Mommio: Art Class- Parmigianino

Today we finished our study of the Mannerist painter Parmigianino.  We looked at this painting:

The Conversion Of Paul, 1530

We looked at his use of exaggeration in the horse and at his use of dark/light contrast.  Then the kids tried out two different techniques with watercolors to mimic these styles.  First, the watercolor lift.  They started by drawing an image on watercolor paper with a pencil.

Next they applied a wash of water over the entire surface.

 After that came the wash of blue paint.

Then they dabbed at the very wet paint with a balled up paper towel to lift the paint and create a cloudy sky.

When their clouds were all dry they went back and painted in their image.

Here are their finished watercolor lift paintings.  My favorite is Gabe's because the title is Running With The Rainbow Unicorns, Don't You Wish You Were Me.

The next technique the kids learned today is called blocking out.  This is a way to contrast dark and light colors by taping images and then lifting the tape off after painting.  Starting with a white piece of watercolor paper the kids created patterns with masking tape.

Then they used watercolors to paint over the surface of their paper. 

 When the color was all filled in they pulled the tape off to reveal the light areas.

 They all really liked making these and have already said they will make more tonight.  Kiki's is called  

The Maze, so try to find your way out!

Next week we move on to studying the Baroque Period and Rembrandt.  The kids are excited about it because we will be stamping prints and making relief print cards.

Mason: Blog Of The Day

 The Island

By Mason

Once there was an island in the Bermuda Triangle. Until a boat of 20 men came and destroyed the island. They killed all the animals and chopped all the trees down. Then they went back to the boat. Two weeks later all the trees grew back. All the animals came back. The End 

Mason: Blog Of The Day

Charles Dickens spent his childhood in London and in Chatham. His dad was in the Army. When he was 12 his father was imprisoned for debt. At 17 he was a court stenographer. He did sketches of London. In 1836 he married Catherine Hagarth.

