Tricia Fuglestad's Blog

Art Kits are Going Home!

11/25/2020

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Thanks to AHSD25 and a Donors Choose grant EVERY Dryden student will receive an art kit!

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Mona Lisa Made with Dominoes

10/29/2019

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Mona Lisa made from Dominoes in the style of Pointillism

Click to see all the details of this Donor's Choose Project

Mona Lisa made from Dominoes

5th graders had the opportunity to build a mural collaboratively using Dominoes after we received a grant from Donor's Choose.
We used the free plans from Robert Bosch
(download from his website here)
Mr. Bosch is a Mathematical Artist, author, and Professor. Learn more about him here.

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Vote for our Artist of the Week + more

11/7/2018

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VOTE FOR EZEKIEL100 FOR ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Zeke's Wishtree art was chosen randomly for the artist of the week contest. If he gets the most votes in his age category he and the art room will win art supplies. Vote Wednesday-Saturday.
No login needed. Please share the link.

VOTE NOW

My first trimester newsletter is available at this link.
Find links to all the art galleries, student animations, and information on how you can support our art program through Donor's Choose. org

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Help Fund Our Donor's Choose Projects

10/12/2018

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Sample 3D Lego Portrait

Dryden's Art Program has TWO donor's choose projects posted. This site is a place where teachers fill a "shopping cart" full of what they need to do a project or receive professional development and ask the community to make (tax deductible) donations.

Donate to Our Grants

One of our grants is for legos and lego base plates. We LOVE creating with legos and our new project idea requires more materials. We want to build 3D lego portraits. This will give students a chance to concretely consider the placement of features while exploring height, width, and depth in their self-portraits.

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DonorsChoose 3D Lego Portrait Grant

8/29/2018

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Donate to our Grant

Years back our art room received an ABC/25 Foundation grant for a lego wall. We've done some amazing collaborative pieces over the years like our Black History Lego Portraits, Rotational Symmetry, and Character Counts murals. Now we would like to try to make 3D lego portraits individually. This will require more plates and more legos. I wrote a DonorsChoose.org grant to help get the supplies we need. Please consider helping us with any size donation. Thank you!

Support our 3D Lego Portrait Grant

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Donor's Choose Grant

11/27/2017

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donate now

Our Donor's Choose grant for an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil has published just in time for Giving Tuesday. This project will expose students to a more advanced digital drawing experience while teaching rotoscope animation like the examples below:

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Clay Pendants

5/22/2017

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Donor's Choose Grant:

Our Inspiration from Ms. Tiedemann's Class, New Jersey

Over Spring Break I saw a post on social media from my art teacher friend, Ms. Tiedemann in New Jersey. Her students made wonderful and meaningful pendants with a mix of clay and beads. I was so inspired that I wrote a Donor's Choose Grant (see it here) to purchase the supplies. I was completed and ready to start the next week!

We already had a bunch of left over clay to use up from the 5th grade mask project, tons of bright shiny glazes, but very few beads, cords, and clasps. That was what our grant funded.

Process:

A sphere of clay was flattened, pressed in pattern, then added holes. We bisque fired it in the kiln.

We used a wooden stylus to handle the clay

We covered both sides with two coats of glaze

We each painted wooden beads with acrylic paint to add to our design

Before the glaze firing the color looks chalky and dull.

Each piece had to sit on a stilt so it wouldn't stick to the kiln shelf as it fired at 2000ºF degrees

Each clay pendant began with a long length of cord from the top hole. We added beads with large openings to the string on what we called "top beads".
The "down beads" had small holes so we strung them using wire.

The grant purchase was for a variety of metallic and acrylic beads. They were so amazing!

Each student worked in a tray that had their name in it so they could collect and keep beads until they were ready to string them

Finding matches for a symmetrical pattern was like a treasure hunt checking from table to table

Finished Student Pendants:

View each of the fourth grade pendant on the Artsonia exhibit here.

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Light Up Robots with Paper Circuits

7/16/2014

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Light up robot on foam board w/ paper circuits

I've been learning about ways to add more science to my art projects via conferences, Edcamp Chicago, Twitter, the Art of Tinkering book, and of course having a husband who is a high school science teacher helps. I decided to try creating an art and science lesson using paper circuits as a first step. The plan (see this blog post were I drew out the plan and animated what I hoped would be the results here) is to have students design and paint a robot, make a circuit with copper tape, LEDs, and batteries on the back that lead to a flap in the front that will complete the circuit.
I submitted the plan as a project on Donor's Choose. So, if you would like to in pitch a few bucks to help us get a chance to make these use this link. (Thanks for considering!)

