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Jelly Bean Art

November 15, 2011

Again, nothing to do with Spanish...but this is just too cool to pass up! [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOu0DuxFAT0] Does the background look familiar? That's right, folks--the background images are made entirely of JELLY BEANS. The original article that I read about the video appeared in the Social Times, and I used it to develop a reading for my students. Before you begin, ask students

  • ¿Cuál es tu video musical favorito? - What's your favorite music video?
  • ¿Cuál es el video musical más creativo que has visto? - What is the most creative musical video you've seen?
  • ¿Te gusta el arte? - Do you like art?
  • ¿Tienes una forma de arte favorita? ¿Cuál? - Do you have a favorite form of art? What is it?

Some questions that you can use to personalize the reading, during, and after:

  • ¿Te consideras artista?
  • ¿Te gustan los frijolitos?
  • ¿Cuál es tu reacción inmediata cuando oyes que hay una forma de arte que se llama arte de frijolitos?
  • ¿Qué es stop-motion? ¿Alguna vez has hecho un video de stop-motion?
  • ¿Cuál es uno de tus sueños? (¿Qué es algo que tú quieres hacer?)
  • ¿Te interesa la animación?
  • ¿Tú dibujas bien?
  • ¿Tú tendrías paciencia suficiente para pasar tres horas arreglando frijolitos encima de una mesa?
  • ¿Te gusta la fotografía?
  • Si fueras parte del proceso, ¿preferirías ser la cantante, el director, o uno de los artistas?
  • Si tuvieras que trabajar por 22 meses en un proyecto, ¿qué te gustaría hacer?
  • ¿Su trabajo vale la pena?

ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE READING: A 'Sweet' Video There are many kinds of artists--painters and sculptors, for example--but there are also less common kinds of artists. One of these types are jelly bean artists. These artists make 'paintings' formed entirely of jelly beans. Two years ago, the director Greg Jardin called the young singer Kina Grannis. Grannis always wanted to make a unique and creative music video. Jardin told her that he wanted to make a music video using jelly bean art and the technique of stop-motion. Jardin didn't want to use the computer or special effects to edit the video, so he created the video using only a camera. The results are beautiful. First, Jardin worked with the illustrator Lauren Gregg. They created an animated version of the video, and then divided the animated video into 2,300 different images. One by one, they projected the images on a table, and jelly bean artists arranged jelly beans of different colors on top of the images. At times, this part of the process took five minutes; other times, the artists spent more than three hours working on a single image. After arranging the jelly beans, the artists placed glass on top of the table with the jelly beans. Then, Grannis posed in front of the table and Jardin took a picture. They repeated this process for the 2,300 images that are in the video. In all, 30 people worked for more than 1,357 hours over 22 months to create the video, and they used 288,000 jelly beans. Is their work worth it? Watch the video on YouTube and decide for yourself.

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