Art, Trailblazers & Explorers 11/4/2014

I had the pleasure of filling in for Joni Comrie's art classes this week!  A big thanks goes to Gail for being a great helper!

We began our discussion with the question...

• What do you know about glass?  

 The children shared various ideas about the qualities of glass and came up with several on my list.  It is transparent, heat resistant, pressure resistant, strong, chemical resistant, can be colored, can be produced in large pieces, doesn't fade over time, can be made perfectly flat.

• We then looked at some examples of stained glass.  After discussing the pictures they saw we focused on the artist for the day.  Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933) grew up in NYC where his family owned the famous Tiffany jewelry store.  His lifelong goal was the pursuit of beauty.  He was originally trained as a painter and began studying the chemistry and properties of glass making at age 24.  He was inspired by nature and often took his ideas about colors from plants and flowers.  HE created art by making large windows and small lampshade our of stained glass.  He worked for some famous people, Mark Twain and President Chester Arthur!  The beautiful Tiffany lampshades were especially popular because electric lights were a new thing!  Tiffany's favorite subjects were flowers, plants and people in natural settings.

The children finished the class by creating their own "stained glass" using tissue paper and decoupage solution.