ARTabroad

Five weeks is a long break!

2012-01-30T21:44:00.000+08:00

We were back to school today and it's been lovely. Cold. Very cold. But lovely. And I don't just mean the snow flurries outside my classroom window.

I was feeling guilty this morning when a friend said "I'm excited to see the students but I'm not excited for the work."

Oh yeah, the students.

Somehow, in this five-plus week long vacation combining Christmas, New Year, and Chinese New Year, I'd forgotten about the students. Only once in my escapades through North America (ok, really just the greater Philadelphia area) did I think about those fabulous 150 kids waiting for me when I came back to 中国. And this morning, when the alarm went off, they were the farthest from my mind. I could only think of the work awaiting in my frozen classroom---a bitter 5 degrees Celsius. But today was the first day of the Renaissance in AP Art History, and two lovely classes of fifth graders and third graders spent their lessons peacefully drawing. We learned to grid cartoons and to draw 3D solids (the cake lesson), going step-by-step on the whiteboard and in their sketchbooks. 5th grade enjoyed some Mat Kearney tunes as they drew. And we chatted about break and how I colored my hair and how I sound like one student's mom (note to self: tame down the sarcasm with this sassy but sweet third grader) and how their sister painted cakes when she was in 3rd grade.

Tomorrow includes new lessons. Not the comfort of today's lessons, but the excitement of clay looms for radial weavings and all the kinks we are sure to hit along the way.

And my TA is updating the bulletin boards. I took down this year's illuminated manuscripts and he's putting up paper cuts in honor of Chinese New Year (created with 1st through 5th grade when he subbed for me back in November, while I was at a curriculum meeting in another city).

But tonight, I am just glad to be able to say, in all sincerity, my first day back was lovely. It's good to be back.

Mumtaz Memorial

2011-11-25T21:22:00.001+08:00

I was getting bored with the board, so I changed out the Sydney Opera house for this memorial to Mumtaz Mahal. (It has been almost a month for the first display.) This board will take us through December, being on display for just about30 days by the time we break for the holidays.

I was excited to feature the Taj Mahal because it represents a different nationality in our student body (India was the country of study for our middle school students during Global Village Day) and because I just taught the structure to my AP Art History students. Lastly, it was extra cool because I rediscovered these famous landmarks cards, cut from a poster purchased this summer at my trusty standby, French Wal-mart. Less than a dollar for the poster--I love that store!

Gorilla, what?

2011-11-09T22:02:00.000+08:00

You know that moment, when the students aren't working on their projects. There's even a group clumped together, out of their seats, and they're all off-task.

Kids, get back to work.

But Miss M, Joey drew a gorilla!

Umm what? How did he manage to draw a gorilla? He should be drawing his Modigliani self-portrait...

And then I went to check it out, and, well, he had drawn a gorilla! I mean, in the same way that people find a potato chip shaped like the Virgin Mary or a grilled cheese with the face of Jesus, yes, Joey had in fact managed to accidentally draw a gorilla as he was coloring his neck.

At which point in time, I became the off-task teacher who went to get the camera and document this masterpiece.

A Timely Update

2011-11-07T21:51:00.000+08:00

The visual timeline above my board is growing each week. My art history class is now in Byzantium, so we need a few more images, but the timeline is fairly full through Constantine. It has been fun to refer back to the timeline during class lectures. Just today, after looking at Justinian portrayed as semi-divine in the mosaic from San Vitale, I asked if they could remember any other examples from art history where the ruler is portrayed as god-like. To encourage their responses, I pointed them back to the timeline (Palette of Naram-Sin, for example, is on the timeline).

I haven't used it much with my elementary students, though some images from Art is... were the first to populate the line. Still, it seems that my students are noticing the artwork. Last week, during a 5th grade discussion of facial proportions (and later, distortions), one student pointed to the timeline and asked me why the older work was more realistic, more accurate, than the later work (verism vs. the head of Constantine). A great question, and perfect as we looked at the work of Amadeo Modigliani. Why do artists draw things in an unrealistic manner? Is it that they are less skillful? Is it that people back then really looked like that? Or is there something else going on...

Self-Portraits on Display (again)

2011-11-05T21:51:00.000+08:00

Another year has come and gone, and so third grade has once again created collage self-portraits.

The bulletin board last year was such a hit, both in school and on the web. This year, though, bulletin board aesthetics have been on my mind. I decided to make a slight tweak to last year's display, aligning the work in a perfect grid. I typically go for the sporadic arrangement because it is less work. My perfectionist tendencies would measure and calculate for hours to find a suitable configuration. This year, though, I stumbled upon a brilliant way to align the grid. I am sure many already do this; it must be plastered across website. But since I just this month thought through the process, I thought I would share it.

I was thinking to myself...what if bulletin boards had subtle gridlines, like the back of nice wrapping paper? It would make it so nice to arrange the work. Then I realized---I could create a horizontal center line for myself with yarn! A meter stick, some staples, and I was set. I added an extra staple at the center point of the horizontal line to know where to start with my artwork. I then proceeded to hang the work, eyeballing an equal space from the yarn and from the other work. When all was stapled, I took down the yarn and added the peek-a-boo name tags to guess which student created each self-portrait.

Now that arranging artwork on a grid is so simple, I am sure I will do it more often. I do love clean lines!

Great Danes!

2011-10-30T22:01:00.001+08:00

Do you know the most famous work of art by a Danish person? If you're reasonably familiar with the Danish culture, you might guess that sculpture of the little mermaid by the water somewhere. Nope.

Our school recently focused on four countries as part of our Global Village Day, taking time to learn deeply about four home countries represented in our student body. The student services personnel for elementary mentioned in passing that if I wanted to do any art lessons about Denmark, that would be great. When I finally got around to researching Danish artists, I was quite disappointed. I've studied a lot of art history in college and now teach AP Art History, but none of the names on this list of artists caught my eye. Until I saw the architects.

The Sydney Opera House was designed by a Dane!

This was just the push I needed to implement the "Architecture of the Month" bulletin board that has been floating around in my head for weeks, based on the book 13 Buildings Children Should Know. I pulled facts from the book and from the internet to create a "Did you know?" about the building. It was fun to see the Aussies at our school respond to their board, proud of their featured building. At the same time, it was great to highlight the design of Jorn Utzon, an architect from Denmark whose design beat out 232 other entries and became the iconic building of Australia.

The board is not my favorite design ever. I tried to create a design that could be updated monthly without much effort. Change out the facts, replace the building, and it's set. My TA did a fabulous job drawing the building, though it seems like it needs something more in that space. I intentionally kept that space large to focus on the building and accommodate for future buildings that might be more vertical in design, but I might tweak it in future months.

Just as I was finishing the display, two moms walked down the hallway, busy preparing Global Village Day lunch.

An Aussie and a Dane.

Family Portraits

2011-10-22T11:40:00.000+08:00

I just came back from Shanghai (again) with (more) ideas and (more) connections---attended the ARARTE conference that some art teachers told me about during my first trip to Shanghai back in March. I am excited to get involved with ARARTE and explore ideas from the conference, but I'm still riding high from my first trip. This second grade project comes from Art Is Messy, who graciously welcomed me into her classroom and took me around her school.

Similar to the fourth grade field trip, my students started by looking at an assortment of family portraits. They had to write a sentence about each artwork answering the questions who and where. Next, they sketched two ideas for their own family portrait, accompanied by sentences that told me who and where. The following week, students selected their favorite idea to transfer onto the good paper. A few students found the need to sketch a third idea, like this family portrait on the beach (finished work at the top).

Pencil lines were traced in permanent marker, then the crayon/watercolor experimenting began. My students as a whole are fairly new to watercolors. In the past three years, I've done many resist projects, particularly with oil pastels, but very few watercolor mixing projects. Timing of the project couldn't have been better. Right before the kids started painting, I attended a conference in Beijing (truly, it's been a month of conferences) and learned some great tips from an art teacher working at a school in Guam, including watercolor procedures. We woke up our trays of Prang watercolor with a drop of water, then moved paint onto the palette (lid), even if we weren't mixing, though I really encouraged special mixed colors. We tested each color and various painting techniques on scrap paper because we couldn't erase watercolor. The students watched me make mistakes, painting a black road, then trying to paint the yellow line down the center and watching it bleed, or as we called it, travel. We brainstormed ways to avoid such traveling, such as doing the yellow in crayon first or letting the black dry. As we learned, traveling is not a bad thing, but you need to be in control. Use traveling in trees, grass, sky, ocean, sand---but don't let hair colors travel into skin colors! That makes a muddy mess.

At first, I was a little disappointed by the scale of the people in the finished results. Many of the works function more as landscapes rather than portraits. I wondered if I should have given more direction as to the size of the people, but ultimately decided it was not an issue. The objectives were to tell who (portrait) and where (landscape), plan a project, and explore watercolor. I did not give any instruction about how to draw the figures of their family, and most students preferred to develop their environment rather than the people. So whether their family was on the beach, playing hide and seek, riding horses, or in outer space, the students enjoyed using watercolors and crayons to develop the story of their family portrait. They are excited to do more with watercolors and best, I'm encouraged to give more time to the medium in my classroom!

Fourth Grade Field Trip

2011-09-20T21:54:00.000+08:00

My fourth graders took a field trip.

To introduce a landscape project, we analyzed different examples of landscapes from art history. I selected eight examples of landscapes from my art prints, some western, some eastern, and some folk art. To display, I clipped the pieces along this tension line, made by IKEA for curtains. (The line was installed last fall and typically shows secondary work, the hallway is next to the secondary art room.)

We discussed vocabulary and went through the worksheet questions with an example, then quietly made our way up the stairs to our private museum. The students walked around with a clipboard, choosing to write about four of the eight pictures. After I checked their work, they were allowed to free draw until everyone was done.

Lastly, we sat around a few images and talked about techniques artists use to tell us what is close in a picture and what is far away.

