2015-16 in review:8th grade

I am going to miss this class so much! Out of 80 students, about 10 of them applied for CAPA and 7 of them got accepted and will be pursuing the arts in high school. But even the other 90% of this class were engaged and open to exploring their creativity. Our 8th grade curriculum explores the art world from Abstract Expressionism up to Contemporary art practices. As the culminating year of art, I expect these students to use their previous knowledge and experiences in art to help them create work that is expressive, personally meaningful, and communicative. I offer my 8th graders much more freedom to use the studio space and tools as best suits the work they are trying to create, and I keep projects more open-ended to create multiple avenues of artistic exploration.

An early project in the year was Op art. Students looked at work by Vincent Vasarely, Bridget Riley, and Edna Andrade and analyzed their various approaches to creating optical illusions. We talked about how the brain perceives color and how easily tricked it is, and how to achieve illusionary effects through repetition, contrast, and proportion.  

After demonstrating a few techniques, students selected one or more to pursue. Some students wished to reproduce existing illusions, while others tried to combine effects into a single composition. This is absolutely a lesson I would continue to use in the future, both for its effectiveness at teaching or reviewing art elements and principles and for the high level of student engagement when they see how easy it is to trick the eye! 

I told myself at the end of last year that I wouldn't do papier mache again or wait so long in the year before starting clay with my 8th graders. I had every intention of doing a Pop Art project in clay instead of trying to do giant papier mache sculptures.....

But then I had this crew of kids ask me, "When are we going to get to do those big sculptures like they did last year??!" From day 1, they were begging to do sculptures, and so I caved in and started hounding the lunchladies to save me cardboard. Students looked at the work of Claes Oldenburg and Robert Indiana for inspiration, and after demonstrating how to construct forms in cardboard I let them choose an everyday object they would like to  reproduce. Many of them went for a trompe l'oeil effect by keeping the scale consistent to real life, but others went more extreme in scale. The attention to detail on some of these was incredible- the toast in the toaster above is removable, and the chair below looks so much like my original purple rolling desk chair that visitors to my room tried to sit in it!! As an extension on this project, once the sculptures were complete I had my students consider how context changes meaning. They took their sculptures around school to set up situations to photograph. For example, the giant toothpaste tube was photographed in the bathroom sink with yarn "toothpaste" spilling out of it, and the giant diamond ring was used in photos with students posing for a fake proposal. 

The problem with papier mache is how long it takes to complete a project, but it was worth doing it again this year to see my students excited to build and play with context.

We look at a lot of Andy Warhol when we talk about Pop art, and his work and process helps us flow into Photorealism and the use of technology to help make art.

We do a grid enlargement focusing on values to show how Chuck Close works, and talk about pixels. Then students took selfies, which we manipulated in Photoshop to posterize and isolate the value layers. Students used their posterized selfie as a reference to paint their monochrome self-portrait, where instead of drawing values they had to mix paint values. Then they created a background to reflect aspects of their identity or personality, choosing to paint, draw, or collage around their portrait.

After exploring identity in self-portraiture, we turned to focus on beliefs and how art is used in activism and to persuade viewers to see the artist's point of view.

We looked at artists like Francisco Mora who worked at Taller de Grafica Popular in Mexico doing woodcuts, and talked about why artists use printmaking to spread messages very quickly (the original "social media"!). Students brainstormed ideas around a few activism areas such as human rights, animal rights, and environmentalism. It warmed my heart to see that some of my students decided to explore LGBQT rights, Mental Health, and Civil rights in this project as well, which told me that they felt safe in the art room to explore the things they cared about beyond the simple parameters I had set out. We had very interesting conversations about how to compose positive messages that would make people think rather than make people turn away or react in anger.

I allowed students to work on their own to make a small piece or work in groups to make a larger piece (haha- they thought teams would be easier, when really it was harder!!). I demonstrated how to carve and gave demos on some different ways to ink for multiple colors. Finally we created displays grouping the works by activism themes. I hope this project gave my 8th graders a taste of activism and a seed of compassion that may grow as they become adult citizens of our society.

