Summer Break for the Sm'Arties

School's out!

Real Tie Dye

Before - plain white T-shirt...

During:  Rubberband "ties" to make a pattern...

"I regret that I have but one life to give for my homeschool mini-co-op."

During: First bunny ears of the day...

During:  Woo...careful with the red stuff...

After:  Ta-Da!!!!

OK, here are pictures of everybody else:

Our 2 girls brought tank tops.  One is tied for horizontal stripes; the other has marbles tied up to make white circles in the finished product.

We think this one looked like a mermaid. It swam around a bit.

Some get dunked all the way; others are clothespinned to the side so only the sunbursts get color.

"Rinse, wring, repeat."

 - song of the rinse squad.

That Science Geek wields a mean sprayer.

Waiting for the big reveal.

Ta da!!!!!

More bunny ears, and a side sunburst.

Best "I remember the 70's" shirt.

Takes a while to get all those rubber bands out.

Almost all our shirts are 2-color.  This summer when I do tie dye with Gymnastics camp, all shirts will be one color only - takes too much time and work to do 2-color with a bigger group.

Double bunny ears!

Tie dye - it's not just for T-shirts.  This was a very light denim skirt.  Now it is turquoise and green.

After being wrung out twenty 'leven times, will it ever be short enough again?

Is there no escape from bunny ears?

Birthday Boy

Finally free from bunny ears!

I can't resist - Here is Keisuzi teaching her last IEW class of the school year.

I think we're all relaxing a little.

Being the birthday boy does not exempt one from bunny ears.

Mini-Co-op Justice League!

One More on Impressionism

It has been a whirlwind tour of just a few works from a few impressionists.  Last week we looked through a magnifying glass at Georges Seurat paintings.  He and others painted using a style labeled as pointellism, applying tiny dots of pure color to their canvases. 

We created our own pointellism-inspired works on 4" x 6" index cards.  Believe me, all those tiny dots take a while.  I read that Seurat took 3 years to complete his famous A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

Our projects were much less ambitious.  We "painted" an apple using markers.  We made sure the apple included some yellow, green, and purple to show variation in color as well as highlights and shadows. Like many great masterpieces, they look best at a distance.

I forgot my camera, so took no pictures as we worked.  Here is a quick look at my original apple picture, along with Earthgirl's in-class version, which turned out better than my in-class version.  In her backgound, she used Crayola's True-to-Life markers, which gave her a punch of 3 shades at once.

 If you stand across the room, you will see what I mean about the pictures looking best at a distance.