I painted this underwater landscape a few years ago for the Whidbey  Camano Land Trust. It’s a large wayside that lives on the top of that bluff in the painting at the Admiralty Inlet Natural Area.

Now, a group of budding artists from Sherman Elementary School in Tacoma, Washington have taken that art and made their own rendition of it. I think it’s wonderful and wanted to show you the process and finished project.

The 5th grade class and their Makerspace Coordinator, Julie Ross, started it by dividing the painting into squares, each student taking on a portion of the painting. They used pipe cleaners, corks, beads, balloons, ceramic tiles, pom poms, yarn, fabric, noodles, recycled materials and many other unusual things. (heck, I just got to use a paint brush.)

And one more time showing the finished collage. Pretty fun.

Makerspace is a collaborative work space inside a school, library or separate public/private facility for making, learning, exploring and sharing.  It certainly looks like this project succeeded with the very definition of collaboration, something sorely lacking in this country these days. I’m proud to have been a part of it.

Thanks for reading this week.

Larry Eifert

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