Our final project of the year ended up being clay. Note to self- DO CLAY EARLIER IN THE YEAR!!!!!!!! My 8th graders finish school an entire week earlier than everyone else, and the week before that they have all kinds of rehearsals for graduation and trips. Suffice it to say, trying to squeeze clay in at the end was madness. But oh, what beautiful work came out of it!!!!

I asked students to research an artist that they liked to use as inspiration for a lidded clay box. Of course- there were about 10 Starry Nights..... (Really kids? After all the awesome art I showed you over the past 4 years?) I made all my Starry Night kids make sure their final project looked different from each others' at least! I demonstrated making a pinch pot vessel form and a slab constructed box form as well as some different approaches for making lids. I showed them various artists from the clay studio who had made boxes that seemed to have been inspired by other art, and we talked about what it means to be inspired by something versus copying something. The wide variety of forms, lid techniques, and decorative elements, both sculptural and painterly, was truly impressive. 

I am very proud of what my 8th graders accomplished this year, and I hope they carry forward with them a love of art, an awareness of culture and media, a critical eye, and a unique voice. I have a feeling they are going to do great things!

2015-16 in review-5th grade

My Blue Art Room has had quite a hiatus! When last I blogged here I was just starting my 3rd year of teaching and beginning a new position of middle school art teacher. Now, here I am finishing my 4th year of teaching and 2nd in middle school. I'd like to get back into the habit of reflection and sharing here. Technology changes and social media changes, and I've spent much more time interacting with other art teachers on Facebook than doing the long, slow practice of writing about my work.

So, here we go.

The end of the school year is when I pass out the portfolio of work back to students and ask them what was their best piece and worst piece. It gives me an idea of which projects are worth doing again or not. My school's art curriculum is structured strongly around art history, and I try to connect with contemporary art and artists whenever possible. I've also tried to develop lessons for my middle schoolers that will have a significant level of choice and individual expression. 

5th grade

• My museum: Our 5th graders were lucky to have the chance to visit the Barnes Foundation at the beginning of the school year. To prepare them for their trip we learned about Barnes'symmetrical ensembles, the job of a curator, and the different genre of art. They arranged their own museum galleries using printouts of some of the images from the Barnes collection, and drawing a 1 pt perspective room with museum details like lighting, signs, visitors, and guards. When complete, they critiqued them by deciding which museum they would most want to visit and why.
  
• Masterpiece Mashup: Delving in further into the collections at the Barnes, my students talked about what art they liked best, and selected 2 images from postcards from the Barnes to mashup into their own unique masterpiece. Although.. it appears that this one was sparked by arms and armor and a George Segal from the PMA-my postcard collection must have been a little mixed up. hen complete, the students decided how to display their masterpieces in a Barnsian ensemble. (ps-I hate oil pastel.)
  
• Hex signs: Taking one last inspiration from the Barnes, we explored hex signs. When Barnes couldn't import art from abroad during WWII he turned to local handicrafts for his collection. Since our state standards require us to introduce PA art and artists, this hex sign project was perfect. These symbols are found all over Southeastern Pennsylvania on the barns of PA Dutch farmers. My students were eager to share their experiences seeing them on trips out into Lancaster county. We were also able to learn radial design, geometric shapes, and color symbolism.

• Self-portrait monoprints: This is one of my favorite projects in 5th grade, because printmaking is so much fun. We combined monoprinting (markers on plexiglass laid over photo printouts, traced, and printed)and texture rubbings for the backgrounds) We talk about emotional color and mood. Some students enjoy utilizing more than one of their prints to express different sides of their personality.
  
