Day 3

look at this little beauty

Paper folding techniques

Finding the balance of slowing down the pace while keeping the process moving along. Keeping students engaged but not hurried....this is one overarching goal I have as I work on the craft of teaching.

Today we spent time in three large groups dissecting a lesson plan and putting it back together. Our aim is to begin with the end in mind, then work backward from there to determine what skills, experience and knowledge need to go into the mix for a successful project. I love this approach, it's how I've been strategizing my lessons all along (some with more success than others!). We discussed the Masks with Mood and Attitude as our template (p. 44) and from there used Lesson Design Chart for Teachers to bring out the nuts and bolts of the lesson, making sure we covered a Baseline/Progress check, Idea Development/ Basic Skills/Engaging Project/Reflection, Assessment & Critique.

Questions for students: what do you feel successful about today? what are you struggling with?

We then learned some paper folding techniques, taught by Larry. I wish we had twice as much time for this activity! After that we moved into our big colored paper project, using prompts, we worked in small groups to create a large work. This culminated with a group show of our big, colorful works!

Our group had to create something to wear to a party....we used the BDDC plan: brainstorm all of our ideas, decide what to do, divide up the tasks, then create!

I found this method incredibly simple, direct and easy. Even the concerns and fears were put down on the brainstorming section. We took a break for lunch and upon returning we all agreed on a theme for our 'costume': the life cycle of a cherry from a sprout, to a tree, to the fruit, to a pie (the hat).

other groups working on their prompts

another costume prompt

this prompt was about a 21 yr old going off to work on an archeological dig and her mother wanted her to have a quilt or wall hanging of her favorite things, the artefacts used were from Jen's daughter

This weekend I need to paint more chips for my color wheel. I brought home sulfite drawing paper, and will use the goache paint I bought in Florence. The supplies of tempera paint ran a bit low as we were all heading out the door. I think we are all a little stressed out about this project and the time involved (we still have to do the neutral too). Helps us relate to our students, I'm sure. There is also a reading assignment, pp 67-77 in a handout...oh, and come with ideas for building my art lesson, we will work on curriculum. And work on the Journal.  Good thing my family is busy tonight and I don't need to fix them dinner as I do all my work on the kitchen table. Here's a photo of my space for this.

my charming studio space is my kitchen table

Day 2

I'm kind of tired today, I think I got 4 hours of sleep last night. Anyway today was kind of a blur to me. We started painting squares of sulfite drawing paper to eventually cut into squares for our color wheels. The process starts with yellow tempera paint, gradually mixing magenta bit by bit, working up to orange and red/orange. Getting a true red involves starting with magenta and adding a tiny bit of yellow.

My way of mixing colors goes like this:

Paint the primary colors: cyan, magenta and yellow

Mix the secondary colors: orange, violet, green next.

Then go for the tertiary colors that are in the middle by adding the primary or secondary color needed.

Jen demonstrated how to paint the neutrals for our color wheel, using complemenary colors. I will try using yellow and purple on mine.


ADOPT A PRINT

We were told to choose an art print that we normally wouldn't be drawn to. I was drawn to pretty much everything so had to choose a slightly different course for choosing my print. I picked one that  peaked   piqued my curiosity because I couldn't really tell what it was. Even after reading the title of the piece I couldn't see it as an urban landscape. What was to take 15 min of internet research soon became an hour as I read about the life of the artist, looked up the art movements of the 1940's and 1950's and learned more about how they differed from each other.

Berkley No 52 by Richard Diebenkorn

We reviewed our artist prints in small groups of 4, limiting our time to 2-3 minutes. I was surprised at how often I said 'ummm...' and was haphazard (sleep deprived?) in my presentation. I described lyrical expressionism, abstract expressionism in the painting titled Berkely No. 52 (1955) by Richard Diebenkorn. I completely forgot to mention the reason that abstract expressionism flourished (among other reasons, I'm sure) was the fact that censorship was happening in the 1940's and 1950's. No one could censor an abstract work. Diane was the cohort leader of my group (this is her 2nd time doing the Institute) and showed us a cool schematic for small groups and how to rotate students through a presentation 3-4 times with a new group every time.