The worksheet was a great tie-in to language arts. Approximately 85% of my students are non-native English speakers, so I like to emphasize all vocabulary (not just art terms) and other language arts concepts whenever possible (like the art-making/writing process).

Worksheet Prompts

     Foreground Nouns:
     Background Nouns:
     Sky Adjectives:
     Landscape Verbs:
     Where is this place?

I was very pleased with the lesson results. The change of location and the change of activity was enough to keep the students quietly engaged in the process. It was great to use parts of speech as a starting block for looking closely at art. At the end, as students shared their answers for nouns in the foreground and background, I challenged how they knew certain things were close. The students did a marvelous job putting words to their observations, noting things like size, overlapping, placement, and details.

Some of my students were too smart for their own good. My prints are labeled, including the museum that currently owns the piece. Noticing the place names, some of my students copied those locations instead of guessing the place the artist was representing. Henri Rousseau's jungle paintings were definitely not a painting of London...I got a chuckle out of such responses, then explained it to the students and asked them to guess another location.

Design Challenge

2011-09-08T21:31:00.000+08:00

Just over a year ago, the art department purchased a DSLR. Yet it was only last week that I discovered I could now take pictures of my whole bulletin board straight on---not at an angle from down the hall! Guess I should have tried that sooner. The hall was too narrow for my old point and click, and while there's some curvature to these pictures, I'll take it any day over the demonstration of one-point perspective in my previous bulletin board pictures.

This project was based on a design challenge seen at the Briargrove Elementary Art Page. My students could only use our school initials, ISQ, to create an interesting composition. We talked about how to create variety with only three elements through repeating, enlarging, overlapping, cropping, and tilting. We also discussed thick and thin lines, along with dark and light value.

The students did a great job with their one-class-period project. It was great to see them overcome challenges and limitations. I love projects that require them to think creatively!

One table of students decided to join their pictures together to create a larger letter "I." I had to place it sideways on the bulletin board due to space, but it was fun to see them initiate the collaboration and work through the problems it presented. Scroll back up to see their work!

In Situ

2011-08-28T04:42:00.003+08:00

The poster is here!

It arrived on my second day of art classes (fifth day of school) and is perfect for the space. The first few art classes learned about the expectations by looking at a digital copy on my TV. It was great to see their excited faces when the walked into art this week and were greeted by the large poster.
As you can see, I decided to move the character traits for each month to the engaged column/support piece to the right of the poster.

In the past, this space was empty or contained random funny pictures of myself and the music teacher. Now the character traits have a new home and the column has a purpose, which freed up the space above my board for...

an art history timeline! I know you can buy pre-made timelines, but (personal opinion) they're ugly. Please send me a link to one that is visually appealing and able to be understood by students sitting in the back of the room. (I don't actually have any pre-made poster in my room. I custom-make everything either by hand or have it printed locally from my graphic design. I'm just too picky!) So I've never had a timeline before, nor have I ever wanted one. (Two years ago, when I taught AP Art History for the first time, I didn't use my classroom, otherwise I might have thought about having a timeline then...)

Right now, the timeline is fairly empty. I placed a few familiar images from the book Art is... along the timeline, since all my students read the book on the first day of class. I also added four images from Mesopotamia that we studied in detail in AP Art History. On Monday, we begin Egypt, so we will start to incorporate those along the timeline. As various elementary classes look to art of the past, I will also add those images to our chronology.

I messed with the scale, labeling every 45 cm but changing the time increments (jumping large amounts of time for ancient art and making more divisions for recent time periods).

You can see the artmaking process posters to the right of my board, next to the TV. If you look carefully, you'll notice a new purple poster to the left of the board. I was inspired by different art blogs and pinterest pins to create an "I'm done. Now what?" display. My sketchbook this year has various extra-time activities. With this new display, I can change out the options each class, giving the choice of up to three different activities (free draw, free read, artist statement, my artist list, drawing squares, coloring pages, etc.).

Right now, I'm addicted to fonts, especially new ones from dafont.com and Kimberly Geswein. She's a friend of a friend and worked at one of our sister schools. I'd take up her offer to make my handwriting into a font if I actually liked my handwriting...but I don't. One of the reasons I print everything with fun fonts.

Another reason I love creating my art displays digitally---being able to mix and match fonts! Some favorites are Grobold, Aubrey, Bauhaus 93, Broadway BT, Designer Notes, Paper Cutout, Complete in Him, and Loved by the King. Plus, I've loved Avant Garde and Century Gothic for a few years now.

But the mixing of fonts, my recent obsession.

Art is...

2011-08-27T12:05:00.002+08:00

Ever get a GREAT idea, only to find out you're not the first one to think of it?

I recently taught about Western art education to a group of local Chinese teachers. A post for another time. I stressed the importance of problem-solving, critical thinking, and originality in art, not copying the teacher. There's much more to be said about this training, but I told the teachers about a Saturday morning cartoon that I will never forget. It was a little blurb from Aladdin's Genie challenging the idea that great minds think alike. Instead, he would change the phrase to great minds think for themselves.

So while I don't think my ideas are that unique, amazing, or original, I still pride myself in thinking for myself. Something about American values of individualism and charting your own path that has been engrained into my person from my upbringing, including Saturday morning cartoons. Sure, I'm inspired by everything in life, but I'm less likely to copy a lesson, bulletin board, or activity exactly. And a lot of my ideas, they come from my own mind, combining various things I've seen online, in books, at another school, or completely unrelated to art education. Yet over and over I see that there is nothing new under the sun.

In my first year of teaching, my friend Miss Emily told me about her third grade painting lesson, based on the artwork of Wayne Thiebaud. I'm not sure where she got her idea, but between my first and second weeks of teaching the project, I found an almost identical lesson in a six year old copy of School Arts magazine!

Now this year, I was so excited by an idea that came to me in the middle of my first art class. Less than 24 hours later, saw it on a list of 20 Creative Bulletin Board Ideas for Art Teachers. So I guess it's not original, but it was a great first day of art class activity.

For all my classes, except for that first group of 5th graders, I welcomed them to the art room, then passed out a piece of paper, cut hotdog-style, that had "Art is" printed on it. The students could finish the sentence any way, with as many or few words as they needed, and decorating however they saw fit with crayons, markers, and colored pencils. After they worked for a while, I let students share their sentences, followed by reading the book Art Is... by Bob Raczka. (I turned the book into a Prezi to make it easier for the students to see the pictures.) We then went over art class expectations and created namecards for my job pockets.

To display the work, I created a custom-border with the lines from the book.

I love their answers. One boy wanted a second piece of paper and attached his two answers.
"Art is droling (drawing).
Art is lerneing (learning)."

Of course, art is fun, fun, fun, fun, and funny.

But did you also know it's boenqshrs?

It is also: amazing, magical, a great subject, my favorite subject, good, bad, cool, nothing, fear, difficult to me, even fun, color, drawing magic, beautiful, creative, fantastic, unusual, great, pretty, perfect, m&m...

Finally, as the book says,
"Art is how artists get you to think."

So the moral of the story: Think for yourself, realizing that someone else probably already thought of it. But it's about the process, not the product, so still do the thinking.

boenqshrs is 1st grade spelling and mirroring of letters for doing (boen) pictures (qshrs).

It's a Dry Erase Miracle!

2011-08-26T23:47:00.000+08:00

I stumbled across a new art teacher supply this summer.

Back in the spring, my mom e-mailed me about a great sale on Crayola products. Not knowing what would be in stock at the local arts and crafts store, I sent her a dream list compiled from Crayola's website. I had never heard of Dry Erase Crayons but thought they would be neat to try.

I think I am in love.

I demonstrate many art skills on the whiteboard directly, but cannot model value changes due to pressure and layers. While I absolutely hate using chalkboards, I hear that's one thing they were good for...

So art teacher, meet Crayola Dry Erase Crayon. It comes in standard colors and brights (works on whiteboards or black dry erase boards). And just to show the value changes possible, I made a quick shaded sphere for you. I also demonstrated the standard green next to the bright green, then two oranges and two purples.

Thus far, a little elbow grease and a soft cloth has been all that's needed to get erase the crayon.

Mr. E recently blogged about another use of the crayons---a lesson with aluminum foil.

But for now, I am content to be able to demonstrate creating value with pressure and/or layering on my whiteboard!

And as for you, run, don't walk, to your nearest arts and crafts store to pick up a teacher box of these crayons. If you have the time, energy, and ideas, consider picking up more for your class, but at least buy yourself a set for demonstrations...

Q-tips, Soap Dish, and a Vegetable Strainer

2011-08-18T22:05:00.001+08:00

Carrefour (french Wal-mart) is my favorite school shopping location. Sure, they don't have any actual art supplies. The department TA gets most of those from the art store in another part of town.*

But wandering the aisles of Carrefour (as long as it's not Sunday afternoon) is just so much fun!

Carrefour is my main source of plastic containers.

It began in my first year when I spotted these strainers. The colors caught my attention, as my tables are labeled red, yellow and blue. I picked up a few, and then continued to buy more over the years. Round, small rectangles, large rectangles (perfect for A4 paper), two-layer trays. As my teaching progressed, I found myself sorting some supplies into warm, cool, and neutral. The red containers became perfect for the warm paper scraps, blue for the cool, and yellow was the closest to neutral.

Over time, I've collected Great Lakes juice bottles, Skippy peanut butter jars, and illy coffee cans to hold other supplies. Free containers for the art department, and further justification of my daily orange juice ritual. You can see that some of the containers are extra colorful. The Great Lakes rectangular juice bottles are my favorite water containers. They hold enough water for two students to use without changing water during class. The shape is very stable and never tips. The ridges in the corners also provide a great texture to help loosen paint from the brushes.

While I love these containers, I recently wandered Carrefour looking for something to hold crayons. These containers are too tall, making them impractical for crayons and little hands.

