Or Part 2 in a series designed to answer Jeff's Burning Question: What Exactly Is It That You Do All Day?
Chromatography, as you probably know, refers to the separation of mixtures. In a lab setting, chromatography can be preparative or analytical. In the hands of small children, it's just dang fun.
The school does not have a dedicated art teacher, so the classroom teachers conduct art classes once a week. Parents with any kind of a creative bent are eagarly sought after to lend a hand for interesting and innovative projects. I am a two trick pony: I did two weeks worth of jewelry making sessions (and yes, Monica, I do still have some materials left over, thanks for asking!) just before the Christmas holidays, and now, with spring springing, we have made us some glorious t-shirts.
So how's this work, you ask? Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. You write on a t-shirt with a permanent marker. Any one will do; Sharpie, fabric markers, or generic permanent markers.
Now, given the age of the children in 2nd and 3rd grade, you might notice that I have cleverly given them each a plastic cup and a rubber band. They were required to use the rubber banded cup as a platform for their drawing. Less likely to get permanent marker on the table that way.
After they have finished drawing a circle, they use an eyedropper to place rubbing alcohol on the marker drawing. Instantly, the alcohol begins separating the permanent marker ink and you can see it moving along the t-shirt. They *love* this bit. Actually, I do to. Different markers spread different ways: for example, blue generally spreads light blue, but a good green will spread yellow on you and the lower quality reds always spread orange; go figure.)
By jamming the circles close together, you can get a mass of shifting rainbow colors. You can also separate the circles and have individual designs stand out on the shirt.
The best bit is that the kids just love wearing these things. These 6-9 year olds are not at all self concious yet, so half them changed right in the classroom so they could wear the shirts home and a goodly portion wore them to school the next day. And lucky me, it was such a hit with the 2nd and 3rd graders, that I get to do it all again with the 4th and 5th next week!
Radiation boy. Between the pirate flags and the yellow radiation symbols, I'm a little concerned. While he was working on it I told him he need more rainbows and unicorn farts or I was going to send him off for psychiatric evaluation.
You can see he took me seriously.
You are not alone. I still have jewelry making materials too, but definitely less than yours, and definitely was not put to good use as yours did.
Well done with the T-shirt painting. I remeber doing that with you in Nanjing. It was fun! Did you easily persuade Tom to take the picture reasoning otherwise he'd be evaluated?
I'm surprised the Hello Kitty fan didn't draw Hello Kitties!
Hopefully Jeff is reading your blogs so his questions are less burning.
Posted by: Monica | May 26, 2011 at 05:15 PM
Does he have any idea just how stinkin' cute those freckles are? I have freckles, I should know. Just don't tell him that they will not, in fact, ever meld together into one fantastically dark tan. Or, if they do, I'm still waiting on mine.
Oh, right, this was about psych evals, not about freckles. Definitely needs therapy. Then again, look at his paren...um, uh, I mean, nope, he's totally well-adjusted, yes, that is absolutely what I meant to say!
Wasn't there something in there about art or t-shirts, too? ;) (seriously, this is a wicked cool idea that I intend to steal!)
Posted by: Gwynna | May 27, 2011 at 02:08 AM