Girl Power: Bombing with Yarn and a Little Bit of Bling

 

What we ended up doing was not quite as orderly and clean as the work we looked at for inspiration.  Most of us don't really know how to knit, and we didn't have a lot of time, so we kind of just went crazy and literally "bombed" the whole rock garden at Girl Power with yarn.  We also used strings of Mardi Gras beads and Macramé cord.  In the end, we totally transformed the space and everybody at Girl Power is loving it: teachers, parents & students.  Looks like we've successfully created a Landmark at Girl Power!

 

 

 

 

Yarn Bombing: The Inspiration

We were inspired by looking at these examples of Yarn Bombing in different cities.  We had a lot of yarn on hand, so we decided to think about creating something like this.

 

 

Painting totems "en plein air"

It looked like something out of early 20th century Paris, students settling in under the trees at Mater Academy East in Little Havana to paint geometric signs and symbols on cardboard - our totems that will adorn trees and lampposts in the neighborhood. Ephemeral landmarks, filled with color.

Edison graphic novel lab

Hard at work - using both high and low technology. The computer is just another box of colored pencils...

Graphic Novels underway

Junior, at Edison, used the computer's PhotoBooth like a camera, to snap shots that he composed into a story of tech gadgets speaking to one another. Page layout, writing, photo editing, inventing a story - a lot goes into creating these works. Comic Life 2 is a fantastic little software!

INSPIRED BY THE BUILDINGS AROUND

We are creating a very large painting
 outside the school in the parking lot.

Each student brings a color, a line, an idea.

There is a lot of actual physical action to create a work this way.
Will keep posting the evolution of this painting.

Jessica at LHCC

Using Comic Life software, Jessica, a student from Turner Tech HS, began a visual diary in graphic novel format.

Graphic Novels to inspire us.

We looked at Chris Ware's Building Stories - to see how a master artist of the graphic novel designs his pages. Architecture, people, nature are all simplified into beautiful color schemes. Sometimes there's hardly any text. He will move from an entire streets cape to an extreme close-up. We talked about the panels being like frames from a movie, and we discussed how pages in a graphic novel tell stories that unfold in time, how our individual frames shape that experience of time.

"My Place as Graphic Novel" has begun!

Using Comic Life 2 software (available for mac and PC), Ronaldo at Edison HS created pages from a graphic novel. Starting with photographs of other students and features from the room, he composed a sequential work, using effects to give his photos a varied feel, and text.

Our next step will be to capture images from our neighborhoods - to discover the landmarks we interact with and weave narratives around them.

Happy Valentine!

Our group in Little Havana wrote a  LOVE sign in a fence with many pieces of color fabric.
They also wanted to share some of the work they have been doing for the past weeks.

FIRST looking at Landmark buildings in Miami and in our State of Florida
and performing and reacting around the theme of  BODIES IN THE LANDSCAPE.

Second:  They created beautiful color banners around ideas of color and design in the the landscape.

Color  Banners in a deep blue wall.

We can add some color to an window. 

Body in the landscape. 

After class celebration.

Works on progress.