Connor: Blog Of The Day

Once there was an uninhabited island in the Bermuda Triangle.  On the island there was a small tribe of six people, all of whom were stranded.  Among this group was Alfred, the leader of the tribe and an archeologist, Jane, a calm yet insane real estate agent who loves the outdoors, Linda, the bossy rude and completely mean   lawyer who annoys everyone, William, the tribal chef and master carpenter as well as the one to step in when the group needs help and Linda's punching bag, George, the optimist of the group and artist, and James, the bodybuilder and warrior who fights off the wild animals and hunts for the group.  It all started last week when they boarded the ship bound for Egypt.  Unfortunately the ship had crashed into a rock near the Bermuda Triangle, only the six tribe members got to the lifeboats before the ship sunk and took everyone else to a watery grave.  Now exactly a week after that awful event everything seemed almost normal, the sun was setting and the moons rose as all the birds flew south.  The group had just eaten a portion of a large animal that James killed and decided to all go to bed.  In the middle of the night screams were heard coming from George's hut.  Alfred decided to go check on George as did everyone else.  Meeting up at George's hut the group began to inspect the place.  George was lying down almost as if he were sleeping, but there was one small problem he was dead.  The group looked next to him and found a bloody dagger, everyone in the group had a dagger and George's was in his shoe.  Linda looked startled and said "It must have been Jane that murdered him.  We should have her locked up!"  When Linda said this everyone except Jane had agreed.  The next morning Jane was locked in her hut with some food and water to make sure she didn't die.  Alfred wasn't sure about whether or not he had made the right decision as tribe leader and went over to say he was sorry to Jane.  Jane said "At least someone has thought about doing the right thing.  So could you please let me out of here?"  Alfred said "Sorry I can't let you out.  Maybe if enough tribe members agree to let you out, but without their consent I can't."  With that Alfred left her and went to talk with James.  James was carrying an animal he had slain back to the camp and said "I kind of feel like Jane is the only person who would murder George.  I don't think we should let her out, not today."  Alfred said "Okay, but I still want to check if the other two think we should let her out."  Thus at the tribal fire that night Alfred suggested a vote to let Jane come out of her hut the next morning.  Linda said "I say nay.  She shouldn't be allowed to roam freely."  William said "I think that we should let her out just for tomorrow night.  If she roams until we go to bed and we keep an eye on her it might work."  James said "Nay, I agree with Linda even if she is bossy."  Alfred said "Well I agree with William.  She should be watched and each of us should be as well.  Any of us could be the murderer."  Linda said "Fine we will let her out for a specific amount of time.  We shall also watch each other carefully."  Alfred said "Meeting adjourned everybody go back to your huts and sleep.  Remember that if there is a murder tonight not to be so quick to point fingers."  With that everyone returned to their huts and tried to sleep.  At eleven o'clock there was screaming coming from Jane's hut.  By the time they got in there Jane was dead on the floor and had been like that for a few hours.  It was two o'clock when they got in and inspected the room.  On the floor next to the corpse was a hunting spear.  The tip was blood red and there was a hole in the corpse's chest.  Near the body was a note signed with James' name.  Alfred said " I think we have a enough evidence so let's lock James up in his hut."  William said  "How about letting him roam free tonight then locking him up when we go to sleep?"  Everyone agreed with William.  That night James wandered around and said "I've been set up.  Someone killed Jane and framed me for it.  They forged that note I'm sure of it."  Alfred said "If what you say is true than who among us would have more experience with forging evidence?"  Linda said "If you are blaming me I never forge evidence and thus your assumption is insane."  Alfred said "Linda no one blamed you, but you are acting like I did.  I just said one of us has more experience with forged evidence than the others."  After everyone was asleep William screamed "No don't.  No.  Don't you dare stab me.  AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!"  That woke everyone up and they headed toward Will's hut.  They inspected the hut and found next to the corpse a piece of paper.  The piece of paper turned out to be a note.  The note was addressed to Linda.  Linda examined the note and said "It says that he wanted to marry me.  Too bad he's dead."  Alfred says "Okay I noticed a stab right through his heart.  It looks just like the spear stab on Jane's chest and on the left side of the corpse there is a note that says 'James WAS HERE'"  James says "Framed again.  I was asleep in my room at the time to the murder."  Linda said "A likely story and I bet you're going to say Alfred framed you right?"  Alfred said "Look now is not the time to be immature.  The chef is dead the hunter is being blamed and no one else knows how long to cook the food."  Linda said "Your right.  I am sorry for blaming you, James."  James said "I forgive you.  In order to cook the food over the fire it will take at least half an hour."  Later that night when everyone is sleeping loud screams came from James' hut.  James said "Don't kill me, Linda!  No not the spear again! AHHHHH!"  With that Alfred woke up and goes to arrest the criminal when suddenly he walked in and saw Linda dead and James stabed him with the spear.  As Alfred died James said "A dead man tells now tales.  HA, HA, HA, HA.  I sunk the ship I murdered everyone and I had a secret boat hidden in a cave.  We were never stranded You could have gone back to America whenever you wanted."  Eventually when James got back to America he was taken to jail and sentenced to death for murders he comited before leaving the USA.  The End

Marney: Blog Of The Day

The Night Sky 

By Marney 

One day there was a beach and it was the best beach ever and everyone always wanted to go to it.  Then it turned to night and no one was there.  The clouds went away and you could see planets.  Everyone came back to the beach at night.  They all thought it was super pretty  so they all went and swam at night and they all used tubes to float in.  When it turned to daytime and everyone went in to their houses and then it was night again and they all sat and watched the planets and they all thought it was cool. They could see the moon and they could see small planets and big planets and they all thought that it should be night all the time.  They all thought this would be the best night ever and then they went to swim.  They saw the moon and Pluto  and they thought about being on those planets. They thought that they should swim at night, not in the day time.  Then it started to be day time so they all got out of the water and went into their houses and they said that they should go back in the water the next night. They did go back and they watched the  planets all night long and they loved it.