I first spotted soap dishes and noticed the similarity between the lid and a crayon box. (I also had a regular size crayon and large size crayon in my purse to confirm sizes.)

At $.50 each, I bought 10 for crayons. I also picked up some new spongebobs. After three years, they were looking a little worse for wear and I was a few short in the larger classes.

When I was unpacking the items in the classroom, I realized that the soap dish lids were the perfect size for spongebob! In the meantime, I'd also noticed that my Chinese Q-tips came in the cutest little transparent plastic container that seemed like they were meant for crayons. So bring on another trip to Carrefour and 20 more soap dishes. And, well, two different brands of Q-tips had two different size plastic containers---same height, different diameters---so I had to get 12 of each. And now I have great little cups of crayons and thousands of Q-tips in two large plastic bags.

*The art store is half the size of the average convenience store in the states, or smaller, and packed floor to ceiling with high school, college, and professional level materials. Acrylic, oil, tube watercolors---but no tempera. Absolutely no Crayola products, but they do stock Prismacolor Markers. Colored pencils, oil pastels, but no crayons. My markers and crayons are imported. And if you had any thoughts about crafty stuff, like pipe cleaners, pop poms, and tacky glue---nope. Just the basics. We have to run around town to many other stores to find all the random supplies I want.

Friendly Facelift

2011-08-16T21:13:00.000+08:00

Our cafeteria got a facelift, just in time for the new year! The bottlecaps were installed the day before school started. It was a great surprise for the students at lunchtime---seeing their artwork up on the wall! The kimbap was created by elementary students. High school students worked on the taco, with a lot of work being finished this summer by the secondary art teacher.

As you can see, there's a few gaps and areas needing touch-up, but I am thrilled with the result! Now to plan the coordinating mural for the right side of the cafeteria. I'm thinking pizza and dragon fruit...

In addition to the bottlecaps, I managed to get some paint up on the walls. While our facilities manager was out of town, I convinced his assistant to paint the columns in cafeteria. I was inspired by a picture of another school cafeteria that I found while looking for design ideas for our new Early Childhood Center.

When the facilities manager returned, he asked me if I painted the columns. I said "Well, I didn't physically do the painting, but I might have suggested the colors." A few days later, I heard him tell the Early Childhood Center Project Manager "If we build it, she will paint it." I had to laugh and smile, both at the concept and at the Field of Dreams reference.

Student Services retooled their Welcome and Goodbye boards from a less-traveled hallway to now go under the bottlecap display. Overall, the cafeteria looks so friendly and fun! Much less institutional...and more like a space for students!

I take an added interest in the cafeteria because my classroom is directly behind the bottlecap wall. I love to wander the cafeteria at lunch, sitting with different students, chatting, and eating lunch. This year, I am free during all three lunch periods which allows for extra socializing! And after three years of teaching, the middle school is now full of my former 5th graders. Middle school lunch is such a treat, seeing all the friendly faces of my former students.

The cafeteria is also the location for the art gallery portion of the Elementary Fine Arts Gala. The colored columns will alter the all-white gallery space, but I'm sure the splash of color will work in our favor.

Another new display

2011-08-13T23:02:00.001+08:00

It's off to the printer!

The poster depicts class expectations based on the kid-friendly version of our Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs). Unfortunately, I won't have my new "rules" ready for the first day of art class, at least for the classes that come on Monday, but I'm excited to see the final result. It will be about 1 meter wide and just a little taller than that. This is the first thing I will have gotten printed for my classroom! Banners, teeshirts, mugs---my designs end up all around my school and on my students, but this is new territory. At less than $10, I might be getting a lot more custom posters for my room.

By the way, purple is underrepresented in my rainbow room, thus the tone-on-tone purple poster.

The background image (ESLR MAN!) is compliment of our curriculum and professional development coordinator. In preparation for our WASC accreditation visit last spring, she analyzed how we utilize (or don't utilize) the ESLRs as a part of daily school life and learning. The ESLR icon was born as a way to visually identify the ESLRs at play in school. We joke about ESLR stamps, temporary tattoos---you name it, we've suggested it.

I took the icon and added stylized labels of our five ESLR categories, and then she and I attacked our campus with the icon last semester. We stuck ESLR MAN! next to bulletin boards, plaques, student work---anything that demonstrated achievement in one of the five categories. The goal was to help student and teachers see how they were already working towards our ESLRs. And now ESLR MAN! has found his way into the background of my classroom EXPECTATIONS...

In case you were worried, I haven't gotten rid of my "Awesome Artists" poster. I moved it to the back wall of my room, above the construction paper. I still plan on referring to it and discussing ways students can be "Awesome," but for this year, the focus is personal; In art class, I will try my best to learn and not give up.

New Year, New Displays

2011-08-08T22:23:00.001+08:00

My room has evolved just like my teaching. The first year was all over the place, making lots of mid-year changes and figuring it out as I went along. The second year was a huge change, being able to plan well from the beginning and knowing much more what I wanted. The third year was almost a complete repeat of year two, with only subtle tweaks (character traits in rainbow colors, redoing teacher pockets for new teachers, etc.).

One new addition for year three was the "artmaking process." When reading an info sheet about the Davis Elementary Textbook Explorations in Art, I was curious by the "five-step studio process, aligned with the five-step writing process." I asked around with the elementary teachers and it turns out, they all teach slightly different versions of the writing process.

     Is making a 2nd draft a step?
     Are revising and editing different steps?
     How about publishing?

After thinking about it for some time, I decided to simplify and create a four-step process. I didn't get the posters up until December, but they found a perfect home just above my white board (funny thing...maybe I custom fit them to the space...).

I thought long and hard about the subject matter of my example art piece. While I first thought an apple would suffice, I decided to chose something from the city culture here in China. The "May Wind" is a large sculpture in a park along the waterfront near the "city hall." It is easily recognized by the students and taps into local pride and identity.

This year, I'm itching for some new displays. My line families (straight, angled, and curvy), created on newsprint, served me well for three years, but could hold up no longer. I'm also considering revamping the art "rules" (Awesome Artists) to align to our Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs). Finally, I would like to emphasizes vocabulary and feature artists somewhere in the room. And school starts on Wednesday. BUT elementary specials start the following Monday, so I have until the 16th to finalize my "first day" displays, with room to grow and change as the year progresses. In the meantime, I'm scouring the art blogs for inspiration.

First Grade Self-Portraits

2011-07-24T14:16:00.000+08:00

Remember that time I went to Shanghai for a "business trip?" It was such a refreshing weekend! I came back with lots of ideas for projects (like that awesome batik process) and connections to many other art teachers at international schools.

Another project I incorporated right away was a first grade self-portrait seen at Shanghai American School. We learned the word portrait, then began drawing our face step-by-step together. Oval face, eyes in the middle, L nose, flattened M and U for the mouth, strong necks (no lollipops!), and broad shoulders. Don't forget the eyebrows and ears!

When finished with their pencil drawings, they traced their lines in black marker. Next, we read The Colors of Us and tested Crayola Multicultural Crayons to find matching skin tones. Looking at four self-portraits by Albrecht Durer in The Art Book for Children, we noticed backgrounds as a way to tell more about ourselves. The students added drawings of their toys (real or the ones they want) in the background. Some also added bits of a room and family members. Lastly, they worked on nice coloring for their clothing and background.

Some of the pictures below were taken before students finished coloring their self-portraits. I am so pleased with the results!

All Those Extra Things...

2011-07-10T20:43:00.000+08:00

I once heard a professor speak about an elementary principal that expected her to create a custom personal Christmas card for him. Apparently the previous art teacher did this favor. She put her foot down and said "that is not my job."

But life over here is different. And (don't hate me) I teach 12 art classes a week. One PreK, one K, and two sections each of 1st-5th grade. Each class comes to art for less than an hour. I am also required to study two hours of Chinese each week, and every other year, I teach AP Art History on top of my elementary load. (Can I call it a load? It's more like a small handful of classes...) And I'm working on my masters through Penn State's online program.

This year, being a non-AP year, I had a lot of extra prep time at school. Don't get me wrong---I love evenings without planning---but I needed a few extra tasks to keep me going throughout the day. Chaperoning field trips, assisting with in-class artsy projects, reading to students during their library time, and that whole accreditation process. (I was a focus group leader for our WASC self-study and assisted with the editing process.)

But one of my favorite things is pretending to be a graphic designer. Busting out my old school Adobe CS from 2005, praying that it will still cooperate with Vista, and creating some digital work! It is awesome to see your work in print. Flyers, posters, banners, t-shirts, medals, engraved plaques, a yearbook cover, a ceramic mug, a travel mug---the list goes on! If you haven't heard, it's pretty cheap to produce things in China, so we get a lot of customized things. And my design work, that comes even cheaper!

I've already posted about my "branding" of the elementary drama, but I thought I'd share with you a few more images of my work. It's nothing fancy, but I thoroughly enjoy the design process. I like to be able to assist and I love seeing the finished products. Just this spring, I've designed 4 different t-shirts! So cool to see someone walking around town wearing one of the shirts I designed...

My passion for all things artsy extends to include helping select paint colors (for the school building and coworkers' apartments), then supervising the mixing process or doing color corrections, and other interior design tasks. I've designed drying racks from scratch (aiya! not fun), custom cabinetry for the ceramics studio, and now I'm working on cabinets for our new Early Childhood Center. I've only finished one traditional piece of "art" while in China (a painting), and one while I was in the states last summer, but I am constantly working as an amateur graphic designer, product designer, interior designer and party planner (decorating for formals!). It's not exactly portfolio-worthy, but it's fun and fills a need in our school community. Just another one of the services provided...

Hui Mei Guo

2011-06-07T05:43:00.000+08:00

Today I 回美国 for a three-week whirlwind trip to see a niece, nephew, brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, and the bobblehead bride walk down the aisle. It's been a crazy few weeks since the Gala, wrapping up projects and WRAPPING them (or rolling them) to go home with students. And goodbyes. Lots of goodbyes. Students, teachers, neighbors, friends. Moving on to other schools, other cities, other countries.

