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!