Marney: Blog Of The Day

He lived his early child hood in London. I bet that was fun.   He made a bunch and a lot of  books and he like that. He was a expert reporter.  I  think that that is cool.

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

 The Man Who Traveled Planets 

By Gabe

One day there was a man named Jake who wanted to go on a vacation but he didn't know where to go.  He decided to go to Hawaii because he likes tropical islands and he likes oceans a lot. When he got there he was surprised to see there were three other planets in the sky!  He stepped on a fake rock and was sprung  to one of the other planets, and he figured out that he can jump from planet to planet and he loved it.  So now he can switch planets when ever he wants.  So then he lived in Hawaii forever and he loved it.

Kiki: Blog Of The Day

The Planets

By Kiki

Once there was an island and it was sunset and planets were out.  It was very dark but not too dark that you couldn't see.  So, the planets came out and the sun was still setting.  When the sun was still setting for a very long time the planets were still there until it got very dark and the planets weren't there anymore.  The next day the planets were out at sunset again.  But nobody knew why.

Daddio: 4/28/11 Blog of the Day

Write a story about the following picture:

Mason: Blog Of The Day

Moby Dick 

By Herman Melville 

This book is about  a captain named Ahab who wants to hunt Moby Dick, a gianormous whale.  What happens in the story is one person survives.  His name was Ishmael.  

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

When Charles Dickens was young his dad worked in the navy.   He lived in London when he was young.  He worked in a blacking warehouse.  He was also a Stenographer.  He sketched pictures of  London. He had a big collection of sketches.   

Avery: Blog Of The Day

Charles Dickens was born February 7, 1812, in Portsmouth, England. When he got older he got married to Catherine Thomson Hogarth and had ten children: 
Charles Dickens, Jr., Mary Dickens, Kate Perugini, Walter Landor Dickens, Francis, Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens, Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens, Henry Fielding Dickens, Dora Annie Dickens, and Edward Dickens
The first novel he made was called The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club. He made it in the year of 1836. When he got older he made TONS AND TONS of books here are some of them: Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit, A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Our Mutual Friend and The Mystery of Edwin Drood ( he died while writing this book) He died in 1870. He died because he was having a stroke. 

Connor: Blog Of The Day

Charles Dickens wrote many famous books.  One of these books is A Christmas Carol.  The main character is a rich, old, egomaniac named Scrooge.  Scrooge despises Christmas and until the end says "Christmas bah humbug."   Charles Dickens wrote some other famous books one entitled Tale of Two Cities.  Which takes place during the time of the French Revolution.

Avery: Blog Of The Day

Moby Dick (a.k.a The Whale)

By Herman Melville 

Ishmael (the main character) goes on a ship out into the sea to hunt whales. A man named Ahab is the captain of the ship. Ishmael finds out that Ahab was looking for a specific whale. It was a white sperm whale named Moby Dick. Ahab wanted revenge on the whale because Moby Dick bit off his leg. Ishmael tries to save the whale!

Kiki: A Horse Story

Once there was a horse that lived in a little farm.  The horse was very shy.  But when nobody was outside she would come out.  And so when she came out she always saw this little bunny that was like a pillow.  But she never knew it was a bunny until it started to move and she figured out it had eyes.  But that day when she found out that it was a bunny she was happy to see someone that wouldn't scare her, someone that she could lay her head on.  Then later, the bunny left. 

The End

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

Moby Dick

By Herman Melville

Ishmael  and some friends go to harpoon.  Moby Dick ate  Ahab's leg and now they are going to hunt down Moby Dick. They try to kill Moby Dick but everyone gets kill but Ishmael who lives to tell the tale.

Daddio: 4/27/11 Blog of the Day

Yesterday you were book detectives and had to find a classic novel from my hints.  To continue the literature theme, today I want you to write a biography of one of Western literature's most famous authors: Charles Dickens.  Dickens wrote a TON of books, and was very famous when he was alive for some of his classics like A Tale of Two Cities or Great Expectations.