• Still-life relief prints: our printmaking adventure continued with foam relief prints. I let students choose to draw their own object or use a magazine image for inspiration. They carved their foam and printed. Those who were ambitious carved for a reduction print or cut out part of the foam for a puzzle block color effect. I liked how the process allowed for differentiation. It was simple enough for my lower students with levels of progressive difficulty for my higher students. Some chose to alter their prints by coloring them with colored pencils as well.
  
• National Parks landscape stamp design: I've done similar versions of this project before. Sometimes it's famous landmarks, or state symbols. In honor of the anniversary of the National Park system this year, I assigned each student a different National Park to research. We went to the computer lab and researched images of the landscape, the animals, and the plant life to use in a stamp design. This was an opportunity to connect with science and ecology, as well as with social studies and geography. One class did this project as a watercolor pencil painting, and another did it as a photoshop collage. The digital versions were much more successful and related with the concept of design.
• Face jugs: I found an excellent video on PBS History detectives on Edgemont, SC pottery to introduce my students to the tradition of face jugs. I also shared a video read-along of the story of Dave the Potter. Our face jug project even tied back into the Barnes collection and his African Masks. (I love it when I can tie together all sorts of connections in a project!!!) I taught my students to make a pinch-pot base and coiled body for a simple pot, then scoring, slipping, smoothing clay to attach the features. This is the first time in K-8 our students get to work with real clay, since there is no kiln in our elementary building. When complete we used our jugs for a cereal or OJ breakfast and talked about what forms are better for which purpose.
  
• Narrative Collage: For a literacy connection, my students learned about storytelling in art. We looked to Pieter Breughel for inspiration, then created a magazine collage with a setting, character, and action.Once complete, students chose to write a story to accompany their picture or to draw a before or after picture to show sequence, cause and effect, or problem/solution. My students really struggled with the collage aspect. I think next year I should try it as a cartooning unit instead,
  
• Art History Zine: I don't get to see my 5th graders during PSSA testing due to rescheduling, so while they were with my sub I assigned each student an artist throughout at history to research. They had to find an image, 3 biographical facts, and a quote. I tried to select a range of women and men of a variety of cultures fora diverse selection. Students then drew a comic book-like bio page using their research for reference. Once I got them back I photocopied each student's page, and had them choose up to 5 pages they would like to use to make a small zine. They origami-folded each pamphlet and glued them together into a book with covers. They made a title page and book review on the covers, as a final touch. I also sent home permission slips to see if my students could have their work donated to our local zine library- the Soapbox. I created one big 20 page zine using the images they drew to donate. I liked how this project involved research, cartooning, book arts, and public art ideas.
  
• My Philadelphia Story: My students were invited to participate in a public art project that will be installed at the Philadelphia International Airport. I visited the studios of Matthew Alden Price and Won Kyoung Lee to learn more about it. Then had my students draw pictures and bring objects to donate that reflected their experience of the city of Philadelphia. The Phillies, The Eagles, the Mummers, softball, skateboarding, bike life, and dance are the things my students love the best about their city.
• My favorite genre: to conclude our study of various genre of art and techniques this year,I challenged my students to select what type of picture they preferred (portrait, still life, landscape, narrative, abstract, or public) and the 2D medium they preferred (pencil, marker, paint, pastel) to create a final personal work of art. This one started as a still-life of a duck decoy, but then he added the pond and reflection around it. I was so proud of my students and their engagement in this final project. Many reported this as being their favorite project because they really felt like artists making decisions.
  

I'm pleased with how the 5th grade curriculum has developed. I understand the big picture and purpose of how the projects to together and use an essential question to drive the learning. I believe we will continue to work with these themes next year. I would like to do more observational drawing practice with next year's 5th graders to bridge the awkward middle school belief in drawing ability. They don't THINK they know how to draw. They need more opportunities to try. I've shared 10 of the 13 projects we did together in 5th grade this year. Two years ago I lamented how little work we'd accomplished in one year. In comparison, this year 5th grade art was a brilliant success!

Tired of snow yet?

