One Word for the New Year

Because we are on a block schedule, when we start our new semester of classes, its just like starting the year over; fresh and exciting, with new schedules and new students.  Its a great little boost to the school year, as you realize that these are the students you will be with until the year is over. 

I like to start the new semester with a warm up project for all 7-12th grade students.  Its very short and non-threatening, but it sets the mood for the class. We actually did this a few weeks ago, but it was a successful little beginning project and I wanted to share.

 For the last few years, instead of a New Year’s resolution, I have started the year by choosing a word I would focus on for the whole year.  It was generally something I wanted more of in my life, or something I wanted to work toward.  I decided this would be a great thing for my middle and high school students to do also.  They could focus only on the new semester, or, since it was only mid-January, they could use the word for the whole year. I showed them this video to give them word ideas.

 I asked them to create a small artwork around their word.  These pieces were only 4 inches square, so it did not take long, but it generated a lot of discussion within the class and gave us a little glimpse into each other’s minds and souls. (I shared mine also.)  I did not require them to explain why they chose their word, but many shared as they worked.  This is exactly the kind of class atmosphere I’m always trying to encourage, so it was successful on many levels.

I created a bulletin board with all of the finished works.

Projects like this are fun to display because they invariably make the viewer think…asking the question: “What would your word of the year be?” 

Happy Creating!

Challenge: An Artwork a Day

I am fascinated with the idea of a challenge where you have to do something every day, whether its try a new recipe or run 5 miles or write so many pages of that book you want to finish.  There is something inspiring about setting some parameters for yourself and then trying to meet those…NO MATTER WHAT!  

I’ve been thinking about doing some sort of Art challenge along these lines for a while now.  As happens with most Art teachers, the majority of my creative juices get spent in the classroom.  I’m very happy to spend them there, but those efforts sometimes leave the time and energy for my own work in the dust.  

So this fall I decided I wanted to challenge myself artistically and that an “artwork a day” might be the way to go.  Our school year is 180 days long…what if I created one small (4”x 4”) artwork each school day from the beginning to the end of the year?  Think about it!  That’s 180 ideas that could be catapulted to larger, more extensive works!  If only a small number of those really turned out to be good ideas, I’d still be miles ahead of where I am now in terms of inspiration!

AND I always feel that walking the talk is great for the kids to see.  They know I’m an artist, but how often do they get to see my work?  I told them about my project on the first day of school and encouraged any of them to join me in the challenge, for any length of time. The artworks are posted on the bulletin board behind my desk.  My students of all ages are having a fun time watching the display grow day by day.  I can’t imagine what it will look like in May!

I’ll revisit this post then and tell you how I did.  

Happy Creating!

Creative Challenge: Illustrated Dictionary Pages

As I talked about last year, I like to start the year with a relatively simple and short Creative Challenge for my high school students to get the juices flowing and warm up all of the Art skills that may have been dormant during summer break.  Here’s the simple, yet fun idea we tried this year - as inspired by several versions of mixed media dictionary pages on the Internet.

I started by ripping random pages out of an old dictionary and handing them out.  I told them they should choose one word from either side to illustrate on their dictionary page.  The most fun part for the kids was seeing what page they were going to get!  Ahhh…don’t you love random inspiration?  

Students were welcome to use pencil, pen, colored pencil, markers and watercolors.  These four examples are from the freshman Art 1 class.

                                                                           

                                                                     

And now its time to dive into our curriculum!  Here we go!!

Happy new school year!

Guided Drawing: Minions!

Photo from www.despicableme.wikia.com

Don’t you love it when you get to teach your students something fun AND work on skill building at the same time?  Me too!!  All of my classes, from 4th grade to seniors, start their first class by making folders that contain their projects throughout the school year.  By the time they are seniors, those folders are more function than form.  BUT…its different for my elementary students.  Its all still fresh and new down in the Art room for them and they are excited to make folders and decorate them.  

This year, I am starting a new behavior program for my elementary students (more on that later…) and wanted to work on listening skills as an important part of being successful…in the classroom…in a job…in life!  One great way to do that is through a guided drawing project that we could add to our project folders.