Yesterday I bid my classroom adieu for these three weeks. I'm anxious to begin planning for next year, but first need to enjoy this break. So bring on the three-legged, 29+ hour door-to-door journey that will take me across (or above-still don't understand that great circle thing...) the Pacific and bring me back to beautiful country.

(The Chinese name for the states is the adjective for beautiful and the word for country).

Beautiful Batiks

2011-06-02T20:19:00.000+08:00

This is my third year of third grade Wayne Thiebaud-inspired art. I teach the lesson just after the students have covered 3D solids in math class (triangular prism, cylinder, etc.). We learn how to draw 3D solids, then we mix tints and shades to paint our delicious treats. This year, I made a small departure from the standard tempera project. Having just visited Shanghai and seen the toothpaste/aloe vera lotion batik process first-hand, I decided the process would be great for our cakes.

Well, the results are in! I loved the project so much that I chose to display batiks in the gala for almost half of the third graders. (Typically, I try to equally represent every project from the year.)

Here are some of the batiks from the gala...

Bottlecap Mania

2011-06-01T04:42:00.003+08:00

What happens when you take thousands of bottlecaps, some power tools, and add elementary students?

A masterpiece!

Following in the spirit of reusing materials to create art, this collaborative bottlecap mural was unveiled at the Elementary Fine Arts Gala.

I first learned about bottlecap art through a link on Briargrove Elementary's Green Artroom blog to Thomas Elementary and the artwork of Michelle Stitzlein. I bought her book and began a school-wide collection of bottlecaps, with prizes to the homerooms that collected the most caps per student. After the first round of collection, it became clear that certain colors were "more valuable." The second collection included point levels for different colors. Teachers were insanely competitive! In the end, I learned that dark brown bottlecaps just don't exist in China, except on really expensive bottled coffee drinks.

We had a beautiful day for assembling the mural. Our maintenance staff purchased the wood and screws. I primed the wood and sketched on the design, then assigned each elementary classroom a 15-30 minute time slot to come to the mural site.

Three high school students that were not on spring trips were my assistants. Since most of the drills did not have speed settings, we had one "big kid" to each drill, guiding the students as they used the sensitive triggers. Younger students basically held their hands on top of the "big kid's" as they drilled the bottlecaps. Older students worked in partners under their "big kid's" watchful eye. At the end of the day, the "big kids" and some teachers finished the background.

The completed mural will go in our cafeteria. The back wall has white tiles that go three-fifths of the way up, but is plain white wall for the top two-fifths. I designed the bottlecap mural to fit above the tiles. The mural will need to be completed in two or three installments. The first portion is almost complete, with kimbap created by elementary students and a taco created by high school art students. (The theme for the mural is International Foods.)

Even though it wasn't installed on the wall, we still had the kimbap available for viewing at the Elementary Fine Arts Gala. The students were so proud of their work! My students are true city-kids; unlike my childhood, their dad doesn't have a table saw in the basement. For most students, this was their first experience with any sort of tool.

Next year, I'll reassess the bottlecap situation, perhaps organizing another collection drive, and then plan another day filled with students, power tools, and thousands of bottlecaps!

The Mud Pies are Painted!

2011-05-30T21:38:00.000+08:00

The mud pies came out of the kiln just in time for the Elementary Fine Arts Gala. I only displayed the 2nd grade trivets, not the 1st grade texture coasters or the kindergarten necklaces. Unless you count my teacher-sample, coral-red necklace that I wore with my turquoise dress, yellow polka dot sweater, and eggplant purple ruffly shoes. On this one day of the year, I said "bring on the color" and I left all my black and white at home!

In general, I am very pleased with the trivets. The glazes did not run very much, if at all. I only had matte transparent to coat the pieces, though I think I would have preferred glossy. The clear is a little cloudy in some spots.

RE(used) Weavings

2011-05-29T20:35:00.001+08:00

I like weaving. I expose the students to different types of weaving every year except 4th grade. Two years ago, 5th grade made weavings out of watercolor experiments with warm and cool colors. Last year, I opted for a different weaving experience. We made cardboard looms, then wove with plastic bags---a great way to reuse disposable grocery bags! While I have some bags available in common colors (black, white, and red---the color most often used by vegetable vendors), the fun is seeing what students are able to find in their own homes! Baby blue, orange, pink, yellow, green, even metallic silver! Thin plastic works best, though we take whatever we can get. After they've warped their loom with translucent bags, they weave back and forth with strips cut from their colorful collections. Rare colors become extra valuable, with students trading and sharing their treasures. I emphasize a limited color palette (4-5 colors) and suggest patterning, but neither consideration is a requirement.

To finish off the project, students tie two warp strings together, then use extra strips of bags to create fringe.

This year, we had a little extra fun and donned appropriate headgear while weaving.

We're a Colorful Bunch

2011-05-28T21:58:00.006+08:00

Months ago, I stumbled upon this project at Art Lessons for Kids and tucked it away in my brain. With the Elementary Fine Arts Gala approaching, I decided it was time to create this (elementary) school-wide mural of portraits. Since my classes are already color-coded like the rainbow, monochromatic self-portraits were a natural fit.

For PreKindergarten and Kindergarten, this was their first exposure to facial proportions and self-portraits. For the other grades, it was a review of previously taught concepts. I emphasized value as a way to differentiate among one hue, along with layering colors with black, grey, or brown, and using multiple versions of the same color (my colored pencils have a variety of every color except orange). Younger students used marker outlines to help define the faces. Yellow and orange portraits had the addition of cut paper in two values to create more variety. In 5th grade, we tackled the word "monochromatic." Students were able to break the word apart and guess its meaning. They were recently exposed to the prefix mono- in a choir song for the gala (do you think she can tell I'm a monotone?) so it was very exciting to see their brains make connections about the words.

Every student (except one absent kindergartner) is represented on the murals outside the cafeteria. I also roped in some teachers to create their own 16cm x 16cm self-portrait to fill in a few empty spaces on the bulletin boards. It was great that every student at the Gala had TWO of their own pieces on display (a piece I chose and their monochromatic self-portrait).

I love everything about this project and am already brainstorming ways to do something similar for next year's Gala.

Gala, Take Two

2011-05-27T21:46:00.000+08:00

Last year, the music teacher and I paired together to create a night celebrating the arts for our elementary students. This year, we continued the tradition of the Elementary Fine Arts Gala with a gallery in the cafeteria that opened at 6pm, a concert in the auditorium at 7pm, and after-concert refreshments and ice cream in the gallery.

The concert was fabulous, with performances by the Beginning and Advanced Band, 4th Graders on the recorder, Afterschool Chimes Choir, 3rd Grade Choir, and the 4th-5th Grade Choir.

A parent of one third grader directs the band and keeps us sane with her friendly, mothering presence. A cup of tea, someone to chat with, and even purchasing tickets to Korea for me in the fall, Joyce is a great addition to our office. Her training is in music composition, and she custom arranges each song for our students based on their abilities and instruments. This year, she even prepared a "surprise" piece for the elementary music teacher---Here Comes the Bride. The students were so excited to perform this tribute since they will not be able to go to their music teacher's wedding this summer. And the bobblehead image of her head on a wedding dress that appeared on the screen during the song, that was priceless!

After the thank you's were said, we enjoyed our ice cream with the artwork and said good-bye for the night.

Just as magically as it came together, the gallery needed to transform back into a cafeteria for Monday's lunch. My partner-in-crime bobblehead friend came back to school with me on Saturday to take down the show. Peanut and Plain M&M's. We make a great team! I'll miss her next year as she starts the next part of her life around the globe from us.

A Glimpse of the Gala

2011-05-25T06:12:00.000+08:00

The Gala was a great celebration! Artwork, musical selections, two all-elementary art installations, and a lot of ice cream to finish off the night. Stay tuned for pictures of the art, the performances, and the group art projects.

Fine Arts Festival---No Clams Included

2011-05-08T08:27:00.000+08:00

Preparations are well underway for the second annual Elementary Fine Arts Gala. (Not to be confused with gala 蛤蜊, the local clam dish.) Artwork is matted for 1st grade. Invitations are distributed. (Each student gets 3 printed postcards to give to friends and family.) And our hallway is filled with the sounds of the practicing musicians!

It was a great time last year, with performances by 3rd-5th grade and one piece of artwork displayed for every student, PreK-5th grade. The excitement is building among the students, though I did hear that one 5th grade boy is disappointed because he has to come back to school on a Friday for an Arts event on his birthday!

That Mud Stuff?

2011-05-04T21:32:00.002+08:00

Before I moved to China, I was told by the former art teacher that there was a ceramics studio. Then I found out it was more of a space, not so much a functioning studio. And then I found out the kiln had never been fired.

After the previous art teacher left and before I showed up, the kiln had been enclosed by walls. This summer renovation wasn't exactly supervised, and there weren't very detailed plans. Logically, the workers wanted to waste as little classroom space as possible in the mini-kiln room, so they made the walls less than 6 inches away from the kiln. On the kiln itself, the instructions said the kiln needed to be at least 18 inches away from any wall! Oops. Maybe if it was written in Chinese...Also, they failed to remove open cabinets on the walls of the classroom, just cut a hole in the wall to accommodate the shelves. Not exactly sealed off. Free-flowing air was not the point. Why build walls and then leave an opening larger than an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper?

The space was so small, I could barely get in the ~~room~~ closet to get out all the junk that was stored on top of the kiln! Why are we piling random trash on top of the kiln?

Fast forward one year---I gave very detailed plans (literally drawing lines on the floor with our maintenance men) for the new brick wall (the first walls were not exactly flame-resistant) that would be at least 18 inches away and allow for someone to enter the room and load a kiln comfortably. And we took the shelves off the wall, as the first plan had said, so the room could be properly sealed.

