By week's end students will create at least one large finished original illustration for their story. Below are examples of what we've been up to so far.
Books for Inspiration
Izzy's Sketchbook Cover
Noah with color mixing project
Mira, Charlotte, and Marley painting
The Writing Edition:
Monday and Tuesday we discussed the elements of a good story, character, plot, and conflict and built a group story using those elements. Next the kids brainstormed ideas for their own stories and today they dug in!
Here are some poems from a warm-up exercise we did today.
Noah
My happiness is sports
My happiness is made from my friends
I found my happiness in a room of light
My happiness can be writing or art
-by Noah
Mira
My sadness is a cat that can't purr.
My sadness is made from my dog that died.
I found my sadness in my dog's ashes.
My sadness drifts lonely in the huge ocean.
If I lost my sadness I will be myself again.
-by Mira
Nina
My happiness is reading on my bed.
My happiness is made from a lake in the woods.
I found my happiness in a box full of books.
My happiness can be happy.
If I lost my happiness I would still be me.
-by Nina
Charlotte
My fear is haunting me.
It is made from my wild imagination.
I found my fear in the television set.
My fear can go away.
If I lost my fear I would be finally living my life.
-by Charlotte
Izzy
My joy is a young colt ready to run.
My joy is made from many added excitements.
I found my joy in the things that I love best.
My joy can explode into happiness.
If I lost my joy I would never be happy, excited, or amazed, or surprised again.
-by Izzy
Maddy
My happiness is a leaf proudly falling from a tree.
My happiness is made from sunshine and care.
I found my happiness in a box of music.
My happiness can always be true.
If I lost my happiness I would find it soon.
-by Maddy
The Art Edition:
On day 4 we finished our mixed media maps, using sharpie to accentuate the lines and then using watercolor and colored pencil to color it in.
Also, we looked at the work of artist Alexander Calder who is well known for his mobiles and started working on aluminum mobiles.
On to the Writing Edition:
On day four we discussed the idiom "flights of fancy" and using our imaginations came up with our own definitions of what a flight of fancy was to us!
Here are some excerpts:
At the top of the hill an ancient evil lives. Its claws as sharp as bolts of lightening, fur of fluffiness, and scales of poison. It is half dragon and half cat and it is destined to be defeated...
-Kedar
Ultra cat was facing one of Dr. Midas's creations: a robot of pure gold who would turn the entire city into gold. His paw blasts and telekinesis were no match for the 'bot's gold and diamond armor. He attacked the bot with paw blasts, threw cars at it, and used his super claws to slash up the bot. His ki was spent and he went back to the cat cave to think up a strategy...
-Aden
I had never expected to find anything so I had no idea what to do when I found it.
It all started when I was taking my exploration route in Antarctica for the 48th time (and yes, I do count). I was trudging up the hill when I saw something zip down from the sky and land on the other side f the hill leaving a streak of blueberries behind it...
-Paul