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With the Kids! Things to do and learn with your children.
These are projects we're doing or have done, so they're tested already.
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| Here's a sample of some of the artwork we've been doing together. The idea is to not only spend time together, but learn about artwork and computers We go out with the digital camera, get pictures of well known sites, then draw them at home. I show the children art methods, then show them how to put the clipart on a webpage. So if you want to see some free clipart ofthe Knoxville and Sevier Coounty area, go to another page:
Tennessee Clipart Club
This has been very rewarding, and might not only promote the pianos website, it could generate community pride. I hope more people participate in this, trade links, etc.
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| Here's a picture of the first faux stone commandments pieces we did. It's made of 2 inch thick styrofoam home insulation, with pvc sheet glued to it. At first, the sheet and foam are taped together with home-made two sided tape. You loop the masking tape around to itself, adhesive side out. Make about 8 or10 of those, to hold the two materials together. Then, with a jig saw, cut them out together. sand them together. Take the sheet off the foam, then paint the edges of the foam with latex (emulsion) paint, that has texture additive put into it. Use a warm tan color, the one you will finish the other surfaces with. Clean the outer face ofthe sheet with lacquer thinner, or some other strong solvent. You might instead be able to scrubb it with a kitchen scrubber, then wipe with alchohol. This is to make the paint adhere. Do this before gluing the sheet to the foam, as the solvent or alchohol could melt the foam.
Now glue the sheet to the foam, and paint the face with the same color paint used on the sides. Do not use textured paint on the face. Now, get vinyl lettering from the local sign maker. You can buy RTA, ready to apply. The sign shop will tell you how to apply it, the process is very simple, but mus tbe performed as instructed, or the letters could become stuck to each other, and ruined. Being a sign maker myself, I instructed the children how to use Corel Draw software to arrange the letters, then send them to the cutter/plotter. They also helped cut the sheet and foam, as well as apply the textured paint. Everybody got a turn, and they were tested on what they learned about the software.
These could also be hand lettered. I have 20 years experience in that artform, but the vinyl is readily available most places, and will produce good results without having to study typography. More details later.
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Saturday afternoon (Dec. 16, '06) I decided to start a much anticipated project, the making of a one horse plow. Below are a few pictures. Before we could start, we had to tighten the fan blades in the manual blower. Upon reassembly, my daughter is helping me apply anti sieze compount to the bolts. While the forge was hot, she decided to make a little looped piece of steel in the scroll bender. Also pictured is the piece of steel I found to use for the plow. Maybe it was an old sub-soiler. Part of the project is to have one of the boys learn about Adobe Go Live, (putting these pictures on this page). That he did, but you can't blame him for the "interesting" job putting a clip mask around the forging picture. I get all the credit for that, but hey, first time. |
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| Saturday afternoon, 12/23/'06, the older children were gone to horse riding lesson, so I showed one of my daughters how to make a 'movie' in Corel Photopaint. We had previously scanned one of her pencil sketches into Corel Draw, and drawn it into a vector image. So we opened that file, made duplicates onthe same page, then modified the duplicates to have bent legs.
Then we copy>pasted the ponies individually into Corel Photopaint to make the movie. Here's a pic of us doing it, and the movie itself. Man what a hit this was with the family, and earned old dad a few points with the lass, at a time when it was needed. God has blessed.
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| OK, jump to March '07. We've been doing some art projects together on weekends, but gardening season is upon us, and we're back at the plow business. I tried twice to forge one, each time was a fizzle, for different reasons. So we bought an antique plow for $25. The problem is getting horsey to think this is all a good idea. He not like. Here he is, when the harness was first put on. At first, the clinking trace chains spooked him. He calmed down, but still wasn't ready for the plow. So we changed the trace chains to seatbelt webbing, much better, and set him to pulling about a small wagon. This he didn't mind a bit |
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| Oh man, need to "make adjustments here", this was playing really slow when I checked it, probably because of the dail up modem. Also, somewhere in the transition to gif, a frame or two went purple. Oh well, you can probably right click>save, to watch it faster. |
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Clipart by the children:
To see some clipart done by the children, go to
Tennessee Clipart Club
Click on the link to the clipart page.
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