Halfway through my second year of teaching, I found a VHS that came with the kiln. (The kiln was purchased about 3 years before I arrived.) I tracked down a VCR, hooked it up to my TV, and marveled at the invention of the DVD. Literally, the lines across the screen were horrible and the table of contents told you what time you needed to fast-forward to if you wanted to rewatch a certain part. Crazy.

Spring 2010, we ran an empty test fire, per the VHS instructions.

This year, the new secondary art teacher has fired the kiln a few times. She had a similar kiln at her old school and was quite familiar with the process. In March, I decided it was time for me to make the jump into ceramics. Ironic how hesitant I was, since taking a high school ceramics class was my first step into a career as an art teacher, but I was very intimidated by being responsible for student projects.

More than a month has passed and the students' pieces have been bisque-fired (my first actual firing!). One second grade class glazed their pieces today. We made trivets (similar to a cloth potholder for hot dishes) that focused on radial balance. I gave the students pre-cut squares with a slight impression of a + and an x. After smoothing the edges, they used various tools to press shapes and textures into their piece. Lastly, I flipped their tile and they scored and slipped four little pre-cut circles onto the corners to create feet.

To glaze the pieces, they were only allowed to choose one color. Glaze or no glaze. Only two options. Positive and negative space. I reminded the students that if they painted one object on the +, they needed to paint the other 3 corresponding pieces.

The kids did a great job. I asked them to coat each spot 3 times, giving them a practice drawing page to work on as they waited for the paint glaze to dry.

I am not sure if they really believe the colors of the glaze will change with the second firing. They noticed that the first firing changed the color of the clay from grey to terracotta, but the glazing process is more dramatic.

I am nervous to see how much the glazes will run. The kids will be sad if their meticulously painted designs become a runny mess. Maybe I need to get underglazes for next year. For now, we used Dark Blue, Purple, and Turquoise, with a coat of clear on top by me. I can't wait for the students reactions when they see their glazed pieces!

First grade and Kindergarten have also completed ceramics projects---a texture tile (coaster) and texture pendant (necklace). Next year, we'll move beyond slabs of texture and start exploring pinch pots and coiling.

Melt In Your Mouth Memories

2011-05-01T19:43:00.001+08:00

My name is long.
And difficult to pronounce.

Just ask any of the telemarketers that called right in the middle of dinner when I was growing up.

I know some other elementary teachers with long names. One such friend could symbolize her syllables with a hand waving "Bye," a cow, and skis. Bykowski. Mel-a-oh blast it! It doesn't work for my syllables.

Another friend's name, Budensiek, rhymes with Hide-n-Seek. (If you know something that rhymes with Melachrinos, let me know.)

So I've settled for Miss M. It's short and sweet.

My first year, in the famous 4th grade figure drawings of your teacher class period, I noticed that a new student labeled her drawing of me as "Miss M&M." Precious! Apparently I'd never properly introduced myself to her.

At the end of that year, an ESL student wrote me a sweet note that said "When I think of you, I think about M&M."

And so, in my second year of teaching, I added a second name sign, this one utilizing brown M&M's for the M's in Miss M.

This year, the M&M insanity began with annotating steps in a process that needed teacher approval with hand-drawn M&M's. I decided it would be much cooler if I made custom magnets to use instead, so I printed off some pictures of circles and the animated characters. Red and Yellow. The house colors of me and my buddy, the elementary music teacher! I labeled one printout and posted it above her desk as some office-lovin'. Another printout was posted in my classroom and always makes the students laugh.

Just this week, I found the image on the right in an old magazine, donated to the art department. I had to tear it out and share! The kids LOVE it and asked if they can enter to win the million dollars. Unfortunately, the magazine is at least 5 years old. I actually have a red teeshirt with an M on it, just like Yellow's Trick-or-Treat outfit! My mom bought it for me. I really wish I had more opportunities to wear it to school.

Continuing the candy-theme, I give a bag of M&M to each student featured in the Student Masterpieces section of our school's online newsletter. I staple a note of congrats and the url for the site on each package.

Then earlier this semester, I was at my whit's end about noise in the hallway. Some classes come so quietly, they can sneak up and surprise me. Others announce their presence long before they reach my door. While I think the teachers and TAs are the biggest factor in this behavior, I wanted to find a way to motivate the students to come quietly (and not disturb other music and art classes in-progress).

I decided to make an M&M chart. Classes could earn up to two M&Ms per class period---one for arriving quietly and one for leaving quietly. When a class reached 10 M&M's, they would get an M&M treat for the class.

As you can see, it has not been completely effective. Just a week after I started the chart, we had a fire in the music storage room which displaced my class for quite a few days. And despite the candy motivation, 5th grade can't seem to come quietly. Kindergarten has recently earned a few more M&M's, but I have given up with PreKindergarten; they are just too young.

Only a few weeks after I started this chart, elementary switched to a (almost) no-candy reward system. The principal gave me permission to follow through with this chart and the promised candy treat, but strongly suggested I find a non-candy alternative. How about M&M stickers, or even better, a stamp! Kids would love an M&M sticker or a stamp on the hand for a job well done.

Lastly, I have decided, until we are no longer in the 21st century,

I will sign and date my elementary art samples as such.

Advertisements as Art

2011-04-22T09:21:00.002+08:00

        To make art.
        To look at art.
        To think about art.
        To speak about art.

During my first methods class, I observed a recent grad teaching at an elementary school in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. Something she said stuck with me. She told me that most adults don't spend their time making art, but they do look, think, and speak. She wanted to teach her students how to interact with art for the rest of their life, and in the manners in which they would interact---looking, thinking, speaking---not just making!

Of course there is a place for making. I spend most of my art classes making. But I've also expanded what we make beyond your traditional fine art.

Design education is a huge topic and I won't begin to scratch the surface, but one way to think about it is making images (2D), objects (3D), places (3D), and experiences (4D). My students are exposed to graphic design (images), product design (objects), and architecture (places).

To begin to understand principles of art in graphic design, 5th graders analyze magazine advertisements. They sketch layouts, identify color palettes, and answer questions about style (text and images) and principles (repetition, emphasis, balance, proportion). Student then use a favorite advertisement as a template for advertising one of our Expected Schoolwide Learning Results (ESLRs).

The students create their advertisements in PowerPoint. We change the slide size and orientation, then use AutoShapes, Clip Art, and Text Boxes to create the ad. I like that the program is quicker to pick up than Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign. The skills they learn will transfer well to other Microsoft programs, which is handy as they enter middle school.

I do not allow the students to get images on the internet for numerous reasons, including the questionable results sprinkled in any Google image search and the quality of most of the images. If they cannot find what they want in clip art, I search for free stock photos and drop them into their folder on the network. I also give them access to the school logo and the newly designed ESLR icon.

This ad is one of my favorites. I love the use of the ESLR icon above the words. Perfect substitute for the heart!

After the images are added, I let the students vary from the original color palette. This girl decided to make her advertisement more interesting by eliminating the all-white background and adding more layers.

We don't exactly have a baseball program at our school, but I like this advertisement about learning good sportsmanship in PE class.

Po, from our production of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, made this advertisement. He gave me a shout-out in his ad! He replaced Benjamin Bratt's name with his own name and "Inspired by a True Story" with "Inspired by Miss M." Unfortunately, I asked all the students to remove their names from the posters, only identifying the posters by our school, and not by the designer.

The Captain (Doc) from Snow White just loved this interactive advertisement. He suggested using the ESLR icon in place of the can of Chef Boyardee, which prompted me to make the icon available to all the students. We carefully crafted a phrase that would work on his advertisement both when folded and unfolded. I love the final result!

School Supply Drawings

2011-04-17T20:43:00.001+08:00

Drawing from direct observation is one of my Visual Arts Standards and Benchmarks and a passion of mine. My second graders draw the hallway (a project I did in high school), my third graders draw bicycles (another project I did in high school), my fourth graders draw their classmates (also a project I did in high school), and my fifth graders draw their hands (yet another project I did in high school).

I do not think they are too young for such academic, classic drawing tasks. They are so successful! Of course, we do other projects that engage their kid culture in the arts, but I love teaching students how to see and how to reproduce what they see on paper.

When I saw these observational drawings on the Briargrove Elementary Art Page, I knew I had to tackle such a project with my second grade students.

I loved the drawing challenges:

        draw at least one object larger than life
        draw at least one object cropped (going off the edge of the page)
        draw at least one object repeated (from observation again)

I didn't have shells, fake flowers, or an abundance of potted plants. Instead, I found our everyday materials: paintbrushes, paint bottles, scissors, compasses, pencil sharpeners, glue bottles, etc. (Not surprisingly, I also had to draw school supplies from direct observation in high school.) While there is a benefit to drawing organic items (no intimidating straight lines and more forgiveness in mistakes, especially when drawing directly in permanent marker), my students rose to the challenge.

We learned that to observe means to LOOK! They needed to be constantly looking at the object they were drawing.

To add interest, they used crayons to draw textures, patterns, and solid colors in the objects with one color family (warm, cool, or neutral). Using a different color family, they added textures and patterns to the background. Finally, they used watercolors to paint the areas that were not covered by crayon. The results are fabulous!

Batiks of Baked Goodies

2011-04-16T20:51:00.003+08:00

Last month, I had the privilege of spending five days in Shanghai for a "business trip." The first two days were spent at an ACAMIS (Association of Chinese and Mongolian International Schools) meeting, followed by a day of break (including a trip to IKEA), then two days observing art teachers at other international schools.

Monday was spent at Shanghai American School, Puxi Campus. The school is significantly older and larger than ours, with an elementary school that has two art teachers and an art TA. I first connected with one of their art teachers through her blog, Art is Messy. Her Malaysian Batik project impressed me two years ago. Last month, I was able to see another batik project, Peace Banners, installed in the entryway of the elementary building, and talk about the process in person.