So for today's blog post, I want you to use google, factmonster or wikipedia to learn about Charles Dickens and then write one or two paragraphs about his life.  You can talk about anything you want about him-- his childhood, the different novels he wrote, his family-- or all of those things.

Daddio: 4/26/11 Blog of the Day

For today's blog of the day, I want you to be book detectives.  I'm going to give you a description of a very famous, classic book, and then using google, wikipedia or other sources, I want you to try to figure out which book I'm talking about.  Then for your blog post, write the title, the author and what the book is about.  Here's the description for the book:

You may think the author of the book's first name is Ishmael, but it is actually Herman.  The main character in the book has a lot in common with the Old Man and the Sea (a book written by Ernest Hemingway), but it was published almost exactly 100 years before Hemingway's classic book.  This book is a real whale of a tale.

Go research from the description I gave above.  If you're still having problems, then as a last resort, search for one of the character's names-- Queequeg-- and see if that helps.

Mommio: Egg Drop Challenge 2011

Daddio: The Kids Got Their TV!

The kids finally saved up over 1,100 dollars after many months of saving.  So we went out and got a giant TV.  We went to Walmart and bought the TV and TV stand, and then used some of the left over money to buy some video games and a new DSi.  It took three trips to Walmart, but we finally got all the components home.

It turns out that the hardest part of getting your new TV set up is the three hours it takes to assemble the television stand (special thanks to Gabe and Marney for the help):

 

Once that was set up, the TV was pretty easy.  But did I mention that it was huge?  The box almost didn't fit in Nana's van, and it had a huge, creepy picture of Hannah Storm on it:

Then Gabe and I slid it out of the box and set it up:

Finally, we put it on the stand and turned it on.  Of course the first thing the kids wanted to do was play the Wii on it.

We paid a little extra for this TV because it has all the wifi stuff built into it.  It connects automatically to our network and had Netflix, Hulu, Pandora and Amazon-on-Demand built into it.  The little boys were especially happy about this because we moved the Roku box we were using in the living room into their bedroom.  The new TV is simply awesome:

Kiki: Blog of the Day

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF SPOTSY

I, Spotsy, being of sound yolk and shell, hereby leave all my money to Ava.  I leave my collection of pretty egg dresses to Gabe.  I leave all my jewelry to Connor.  I leave my job as an ice cream person to Daddio's phone.

Mason: Blog Of The Day

The Last Will And Testament of Jimmy

I, Jimmy the Egg, being of sound yolk and shell give my shell to my mom and my money to my brother. I give my yolk to my sister and my collection of bottle caps to the Jones family.

Popo's Thooughts

As of this writing,

Help me! Help me!  I've been kidnapped by a very large, ugly, blond man.  He is threatening to throw me off a ladder.  As of this writing, I am alive and well, but I don't know how much longer I can last.  He said I will meet my doom tomorrow.   Please save me.  And hurry...it's cold and dark in here, and I don't know how much longer I can last.  Sincerely, Eggbert.

Nana' s Thoughts

 One day this lovely young girl woke up on Pecan Drive in Marble Falls, Texas.  She did not know her name or where she use to live.  But lucky for her...she met the Jones Family.  They took her in and were very nice to her.  When she found out about their Egg Drop Sunday on Easter...she wanted to try.  So she asked Nana to build her a good ride for the drop.

So Nana got a big plastic jar for the ride and will fill it with hundreds of cotton balls.  That should make a good soft and safe ride.  Maybe...the bump from the ride will jar her memory and she will remember her past.  But if the worst should happen and she should crack, here is her last will and testement.
I...little girl with no name...being of sound mind and body....leave all that I own to the three sweet granddaughters of Nana.

Connor: Blog Of The Day

The Last Will And Testament of Fredrick Eggington.  "I Fredrick Eggington being of sound yolk and shell hereby declare this to be my last will and testament."  Fredrick leaves all his test tubes and equipment to the eggs of the world.  He leaves every doomsday device to the humans, because he is sure the race will kill themselves off any way due to war.  He leaves his corpse to the trash or compost.  Fredrick also leaves his invincibility potion (which he never tested) to doctors and scientists everywhere.