 Maybe never. At least my Kinders aren't yet. We tried drawing self-portraits starting with a directed drawing, then adding color and pattern, and finally printing with a q-tip on top to make a flurry or a blizzard.
After 2 years of no snow days, we're getting our fill this year. Another storm may be on the way...

 I'm not sure what's going on in the one above- happy? sad? I think it's exasperated. More snow!!!??? Yay? I don't think we're ever going to get all these projects done. We should just go hibernate and come out when the crocus pops up.

Art teacher vacation

I've been missing reading all my favorite art ed bloggers since during summer the pace is so much slower and life seems unrelated to the classroom. Summer vacation has been a welcome recharge to my batteries, but I kind of miss my kids and the business of being creative every day with them... On the other hand, I'm not the type to sit idle, so I've been recharging my batteries in other ways too.

First off- I finished a week long graduate course at Tyler on working with special needs children in the art room. It was an intense 5 day- 8 hours a day class jam-packed with information, artmaking, and discussion. I have some insight into some of the characteristics of specific disabilities and some practical tools to take back into the classroom with me next year. I got certified to teach right before the state changed requirements to include special ed coursework in art ed- so this class filled some gaps for me.

Secondly- I've been a Pinterest madwoman, collecting new ideas for my classroom management and projects so I'm not just recycling last year's ideas. If anyone is curious, here's a link to my rapidly increasing boards.

Thirdly, I've been making an effort to get out and see some art exhibits, like "Infinite Mirror"at the Michener museum in Doylestown. This was an amazing exhibit of artists all over the country exploring patriotism, identity, tradition, and family. I bought the catalog, and hope to use some ideas from their education guide for a project or two next year.

Fourthly, I've been experimenting with some printmaking ideas I'd like to try out with 4th or 5th grade next year:

 

This past spring my 5th graders used softcut blocks and linocut tools for their adinkra symbols, and I was very satisfied with their maturity and skill with the tools. I think a more ambitiously scaled relief cut project could work. So one idea is to do a 2 color reduction print of an animal. Above is my first layer including a frame and the shape of a peacock printed in turquoise. The white negative space between frame and bird was carved away. The outline of the frame is actually the complete size of the block. I made an edition of 8 on the first layer. Then I carved back into my block to create detail.

 I didn't have any plexi in the studio, unlike at school, but here's my setup for layer 2. My carved block is on a waste sheet of paper to catch any stray marks from the brayer, a clean brayer for printing is at center, along with water-based block-printing ink from Speedball, a wooden spoon as a printing option, and an inking plate and brayer. I think organization when printing is very important to reduce mess and keep things efficient.

Et Voila, my 2 color reduction relief print of a peacock. The only problem I foresee with this project is time. It would require a minimum of 4 class sessions for my students to complete something like this, and probably more like 5. Do I really want to dedicate that much time to it? Anyone have tips for doing this kind of project efficiently?

I'm teaching some art camps at Fleisher Art Memorial the next 2 weeks, and then headed to Montana for an artist-in-residence program. When I get back I expect to plunge into curriculum planning before school starts at the end of August. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer break!

Riding Off into the Sunset

 This architecture/cityscape was the final project of the year for my 2nd graders. We looked at various kinds of architecture before doing a found object blueprint. The prints came out kind of sloppy, so we rolled it into a space review. These landscapes were way more successful than our landscape paintings back in January. Some students got really excited about the extra details they could add to their cities, but sadly my camera died before I could get pics of everyone's projects. Yeah- my constant picture taking and uploading for Artsonia has ruined the hinge that holds the SD card and battery in place, so now I can only take pictures while squeezing the little door closed for pressure on the battery...