A curious process, the batik uses a resist made of equal parts aloe vera lotion and toothpaste. I mixed the concoction in an empty paint bottle, then filled small glue bottles.

Third grade is using this process to complete their cake paintings. In the past, we have created tempera paintings based on Wayne Thiebaud's work, emphasizing drawing 3D solids (cylinder, triangular prism, etc.) and mixing colors (tints and shades).

This year, the students are creating batiks. After practicing in their sketchbooks, students drew their design on a large piece of matboard (40cm square with a 5cm margin). Pencil drawings were traced in permanent marker to be visible through the thin cotton muslin. I taped the fabric to the back of the matboard. Once the students' glue lines dry, they will be using tempera paint to fill in the sections. The final projects are soaked briefly in water, then rinsed under a faucet. The pressure of the water from the faucet is enough to remove the resist, exposing the unstained white fabric.

This week, I've been testing the process, working a few steps ahead of the students. I am so excited about the results! The 4th and 5th graders are as well, and begging to let them do a batik project. For now, I'm enjoying the sweet candy/toothpaste smell filling my classroom from the resist and trying to decide how we will display the final projects. Perhaps we'll have them made into pillows for the library!

in memory

2011-04-11T20:08:00.000+08:00

I want to be eloquent. I want to be poetic. I want to be deep and spiritual and moving. But I don't know how to do it. I can't move on in this blog, go on to the "new normal," post about ceramics projects and observational drawings and crazy batiks until I've acknowledged what I never imagined.

So I sit and cry and just let you know that my student died. A quiet but oh so funny 5th grade boy. He was the son of a high school teacher, the younger brother of a middle school student, the older brother of an elementary student, the son of the PTO president, the classmate of the 5th graders, and the student of the elementary teachers. My student, for three years.

Before moving to China, I attended a two-week training with him, his family, and other new staff members. Three weeks later, on July 25, 2008, we met up in San Francisco and boarded the plane for our journey together to living abroad.

On Friday, March 25, during Parent/Teacher conferences, he was playing near his house and had a tragic accident. The injuries from his fall were unsurvivable. He was taken to the local hospital, then medi-evaced to Hong Kong, but the doctors in Hong Kong pronounced him dead on Tuesday, March 29.

This musically-talented, baseball-loving, quiet comedian will forever be part of my story of teaching ARTabroad.

In lieu of flowers, the family has established a fund to honor his memory and his love for music and the arts. The money will be used to purchase things that touched his life and that he loved, such as major instruments for the band program, special afterschool programs in music and the arts, etc.

art.abroad

2011-03-19T11:26:00.002+08:00

I don't read the news. I don't get newspapers. I don't access news websites. Apart from the brief period of time I was trying to watch the Colbert Report online daily, I get most of my news from Facebook (results on the Bachelor or American Idol, Philadelphia sports news, and the death of celebrities---all the things my generation finds important). But with recent changes in my ability to access my News Feed, I was off-line for almost a week. The same week that I traveled to Shanghai for an ACAMIS meeting and some observation and collaboration with elementary art teachers at local international school, and was thus cut off from the morning bus discussions--another news venue in my life.

A week later, I don't understand the magnitude of the natural disaster in Japan. Like an ostrich, I've buried my head in the sand, refusing to seek out information. I am not sure I want to understand the weight of the event.

Katsushika Hokusai's The Great Wave at Kanagawa, ca. 1830-32

Because of my traveling, I spent the first school day after the disaster at Shanghai American School, Puxi campus. The student body was more diverse than my school, especially among Westerners. Not knowing the kids' backgrounds, I couldn't identify the passport country of the Asian students. Until they opened their mouth. A few sweet kids, while working away on their art projects, would just start talking to me...

          "Did you know about the tsunami in Japan?"

          "My whole country is destroyed by tsunami."

          "Did you know about the earthquake in Japan? I'm from Japan. My uncle, aunt, and grandparents are there,
          but they're safe. There's no tsunami coming for now."

My heart broke, hearing their little voices. The fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty. Everyone in the school was affected, regardless of passport country. Many had been to Japan, all knew someone from Japan, and a few had loved ones currently living in Japan.

Yet I couldn't help but wonder if students in my home country even knew about the event. Did it affect school? Did it impact their childhood? Did they have any understanding of what was happening on the other side of the world?

I don't remember any global concerns from my childhood. I have some memories of US news: the Unibomber, Oklahoma City bombing, OJ's white SUV and trial, and September 11th in 10th grade. Perhaps some awareness of hurricanes in the states. Even living through an earthquake in San Francisco.

In college, there was the tsunami off the coasts of Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka.
          My first memory of a tragic event outside of my passport country.

Did nothing happen before that?

Certainly the world has become smaller, as information travels around the world in seconds. Tweets, pictures, and streaming video. I just finished reading Little Women and marveled at the letter writing from Europe to North America. The cost of travel, the sacrifice of relationships, the limited information. This week, a coworker from my school who lives one apartment building away here in China is in Ethiopia with his wife, picking up their son. Many miles away, they sat in the lobby, chatting with a family from my parents' church who are also adopting from Ethiopia, through the same organization, and ended up in country at the exact same time.

My circles are so small, and intersect over and over again.

          My brother's first friend from Pennsylvania currently teaches in Japan.
          I have four students from Japan.
          And did I mention yet that in Shanghai, I was staying with my friend from first grade?
               She is in her first year teaching internationally, and ironically teaching first grade.

In first grade, did I know Japan existed? I certainly had no connection to the country or its people.

My first grade students live a very different life. A few weeks ago, one American boy was walking with his dad past a mural in the secondary building. The mural has been there as long as I've been at the school, and he has probably walked past it hundreds of time. But it struck him in that instant---he was looking at famous landmarks from around the world. And he knew them, by name. I don't know all the names of the places, but at seven years old, he told them to his father.

At the end of the day on Monday, the school I was visiting in Shanghai observed a moment of silence for Japan. I sat there and prayed for the country, for the people, for the ones I know. The little children, grieving for their country.

And that is what it means to teach art.abroad

(masterpieces) Ugly Doll

2011-03-06T20:53:00.001+08:00

Do you remember these guys from my first year teaching? This masterpiece comes from the same lesson.

(teacher's note) First grade learned about Uglydolls, a brand of toys created by David Horvath and Sun-Min Kim. Before they got married, David drew a silly creature on the bottom of a letter to Sun-Min. Sun-Min sewed a stuffed animal of the guy, named Wage, and sent it back to David. Ten years later, they have created many different “ugly” but lovable stuffed animals. Tom named his ugly doll “Crazy Horse Ugly Doll.” He wrote that he loves his ugly doll because “I mad(e) this Ugly Doll.” After the projects were finished, first grade read You are Special by Max Lucado. Punchinello, the main character, learns that he is special because Eli, the woodcarver, made him, and Eli doesn’t make mistakes. Like Tom’s ugly doll and Punchinello, the first graders acknowledged themselves and others as individuals created with intrinsic value (one of the Emotional ESLRs).

Whistle While You Work!

2011-03-05T21:29:00.002+08:00

When I was in 5th grade, all four 5th grade classes at my elementary school put on an operetta together--How the West Was Won. I had some speaking lines as a narrator and a solo in the final song. I was also in the square dancing scene, dancing with my neighbor Al.

Things have come full circle, and I am directing elementary dramas.

Co-directing, that is, as a part of Melmansiek Productions (the "Mel" part).

Truly, this was one of the most fun and rewarding experiences of my life. From reading the initial script to last night's performance, it has been a great ride. Planning meetings at Starbucks, branding the show, building excitement before auditions, casting, afterschool rehearsals, Saturday rehearsals, posters, banners, Thursday's matinee, and Friday's show. Phew! It's been a lot of work but filled with laughter and smiles. The 28 kids in the show were a blast and it was terrific to work with all the adult help, especially my partners in crime.

I initially created the silhouettes with the possibility of colorizing them with bright colors and bold patterns. Before we reached that stage, we decided to place Snow White within a China context. What was a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom-inspired cutting style (and possible color palette) morphed into the childlike red Chinese papercuts.

I was incredibly grateful to find the font Paper Cutout by Kimmy Kirkwood on dafont.com.
The letters were perfect for our aesthetic.

I've translated the logo for many uses. This long format was the header for all letters to parents.

We sell tickets with options for transportation since campus is outside of town and most people don't have cars.

The cast shirts were red with the logo in black on the front and "Cast" on the back, along with the names of the students. The adult shirts were black with red ink and said "Crew" on the back.

Check out some group shots below. Be sure to notice the elements of the "papercut" set in the background. It was fun to think through how our papercut silhouettes would translate into the set.

The dwarfs' house is inspired by Kailan's grandpa's house and the palace is inspired by Forbidden City.

(masterpieces) Mixing Colors

2011-02-23T05:55:00.000+08:00

(teacher's note) The Prekindergarten class is learning to mix colors. During the first week, students painted with red, yellow, and blue to fill in the shapes created by pre-painted black lines. For the second week, they mixed those primary colors, two at a time, to create a new color: orange, green, or purple. Natalie did an excellent job mixing colors and painting her shapes.

(un)Natural Disasters

2011-02-21T20:23:00.000+08:00

Last week started out with a day dedicated to hearts, but rapidly took a turn in a different direction.

I wrote the following entry last Wednesday to correspond with a Valentine's Day-inspired digital postcard created for my masters class.

If I were sitting down to make a postcard now, I would create a piece about the elements, not of art, but the ones more familiar to me as the kids from Captain Planet. Earth. Fire. Wind. Water. Heart.

Our arts building experiences these in unique ways.
     A flood in my classroom (water).
     A cloud formation* in the ceramics room (wind).
          and today
     A fire in the music storage room (fire).