We worked on the COLOR FACTORY, creating single sheets of primary, secondary and tertiary colors, as well as the textured paper (wadded up 3x, then smoothed out) a complement textured/patterns paper and a large masterpiece with complementary colors. These dried while we went on to other tasks, and I noticed later in the afternoon that the aides were busy trimming away the white borders we left on the papers.

the giant colorwheel created in the COLOR FACTORY

walking the paper around the room six tables, to its complementary color

filling in the complementary color

painting in the 'masterpiece style using one color to start

Textured paper using complementary colors

We heard Annie read her book about her Visla dogs who painted a colorwheel, and saw her demonstrate the way she makes a handprint color wheel...very clever, like magic...shhh...I won't give it away!

I noticed the simplicity of organization for clean up in a room with no sinks: use buckets of water for dirty brushes, buckets of damp clean rags for table wiping. I have one sink in my classroom, and it becomes a real bottleneck at cleanup time. I will try this other idea (have my aides the next period do the washing up). It will give students MORE PROJECT TIME!

LET MY MUSE BE FREE TODAY, and turn off my editor....those were gems of wisdom from Annie as she listened in on our small group reflection. (I was wondering aloud how to incorporate these ideas into my clay and fiber classes)

Innes color wheel templates...fascinating! those are on page 35.

"How do you feel you are doing?"  "Which is your best effort?"

Stand and point to where you think you go next...keep pointing and walk quiet as mice toward that place.

Ingredients for success:
Passionate teacher
Good supplies
Structure
Clear Objectives
Train parent helpers

When a student is off task observe them and ask yourself: do they have the skills for this task? if not, back up one step, or change the environment for them.

How do students problem solve on their own? Ask them questions!

Day 1 Annie Painter Art Institute

Annie Painter's workshop has rave reviews. When it was offered in my school building this summer I decided to check it out! Imagine my surprise when my colleague and friend Lori S. also came, as well as my  fellow teachers Nancy M., Erin O and Wind L! Day One was packed with activities, hands on learning, exploring with tempera paint on butcher paper and learning to identify the elements and principles of art. Here are some of the photos to show you how MUCH we made today!

Here is the entire class, sporting the folk inspired headdresses we made out of construction paper. We explored the use of positive and negative shape in this project and had to use up all the scraps we created in the process!

The Rules of the Road for an art classroom

The Struggling Artist Masterpiece Project

We didn't know what the project was to be...but we thought the tempera paint looked pretty dried out....
turns out that was intentional. The little pools of semi-dry tempera behave more like pots of watercolor, the idea behind this is that students will be less likely to make a muddy green mess of paint (more likely to happen when using wet tempera). I think using smaller brushes than the 1.5" chip brushes we used would help.

Nonobjective painting only....what happens when you simply explore the possibilities of paint, paper and brush.




Nothing representational allowed. We painted in our own 'space' for awhile, then began to move around the paper, adding to areas where others had painted. Then we were given slips of paper with the elements and principles of art typed on them and as a small group we looked for areas within our section of painting that best fit the word.

Finally, black mats were handed out and we 'framed' in our masterpiece, briefly talking about composition. Voila!

Masterpieces!

 

NON OBJECTIVE PAINTING

Our next project was based on the work of Wassily Kandisky, considered the father of abstract expressionism. He grew up with musical parents and had the ability to associate colors with sounds (a synesthete, I believe). He believed that a new form of communication was possible simply by using color and shape, a sort of symbolic manner of communicating meaning. His work certainly expresses emotion!

We made a background gradient wash using only one color

 I think this painting is exquisite

Lori's gradient with blue tape resist

Lori's elegant masterpiece

my gradient with some blue painter tape pieces for resist

my finished painting inspired by Kandinsky