Click for Robot ideas

I put this pinterest board of robot ideas together for designing a robot. There are SO many amazing ideas here. I was very inspired so I ordered a stash of supplies via amazon and tried it out today.

Designed a Robot on Foam Board

Metallic Paints outlined in black Sharpie

close up of battery with copper tape on flap

I punched small holes in the eyes (boy that sounds mean) and cut a battery-sized circle from the center of the robot belly. I kept my circle as a "flap" for closing the circuit to turn on the LED lights I snugged up into the holes in the eyes.

Series circuit on the back of the robot

Please donate so we can try this project

Supply List:

Here is a quick look at the things this lesson can teach

UPDATE: view my tutorial here

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Paper Circuits add STEAM to Learning

7/11/2014

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My STEAM logo drawn in Brushes and animated in DoInk on the iPad

During the last school year or so I've been seeing many examples of tinkering, maker spaces, and other science infused projects showcased at conferences and online. I'm very interested in trying to find project ideas that are a good fit for my 45 minute elementary art classes, will not compromise the art-making experience, and embed science concepts. I've lots of ideas but one place I want to begin is with paper circuits. See this resource.

I hacked into an old LED flashlight, grabbed some copper wire and tried to learn about making a very simple circuit. It is very exciting to see the LED light up after making all the right connections. My next task was to think about the art that this LED could light up.

This project will fund our Paper Circuit Robot painting. Click above to see my supply list & full description. Please consider donating.

It's hard to explain how excited I was to play with paper circuits. I designed and painted a STEAM poster and lit it up all in one day. I dreamed of LEDs all night until I came up with this project idea that I think will be a great way for me to introduce circuits and art concepts combined: a light up robot painting. I wrote this Donor's Choose project to get the supplies needed.

1. Design/paint a symmetrical robot on foam core with the illusion of depth using shapes, color balance, & metallic paints. Include a center circle.

2. Flip over the art, gently punch holes through the eyes for LEDs, remove a circle in the center for battery, build a circuit. Insert battery in circle.

3. Build & attach a small flap on the top edge over the battery from the front of the robot. The copper tape conducts electricity and closes the circuit when the flap closes.

Animation of the Paper Circuit Robot with light up LED eyes from a circuit built on the back.

UPDATE: see my light up paper circuit robot painting! http://drydenart.weebly.com/fugleblog/light-up-robots-with-paper-circuits

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Another Winning Year

7/1/2014

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We won & raised over $10,ooo in resources for Dryden's Art Program this school year alone!

I began the 2013-14 school year with 2:1 access to iPads for my art students (see this post which explains how this happened) and ended with enough for 1:1. I NEVER dreamed it would really happen so quickly. By April 2014 all my students had iPads loaded with our favorite art apps so that we could animate, digitally paint, and easily curate our online art portfolios. So many doors are open now for my students for exploration, innovation, and art creation because of our many supporters, donors, and voters that actively promoted our fundraisers, voted for our contest entries, and donated generously to our crowdfunding campaigns.
THANK YOU!

CONTESTS

We have a long tradition of entering contests for art, videos, and classroom projects to win resources for the art program and give students a chance for authentic audiences for their work. This year was no exception:

Klaudia's piece was selected for the IAEA traveling student art show
Riley's piece was selected for the Youth Art Month Poster distributed in March
Allow us to Illustrate won NextVista's Cool Designs contest & Video of the Year
Allow us to Illustrate screened (and won) for the district and community
Animating Ourselves won Next Vista's Super Thoughts contest (won bonus prize)
The Internet was Created for Good won the Digital ID PSA challenge ($ resources)
Won 2nd place in the Alliance to Feed Superhero Contest ($ microphone)
Won the NAEA survey raffle for $500 in art supplies (swapped for iPad)
Won the Educational Paradigms Conference cover design ($ towards supplies)
Won a raffle via Donor's Choose ($100 towards an art room iPad)
Finalist in the NEC Display's video contest. Won a 32" display for art room.
Won a $250 promotional Donor's Choose gift card (applied towards an iPad)

GRANTS

When my student teacher was in full takeover last fall, I decided to use my time to write as many grants as I could for more resources for the art program. I wrote way more than I received but we are so happy for these:

Can't Wait to Curate (two iPads and one app voucher)
Green Screen Studios (apps, stands, and green screens) Ended up with this
Getting the Gear Article for School Arts Magazine, March 2014
iPevo Wishpool Grants (you are SO generous-thank you!)

CAMPAIGNS

I began aggressively seeking donations by leveraging crowdfunding sites. I did lots of begging & promoting while many kind people donated to help us get the rest of our iPads.