Yes, the music teacher and I walked into our building today to find that the heater in the storage room had an explosion/electrical fire overnight. The guards found it this morning and had already called the operations department, but the building was filled with smoke and a layer of soot covered my classroom.

What a day it was! But since I'd almost finished my postcard yesterday, I decided to work it to completion today rather than explore the Planeteers that plague our building. You're stuck with a postcard about the fifth power in the cartoon of my childhood---heart.

And here's to hoping earth doesn't make an appearance next year...

*How to explain the freak weather phenomena that occurred in the ceramics room...
Essentially, it was my fault (unlike the flood or the fire). I left the air conditioner running in the classroom. Not central air and not a window air conditioner, this stand up machine functions as both cooling device, dehumidifier, and heater. Unbeknownst to me, it was on the dehumidify setting. And also unbeknownst to me, that has no temperature limit. So the machine kept working all weekend, cooling that room down to some unreasonable temperature. And the rest of the building was warm and humid. Cold dry sealed classroom. Warm humid hallway. Meet in the small space for air to pass through around the door. Condensation craziness! I created a cloud. Inside. And like all clouds, it had to rain eventually. And soak the classroom, grow mold in the ceiling tiles, and create a stream in the hallway. A rather large object lesson in the water cycle, all in one weekend...

And so now, almost a week later, the clean-up continues. I am a refugee, displaced from my classroom and teaching in a spare room in the elementary building. Boy, do I miss my sinks! But the major work in the hallway is done now and the music department is finished using my classroom as temporary storage. I have the afternoon free tomorrow and hope to spend it getting my room usable for Wednesday's classes. I might look like a chimney sweep by the end of the day, but the layer of soot that currently covers every shelf will be gone!

(masterpieces) Eric Carle Collage

2011-02-20T10:40:00.001+08:00

(teacher's note) 1st grade learned about texture: soft, fuzzy, bumpy, slippery, rough, and more. Artists can draw and paint texture! Eric Carle creates his own texture paper to use for his storybook collage illustrations. 1st graders used a monoprinting process to create texture papers, scratching and brushing textures into their paint and then printing it onto papers. The beautiful papers were then used to create a collage! Jason made a great little house. Check out the texture on the roof and the doorknob.

(masterpieces) Figure Drawing

2011-02-18T05:03:00.001+08:00

It might be my favorite lesson of the entire year. After three weeks of figure drawing, the students get a new (and significantly older/taller) model. Of course, I model on the 4th week because they are so much better at drawing now! But the results are still amusing, particularly the ones who struggle.

I think through my outfit carefully. For the other models (their classmates, chosen by drawing names out of a hat), I have them wear a costume. For myself, I pick an outfit with good details---seams, pleats, folds, etc. I added an umbrella this time since my sweater was somewhat boring.

I ask the students not to draw faces or hands. This is not about portraits, but about the entire figure. In general, the focus is on lines, but some students begin to explore value as a way to communicate.

(teacher's note) 4th grade has been refining their drawing skills by drawing their classmates, dressed in funny costumes! Students are practicing drawing what they actually see: all the wrinkles and folds in the fabric, the details of the clothes, and the position of the body. For the last class, students had the opportunity to draw Miss Melachrinos. Kevin did an excellent job showing the pleats in her skirt, the details on her shoes, and even the umbrella she was holding!

(masterpieces) Sky

2011-02-15T06:00:00.002+08:00

(teacher's note) Kindergarten loves to paint! They are practicing holding their brush properly while they paint nice strokes. Salem painted a fun picture of the sky, covering every part of the page!

(masterpieces) Paul Modigliani

2011-02-13T07:26:00.003+08:00

I pull ideas for lessons from all aspects of my life. I draw on experiences growing up, books I've read, teachers I've observed, courses at university, and other art teachers with whom I interact (friends, coworkers, blogs, etc.). Often another person's project is just an inspiration point that jumps me to a completely different idea for a lesson. Other times, I adapt the lesson to fit into my scope and sequence and work for my international crowd. This lesson is one of the few I've done with very little tweaking. The weeks prior are spent studying proportions in the human figure and creating wire sculptures. To transition into this project, we observe accurate facial proportions on photos of various people.

          Where are the eyes?
          How long is the nose?
          Where are the ears?

Switching to the work of Amedeo Modigliani, I tell a brief background of his life. Having just studied proportions, they quickly point out the differences (placement of eyes, length of nose, length of neck, rounded shoulders, etc.). So was he a bad artist or did people look like that 100 years ago? We eventually decide that distortion (like we observed when our wire sculpture's arms got too long or head got too fat) can be intentional, not just a mistake. Following in Modigliani's steps, we create distorted self-portraits in oil pastels on black paper.

As a final exploration of distortion, we visit the Mac lab to play with preset distortions in Photobooth and use iWarp in Gimp to distort self-portrait photos (taken with the Mac's built-in camera).

(teacher's note) 5th grade spent the last few weeks working on proportions—creating sculptures and drawings with realistic sizes! After studying the correct facial proportions, they looked at the portraits of Amedeo Modigliani, an Italian artist. 5th grade used the same style to create their own Modigliani self-portraits. Be sure to notice the long necks, round shoulders, long noses, and eyes that are too high on the face! Paul entitled his project Paul Modigliani.

(masterpieces) The Outer Space Construction Place 2010

2011-02-11T11:48:00.001+08:00

(teacher's note) This masterpiece was a group effort by Mr. Hedrick’s 1st grade class! Over two weeks, they learned the steps to making a great piece of art: sketch, create, adjust, display. After generating ideas together and sketching, they settled on an outer space theme for their mural. The students had so many ideas about real and imaginary things in outer space. Can you find all the planets? Some other items include the asteroid belt, meteors, space ships, aliens, dwarf planets, and stars! At the beginning of the second week, they decided what they needed to adjust, or change, to make their mural even better. Lastly, it’s time to display their work. See if you can find the mural, The Outer Space Construction Place 2010, on display as you walk around campus. It is quite large—90cm by 245cm. Great job students!

With Art

2010-11-04T20:33:00.016+08:00

Stumbled across this picture today.

It's almost two years old. I found this sign while wandering with some friends in a public park with lots of art (Sculpture Garden) along the sea. I thought I might post it with a few others.

Here are four of my students with the sign. We went down to the beach with my afterschool outdoor drawing class during spring of my first year. Looking at the picture tonight makes me sad; only the girl on the left is still at my school. The other three have moved on to other schools in other countries.

The realities of life in the expat community.

And then there is this picture from last summer. What happened to our better life and city? If only I could read the characters...I know the first two...the name of a nearby mountain.

I should go back to the park one of these days. It looks like they are almost finished constructing a crazy building at the one end of the park. I hear it's going to be an art space, but I've been hearing that for two years now...

(masterpieces) Weaving

2010-11-01T20:40:00.005+08:00

I don't have any formal training in weaving. Many of my friends do. I've spent a few hours in the weaving studio, lived with a few people who own looms, own hand-woven items, but I've never taken a weaving/fibers class. Still, I decided fibers is one of the media I will cover yearly in my art curriculum. It is a great medium for patterning, developing fine motor skills, applying math concepts, and much more. With my early elementary focus on choice-based art education, I give many opportunities for weaving. This year, the 2nd graders could choose to explore different weaving patterns. Here is one such masterpiece...

(teacher's note) 2nd grade reviewed basic weaving skills before beginning this project. Rather than complete a basic checkerboard weave, most students chose to follow a more complicated stitching pattern. William did a great job with his herringbone pattern. Keep up the good work, 2nd grade!

(masterpieces) Self-Portrait

2010-11-01T20:18:00.002+08:00

(teacher's note) 3rd grade reviewed facial proportions as they used a mirror to draw self-portraits---pictures of themselves! After reading a book about the different colors of everyone’s skin, they helped friends choose the best colors for their skin and hair. Using their drawing as a template, they cut and glued each piece of their self-portrait. Cindy did a great job with her facial proportions! Check out the hallway on the second floor of the Fine Arts building for more 3rd grade self-portraits. See if you can identify the artists!

Who Am I? Third Grade Self-Portraits

2010-10-25T21:15:00.002+08:00

I still remember the day, my first year in China, when third graders used the orange and brown crayons to color the skin of their classmates. True, it was only two years ago, but I was thoroughly embarrassed to see my students coloring each other with rainbow hues. Most of the students shared four broken pieces of "apricot," creating a class full of stereotypical peach people. One student even used a black crayon to color the skin of his Asian classmate. Before Christmas rolled around, I had ordered a few boxes of Crayola multicultural crayons.

Later that year, the same class did cut paper self-portraits. I looked at my abundant supply of construction paper, and to my dismay, realized naturalistic colors just would not do. For two years now, I have taught third graders about Fauvism mainly because I do not have appropriate paper for skin tones. Correction, did not have appropriate paper.

I ordered many shades of brown construction paper at the end of my first year, but our shipment from the states did not arrive until late fall, after third grade finished the project with Fauvist hues. This year, I almost considered keeping the Fauvism aspect; the kids love the results and it is a good experience to liberate color from the natural world. But I just had to try natural colors, at least once.

As we were working on facial proportions, I stumbled upon the book The Colors of Us in the kindergarten classroom. The young artist describes all the people in her neighborhood in food words: cinnamon, honey, peanut butter, etc.. I read the book to the third graders, then gave them swatches of the colored paper. They helped their classmates identify appropriate colors for their skin and hair.

I love the results! For many of the students, it was a review of drawing portraits, as they drew portraits of teachers at the end of last year. This time, a mirror replaced a small printout of yearbook photos. Another change was switching the media from tempera paint to cut paper. I loosely base my procedure off of these step-by-step instructions for cut paper portraits (though I make the paper 9 in x 12 in, add more emphasis to the drawing details, such as shapes of the jaw-line, eyes, facial proportions, etc., draw the nose differently, and don't use any sequins or other paper---only construction paper).

