Week 4 Miniature Scenes

This was the last week our students studied miniatures. They continued their routine 20 minutes of drawing in the sketchbooks, and the class was supposed to be started with a slideshow of more miniature art and a time lapse, tilt shift photograph video that was featured in the Guggenheim Play exhibit. However, we were missing a cord and we will now have to reschedule to show the slideshow. To jump start the project, we taught the students a game to get them thinking about objects. They were broken into groups and given various objects. I then called out an everyday object and asked them to convince me which of their objects would work the best. They showed us pieces of fabric for rugs, cups for lampshades, and dried up flower petals for modern chairs. We prompted them with questions as they retuned with their objects. “Why is this a rug? Why is this the best rug?” “It is a rug because it is a rectangle, because it is soft and comfortable.” One group did not have a cup to make a lampshade and instead brought up a seashell. When I asked how that was a lampshade, he proclaimed it was one for a desk lamp and showed me wear the light bulb would go, and how it would shine down onto the desk. I found the game to be very successful in getting them to plan for their miniature scenes. The greatest movement was when I had Erica choose and object for the students to get. I had been choosing very simple objects, and she asked for a bicycle! We were amazed as students started piecing together all the objects to create their bicycles, they were amazing!

After the game I showed the students my example of a miniature scene. We asked them to think about a room they wished they had for their house, however, we were very lenient about the scene they choose to create. I had chosen to make a seafood restaurant for my restaurant, and I showed them how I had made the furniture and decorations. The students all went to work quickly. One of the things that surprise me about my age group is that they never ask for help with their ideas. They will constantly ask for help with the cutting, gluing and other physical aspects, but they never need help choosing creative topics. They made lounges, candy rooms, an “area 55” being taken over by aliens, a clothing store, and a recreation of the movie humans verses dinosaurs. They really enjoyed making their projects and wanted to continue it next week, which might create a bit of a time crunch for us. When they are interested in the project they really have long attention spans. They would stop working even for snack time, and we let them eat their snacks while they worked. Our main downfall was the clean up. We gave the students almost two tables full of supplies for this project, in order not to limit them. We really enjoyed the outcomes of giving them access to so many materials, but it created a huge mess. We are going to think about clean up songs or games, such as the human vacuum, so that next time we will not have to clean up after all of them.