Student glass fossil |
Students learned to use hand lenses to see details enlarged. |
In the second, third, and fourth classes, students rotated between stations in glass cutting, botanical illustration, making plant impressions into a granular clay, and printmaking with plants.
Careful looking and observation |
Students could examine the long tradition of botanical illustration through many field guides and photos of the Blaschka glass flower collection.
Above are many of the artworks students created. They were invited to work with pencil, sharpie, colored pencil, and watercolor to complete their observations of plant forms and textures. Here is one in greater detail, where the artist worked in graphite and colored pencil to blend the colors of the leaves and branch:
At the glass cutting station, Alexandra supervised students carefully cutting and measuring their glass to fit their plant's scale. It has been a dream of mine for a while to have students work in glass, and last year we studies both stained and blown glass artwork, so it was quite a thrill to have an artist who could bring this experience to our students.
Safety was paramount! Gloves and glasses kept children safe. |
Alexandra explaining to artists the use of the glass scoring tool. |
Inside the kiln before the first firing. |
Lots of pressure was needed to press down on the leaves, so students learned how to leverage their own body weight to impact the resulting image.
Here are a sampling of the finished positive/negative botanical prints. They have such a high level of detail that many plants are easily identifiable.
In the last station, students used collected plants to press impressions into a granular, sedimentary-like clay, which air-dried. After it dried, students painted the whole surface, then used a sponge to relieve the paint from the raised areas, leaving an excellent fossil-like form.
Here is a closeup of a hosta leaf pressed into the clay:
On their final day with of this residency experience, students used a diamond-tipped etching tool to add their name to the glass pieces they created, leaving a more permanent signature than the marker used initially for identification. Artists also reflected on the wide variety of outcomes, and on how and why some plants left behind only traces of ash, while others left the plant somewhat intact and not incinerated. Other selections left bubbles in the glass, and students surmised this might be from water in the plant boiling away after the glass has melted, and, with nowhere for those gases to go, expanded the glass into bubbles.
Thank you so much to Alexandra for spending time with our students! It was a joy to try new materials and unfamiliar processes, and the experience has truly deepened students' connection to the land, plants, and geology around them each day here in Burlington.
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