Now let me say that I am not a fan of this type of art on a regular basis.  Students need open options and opportunities to create their own visions.  I am absolutely passionate about the importance of student self expression.  BUT an activity like this does have its place!

1)  Bringing something current and timely into the classroom gets kids excited - its very 

motivating.  I love the minions from Pixar’s “Despicable Me” and “Despicable Me 2” almost 

as much as my students.  They were so excited to learn how to draw these little guys!

(Sidenote:  We do talk a bit about copyright and not selling another person's ideas and art, etc…but at this age they are not trying to make a profit or steal someone’s ideas. They just want to draw. :-)  )

2)  It is, above all, a great listening exercise. Having to follow directions step by step is a great way to keep everyone tuned in.

3)  There is a high degree of success with an activity like this.  Students come in with such a wide range of skills.  Its great, every once in a while, for everyone to feel successful.  

That “I can do this!” attitude goes a long way toward feeling better about trying new things in Art class down the road.  We all need a little encouragement every now and then!

After we learned the basics, they were allowed to add any details, hairstyle changes, or other feature changes that they wanted to in order give their minion his/her own personality. The above photos were the practice drawings.  They did the final drawings right on their folders. 

It was a great way to start the year…and we’re ready for the next project! 

P.S.  I altered it some, but my initial drawing instructions came from this link.

A Creative Challenge

I like to start the year with a Creative Challenge designed for all of my high school classes.  This is a small, simple, fun project that warms up their brains, gets their creative juices flowing and prepares them to dive into their individual curriculums.  

This year, we focused on Jasper Johns and the use of letters and numbers in his work. I had seen an interesting lesson plan in School Arts a couple of years ago, so I simplified, modified and shortened it for our needs.

1)  I asked students to choose one letter or number from a font that they found interesting. 

2)  They prepared a background by using pieces of phone book pages ripped, cut and glued to a piece of tagboard in whatever way they saw fit, giving their work some texture.  

3)  After drawing their letter large on a piece of sketch paper and cutting it out, students traced the letter on the background.  (We did it this way because the phone book page paper rips easily when trying to erase.)  

We looked at Jasper Johns' work and talked about the treatments he used:  layering of colors, textures and patterns that make the composition interesting.  

4)  I asked students to develop their own style based on this idea using watercolors, markers and colored pencils.  

This two day project was a great way to start the year, quickly get some new artwork on our display board in the hallway and rev their engines for the bigger projects to come.  It also has many options for developing it into a larger piece or using it for other grade levels.  I LOVE flexible projects like that!  I hope your year is off to a great start!

The King's Sandwich

I love to start the year off with something fun for the kids that gets their creative juices flowing and isn’t too intimidating.  But I also want to use our time together as wisely as possible.  For 8th graders, The King’s Sandwich fits the bill perfectly!  

I begin by giving them categories and asking them to write down five foods from each category (breakfast, fruits/veggies, meats, desserts, candy, holiday, frozen, etc.)  This sets the stage for a large number of ideas from which to pull their drawings together.

Then I tell them a short story about how they are the Knights of the Round Table for a powerful king and how the king is interested in this new fabulous food called the “sandwich.”  The king heard of this concoction from a passing knight, so he does not have many details except that it consists of several different layers of food between two pieces of bread.  The Knights of the Round Table are asked to design a sandwich “fit for a king!” 

Students then create a layered drawing (starting from the bottom up), using as many interesting and unique layers of food as they can. I remind them that we live on earth where there is gravity...so their layers have to touch each other - they can’t float!

Students also label each layer off to the side.

When the drawings are finished, I use this project to introduce “pushing” color.  I demonstrate using colored pencils to color the project by injecting each layer with other colors to jazz up the “local color” of the layer.  This mixing of colors makes for much richer, more interesting artworks and this technique is one they refer to again and again as high school students.  

Although I’m not much into contests in art class, for this one project we do hold a contest to see which sandwich the “King” (senior art students) will choose.  The top three win a small treat as a prize. 

This project continues to be a winner as it warms up the students’ creativity and gives them a new skill to use in future work.