Marney: Blog Of The Day

My egg only has 5 things and he is giving them all to me. Except he is giving dad his house. What he is giving me is his egg shell and money, his job and clothes.

Gabe: Blog Of The Day

The last will and testament of cocoa boy

Cocoa boy wants to give dad his yolk because he likes him.  He wants to give Marney his shell because she is cool and he wants to give me all of his money (1,000,000) because he loves me. I cocoa boy being of sound  yolk and shell, Hereby this to be will and testament

Avery: Blog Of The Day

LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF JOSEPH K.

Joseph would like his pet rock named John to have his 5 year old sandwich, so that when he dies John will put his ashes on the sandwich and eat it.

He would like to donate all his money ( which is $1,372,019) to a charity for eggs that can't afford food.

He want's his girlfriend Angelica to have his pet rock, John.

He's going to give his military uniform to his adopted son (who he adopted last night).

Next he would like to give all his contestants part of his body.

Last he would like to give me his adopted son and train him to work in the military and be a brave soldier like Joseph.

"I Joseph K., being of sound yolk and shell, hereby declare this to be my last will and testament."

Daddio: 4/22/11 Blog of the Day

Okay, this will be the absolute last of the EGGDROP CHALLENGE posts.  Easter is going to be a big day for your egg, right?  Either you'll have designed your contraption properly and your egg will survive to have baby eggs of its own someday, or... it's brains will leak out all over the driveway.

So just in case something terrible happens and your egg doesn't make it through the challenge, I want you to write your egg's last will and testament.  A will is a legal document that people write that tell everyone what they want to happen with their stuff when they die.  So for this blog of the day post, you'll need to think about all the stuff your egg owns and who they want to leave it to.

Each blog needs to start with the title, "LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF [Your Egg's Name]" and the first line of each post needs to be, "I, [Your Egg's Name], being of sound yolk and shell, hereby declare this to be my last will and testament."  Then list out who your egg wants to give its possessions to.

Mommio: Art Class- Parmigianino

Today in art class we studied Girolamo Franceso Maria Mazzola, who is know as Parmigianino (because he was a young boy from Parma, Italy when he began his art career).  Parmigianino lived from 1503-1540 during the Renaissance period in Italy, but he had his own style of painting that began a new period of art known as the Mannerist Period.  Mannerist were known for exaggeration and drama in their work, which was very different from the realism of the Renaissance painters.  At 21 years old Parmigianino painted a self-portrait that made him famous.  Instead of painting what he really looked like, he painted his reflection from a convex mirror- creating an odd perspective.  He also painted the portrait on a convex wooden surface instead of a flat surface. 

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, 1524

We also read a portion of a long poem written in 1974 by John Ashbery that was about this painting. The poem begins with an in depth description of the painting:

As Parmigianino did it, the right hand
Bigger than the head, thrust at the viewer
And swerving easily away, as though to protect
What it advertises. A few leaded panes, old beams,
Fur, pleated muslin, a coral ring run together
In a movement supporting the face, which swims
Toward and away like the hand

After taking a look at the painting and the poem I gave the kids each a small convex mirror.  They studied their image in the mirror and we talked about the perspective. 

Then they each drew their self-portrait on the back of a paper bowl, our convex surface.

Next the kids used watercolors to paint their portraits and the backgrounds.

Our version of a Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror!

Next week we will try out some other Mannerist techniques inspired by Parmigianino's work.

 

Mommio: Blog Of The Day

Daddio: 4/21/11 Blog of the Day

Today's blog of the day is easy.  You know those eggs you've been posting up about all week?  For today's blog of the day, I want you to decorate your egg.  Mommio will give each of you your eggs, and then you need to give them faces, clothes, etc.  Make it awesome.  Make it proud.  Make it the best egg ever.

And then post a picture of it for your blog of the day post.