My last day with kids was on Thursday last week. Now I've got a few days to pack up the room for the summer. I've got lots of willing helpers, so I put up a list of jobs on the board for kids to choose from. I said to them, "you can stay for 15 minutes, or to the end of your job, and if you finish you can stay and do another or go." I figured 15 minute windows would hold their attention, and if they got bored of a job they had an out. I didn't want to force anyone to stay or do something they didn't want to do, and they still got jobs that I wanted done. Win-Win for me and them!
I haven't had a chance to review the end-of-the-year surveys yet, but I'll soon post some of the comments kids made about art class this past year.
What has been very heartening and rewarding is hearing my older kids who are moving up to middle school say how much they'll miss me and how much they loved art this year. I met a lot of parents this past weekend at a community arts festival, and also heard feedback from them about what a good job I've done this year and how happy their kids are in art class. Art class is generally a happy place to be, but it's nice to know I've kept it that way. I met with my principal and signed my induction papers this week- I have officially made it through my first year of teaching!!! Hooray!

Kindergarten Dance Party

 The last project my Kindergartners completed was a Keith Haring inspired dance party print. We looked at Haring's work and figures, noting that they were NOT STICK FIGURES. After letting them try out a few dance poses for the rest of the class, I gave the kids foam shapes to cut and arrange into a stamp. They colored in a background, adding details for how they'd like to decorate for a party.

 Finally we printed, and students were encouraged to trade stamps to "invite friends" to their dance party. They did a great job sharing, and were very enthusiastic about the whole project. We had an extra day to fill, so we went back and added "action lines" to make it look more like their figures were moving around.

The pictures are exuberant. They show a little of how we all feel at the end of this year- happy to be leaving for summer vacation, happy to have accomplished so much this year. I have one more week with students and it will all be spent passing back artwork for portfolios. I might do it differently next year- all this artwork is a little overwhelming... I can't believe my first year of full-time teaching is almost over!

African inspiration

My 1st and 5th graders have just completed projects that explored arts originating in Africa. My curriculum calls for study of Egypt in 1st grade, and it took me a while to come up with a good project. Most of the projects I've seen out on the internet seem more geared to 3rd grade and up. But I was inspired by some pictures of Scarab jewelry I found on Artstor. 1st graders looked at Ancient Egyptian art including the pyramids, the Book of the Dead, scarab beetles, and hieroglyphics. I did a directed drawing for the first time and was amazed at both the success rate and the variety among the drawings that resulted:

 I've never been a big fan of directed drawings, but the kids REALLY enjoyed it, and were really confident in their projects. The freedom and individuality I love came in when it was time to color their projects with oil pastels. We talked about how scarab beetles have bright, jewel-like colors that reminded the Egyptians of their sun god.

 Afterwards, we looked at hieroglyphics, and the kids wrote out their names in Egyptian symbols like a cartouche. Finally they carefully cut out their beetles and attached them to the background using pop-up foam adhesive tabs so it looks like the beetles are crawling over the walls of the pyramid tombs. I hung them up, and they're freaking out the teachers left and right =) This is definitely a keeper lesson for next year!

 My 5th graders have just completed a long unit of printmaking inspired by the Adinkra cloth of Ghana. We learned how Adinkra cloth is printed, usually in honor of someone who has passed away, using symbols to represent their character. Students brainstormed 5 personal qualities and copied 5 traditional Adinkra symbols that best matched them, and then combined visual elements from each to develop their own personal symbol. I demonstrated how to carve a stamp from easycut linoleum using a gouge (which some were a bit nervous about- including me). The kids did a fabulous job carving their blocks (no injuries!! YEAH!!) and then printed them on both paper and fabric.

 The prints on paper were cut up, some traded among students, and collaged back together with some patterned paper. Their fabric prints are being turned into pillows with an extension of the project to learn some sewing skills.

This is the last project of the year for my 5th graders, as we only have one more day together. Next year they're all moving up to our upper school... I'm really going to miss them as they were my favorite grade this year. I can't imagine my first graders someday being as big and mature as my 5th graders, but it will happen before I know it. My first year as a full-time teacher is almost over, but hopefully it's the start of a long career!

Butterflies and Sunshine

While from the look of my blog, it doesn't look like I've been doing much, behind the scenes in the classroom we've been crazy busy. My younger grades have been doing spring and nature themed projects, which have been taking a long time! Kindergarten explored butterflies and gardens in a printmaking project. We made caterpillar bodies with beads and pipe cleaners, which doubled as bubble wands!! Then we made marker monoprint butterfly wings so that they would be perfectly symmetrical. Kids folded their paper, drew an M and colored it in. Then I came around with a spray bottle to mist their papers and they transfer printed their drawing to the other side by pressing and rubbing. Depending on how much water and how much marker, some came out great, while others barely printed- so some kids opted to draw over the print again to make it bolder. To make our gardens we did bubble prints-which to me looked like hydrangea. Kids blew with straws into a cup of watercolor/bubble concentrate to make bubbles rise up above the cup edge, then laid their paper on top. It took some experimenting beforehand to find the right combo of container and technique to make it foolproof and flower-like! After printing, students added leaves, dirt, and bugs to their flowers with marker, and I came around to staple their layers of garden/wings/caterpillar into a 3-D picture. I'm not totally happy with the results- there's something about markers I find dissatisfying. Maybe they're too common, and don't seem art-class worthy?

 My 2nd graders have been toiling over their Huichol-inspired yarn paintings. Most did suns and moons like seen in the original examples I showed them, but many chose other nature images like butterflies and trees.

 This project was extremely challenging because of the fine-motor skills required to cut and glue the yarn carefully, but it's definitely something they can accomplish. Some turned out amazingly!

 I have to buy more yarn next year, though, as I had 3rd and 2nd doing yarn projects at the same time, and we ran out of many colors by the end of it. If you need a stash-busting project, this is it- even through each child only worked a 6 inch square! To distribute the yarn I rolled 5 balls of each color so that each table had a box of colors to work with. They had to throw out scraps at the end of class to keep the boxes tidy. It's possible a lot of my yarn got thrown out as scrap, though!

The end of the school year draws near, and I'll only have about 3 more class sessions with each group. It's going by so fast!!

1st grade bouquets

My first graders have just finished some beautiful still-life bouquets. We started by looking at a sunflower still-life by Vincent Van Gogh, but noted that it was a little plain looking- the colors were all similar, the vase was simple, and the background was very plain. I thought it would be more fun to add pattern to our still-life project.

 We started by making a symmetrical vase. Students chose either orange or yellow construction paper, folded it in half "hotdog style", and drew a wavy line that started and ended on the fold. After cutting it out they opened it up and discovered some very interesting shapes. It's fun to see how different all the vases turned out! I told the kids to pretend they were potters who had to glaze their vase, and they added lots of colors and patterns in crayon.

 Next we made our table and wallpaper backgrounds. We looked at the wood grain on our classroom tables and tried to copy the swirls and knots of the wood. Some students chose to make a tablecloth pattern instead. When the background was finished, we glued the vases down, trying to leave enough room for the bouquet. Guess what? Glue stick doesn't really stick to crayon! After my first class glue stick failure, the others used elmers and dot,dot, not alotted. Some interesting composition problems occurred along the way. One student, below, had drawn a table with the paper in horizontal format, but had a super tall vase. So she cut it in half and had 2 bowls instead!

 Finally, it was time to print our flowers. We used large and small wooden spools as stamps with red and yellow tempera paint. It's interesting to see how different their flowers all look depending on how they printed the flowers. Some look more like daisies, others like hydrangea. Some just made on flower per stem they drew, others made a cloud of flowers.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. Even though this project seemed very straightforward, it still lots of little opportunities for students to make artistic choices. It also had a lot of review of art element concepts from the beginning of the year (line type, pattern, primary colors, cutting and gluing technique).

Next up we're having a review of genres. We've done a landscape, a portrait, and a still-life, and so as a review we're going to do a collaborative "1st grade museum".