To display the work, I hung every self-portrait in the hallway with a sign "Who Am I?" Under each work, I stapled a folded piece of paper. Viewers can guess, then lift the flap to reveal the identify.

It's created quite a splash at school!

(masterpieces) Autumn Tree

2010-10-19T19:03:00.004+08:00

Here in my part of China, some of us ache for the vibrant leaves of a North-American autumn. Pennsylvania, where I grew up, might not be as nice as New England, but the leaves are still incredible. While I try to enjoy every yellow leaf of the ginkgo trees, it's hard to come by deep oranges or vibrant reds. I have a friend in the city who is hunting for a red October, primarily through her photography of beauty in our autumn and documented on her blog. Maybe this sweet painting by an even sweeter girl in 2nd grade can be a little source of red for her!

(teacher’s note) Recently, 2nd grade began painting with the three primary colors: red, yellow, and blue. Despite the color limitation, the students are able to mix almost any color by combining red, yellow, and blue in various amounts! Lucy mixed greens and browns for her fall tree. Great job Lucy!

(masterpieces) Cardboard Sculpture

2010-10-17T13:56:00.004+08:00

(teacher’s note) 3rd grade explored artwork in three dimensions! After looking at sculptures by Alexander Calder, 3rd graders cut and notched pieces of cardboard into 3D art. They finished their sculptures with a coat of paint. Sarah made a great little cat!

The Peaceable Classroom

2010-10-14T21:00:00.009+08:00

The masterpiece featured in yesterday's post, A Peaceful Family by Julia, is unique in the history of this project. Though it is my third year doing this project, inspired by a project found online while researching Edward Hicks, never once have I had a student paint an interior scene. Julia is not your average student, though. She is very patient and has proven herself to be an excellent painter. When she asked if she could do a cat and a mouse in a living room, I got out my school laptop and found her some pictures of those ordinary household creatures. (My large supply of pages from two Planet Earth coloring books and 10 library books feature more "wild" creatures, not the domesticated variety.)

Then came the dilemma of how to show interior space. While I had taught them some basic techniques to create perspective in their work, it was entirely based on an outdoor landscape. Julia attempted to show a room with a doorway and a line of sight into the next room, but I thought she could take it further. Bringing back the laptop, I googled some images of interiors. We looked at the orthogonals in rooms drawn or photographed in one-point perspective. Without getting technical on her, we talked about why the lines go in towards the center (things that are further away look smaller, and even though we know the wall is always the same height, the part that touches the back wall looks as if it is shorter). Julia then worked independently to sketch her scene.

But despite her success, I don't feel like it is an accurate representation of the project. And since I've never blogged about this project, I figured now is the time. To to show you a broader view of the project, here are all 23 paintings from this year!

Apart from showing depth (using any of the following methods: decreasing size, overlapping shapes, place objects higher up on the picture plane, using less detail or lighter colors in the distance, etc.), student worked on

     drawing animals realistically from a source,
     drawing a story about people from their imagination,
     and mixing paint colors, particularly to create more natural colors.

As with all projects, the levels of success in the paintings are almost as diverse as the students. Some students are great draftsman but have very little control with a brush; other students struggle equally with pencil and brush. Some students insist on a cartoon-like style to their drawings; other students continually impress me with their imaginative ideas and inspiring outcomes.

The students also titled their work as part of their art log. Appropriately, peace appears frequently in the titles. A curious case is A. R.. The artist has a natural gift for drawing, whether from life, sources, or his imagination. His first few marks of the bird had me quite concerned, but he managed to pull off a convincing aerial view from inside the tree branches. I only wish he had more control with a paintbrush. He is often in his own art-filled world and doesn't apply my tips for how to paint more successfully (for example, waiting until the paint is dry before painting on top of a shape). But maybe he'll surprise the world with his talent and non-traditional methods...

(masterpieces) Peaceful Painting

2010-10-13T19:33:00.006+08:00

For quite some time now, I've been thinking about displaying student work online. Sure, I (occasionally) blog about projects, but what about a site for the kids and parents?

I talked with our admissions and marketing guy two years ago. He runs the school website. While we could have added a gallery of artwork, I wasn't thrilled with the formatting of the already-existing albums on the website. It got put on the back-burner.

This past spring, our school's weekly newsletter went digital. With the new WordPress powered site, a gallery of student work seemed more attainable.

Before I could initiate anything, a third grade teacher submitted a student's poem, and thus, the birth of the Student Masterpieces tab.

Every week since then, I have submitted a digital photo of a recent piece of student art, along with a description of the project. It's been four weeks now, but only this week did I realize I should also post the masterpieces here! As a special treat, here's an advanced screening of this week's Student Masterpiece---the 5th piece of elementary art featured on our school's online newsletter for parents and staff. Stay tuned for more weekly masterpieces, as well as posts showing previously-featured masterpieces...

(teacher's note) After studying The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks, fourth graders painted their own stories of peace. Like Hicks, their foreground contained peaceful animals, despite the predator/prey relationship. In the background, they added their own story of people choosing peace. Julia decided to use an interior space as the setting for her peaceful situations. Behind the cat and mouse, you can see a brother and sister playing together nicely instead of fighting. Julia did a great job showing depth in her painting! She also mixed interesting colors and painted very carefully.

Another Summer Break

2010-07-24T09:22:00.010+08:00

Two years down! I can't believe it.

As I write to you now, I’m in the United States! I finished my first two-year contract at my school and am enjoying spending eight weeks with friends and family on the west side of the Pacific Ocean. Only eight weeks, you see, because I’ve signed another two year contract. I head back in just a few days to continue the journey of teaching art abroad.

I can’t imagine searching for a new job now. Two years was just a start---there are so many things I still want to do, explore, improve---I am NOT ready to start from scratch at a new school!

I always thought the art teacher was a constant in elementary school life. Your classroom teacher changes every year, but those specials teachers remain the same. I had the same art teacher from kindergarten through 5th grade. Apart from a maternity leave, I also had the same music teacher. And the librarian, she was the same all six years. I loved library in elementary school. I used to go in during my recess in 4th and 5th grade just to read to the lower elementary classes. I still love reading children’s books out loud, holding the book in that special way to the side so the kids can see the pictures but you can see the words.

But back to the art room. In an international school, nothing is very permanent. All of our lives are very transient. For the few elementary students that have been in our school for more than four years, this past year was the first year they had the same art teacher two years in a row! (Previous art teachers split the K-12 load by each grade level individually, not by division---elementary/secondary.)

Part of the doing, exploring, and improving of the 2009-2010 involved the display of artwork. While I continued to update my two bulletin boards in the hallway outside my classroom, I did not have the time to create extra displays in the elementary building. Teaching AP Art History to 11th and 12th graders might have had something to do with that…

But the successful part of the displaying, let’s talk about that!

Many schools have a yearly art show. My school asked me to do nothing of that sort. I thought about it last year, but I couldn’t conceive a system of displaying the work. Growing up, my elementary school had a very wide and very long lobby. The elementary art teacher would cover the bulletin board walls with work AND hang roll paper from the ceiling, perpendicular to the side walls, to create little partitions of hanging artwork. She would then display work on either side of the paper wall. This was an annual occurrence for the month of March, Youth Art Month. Every elementary student would have one work mounted on construction paper and hung in the lobby for the show.

I liked the basic premise of the show, but would it be feasible with my circumstances?

First of all, roll paper is imported, i.e. expensive. Plus, with all the green-initiatives around the world, it seemed like quite the carbon footprint to cut down trees, process them, ship them from the US to China, use meters and meters as fake walls, then throw it away after the show.

I was explaining this predicament to a parent of two secondary students and she had a truly genius idea.

Our school is forever printing cheap plastic banners, be it for a sporting event, concert, drama, or semi-formal. It only costs us a few dollars per square meter! What if we ordered plain white banners, with no printing, and used those instead of the roll paper? The plastic banner could be cut to any dimension, hung vertically, rolled back up after the show, and stored until the next art show! Seemed like a plan to me!

Now where to hang them?

The music teacher had already approached me about hanging artwork during the elementary concert in May. It’s great to tag-team events at my school as the campus is not in the middle of town and it can be taxing on families to come out to campus every weekend for events. The concert would be in the auditorium, but with the high pitched roof above, it didn’t seem like the best place to suspend partitions.

My dream spot---the cafeteria one floor below.

It’s a large space that is often used for refreshments after a concert. I brainstormed with the facilities manager about the idea. Could the ceiling tile grid support the banners of art? What would be the best dimensions for the banners? And most importantly---what would we do with ALL THE TABLES?

See, our tables are not your typical “fold up for easy storage” American tables. They don’t fold, at all. And the seats are attached. And there’s very limited storage space nearby. But with the entire space filled with tables, there would be no areas to hang partitions!

I initially talked about moving out 1/3 of the tables. It turned out to be more like 2/3. I drew up a floor plan (conveniently gridded by the ceiling tiles) and marked off where to hang the partitions. It was a little more complicated than you would think, trying to create a flow to the room, adequate space to observe artwork, and considering light sources. The long sides of the room are covered with windows which allows for abundant natural light, but with an evening concert and a post-concert reception in the cafeteria, it was very important that I was aware of the windows and fluorescent lights.

With only 150 students, I decided to hand select artwork for each student, trying to pick one of their very best pieces but also having a sampling of different projects for each grade level. I mounted all the work but had the art department teaching assistant create all the labels---I just love her handwriting!

We advertised the event with custom invitations to the Elementary Fine Arts Gala: Art Gallery opens at 6pm in the cafeteria, concert at 7pm in the auditorium. The refreshments would follow the concert in the cafeteria. Each student received 3-4 glossy color postcards, one side printed in English and the other side printed in Korean (approximately 70% of my students are Korean).

A few days before the event, I started getting anxious about all the work to do. Only so much could be prepped before Friday! After the morning art class on Friday, I could rearrange my room and turn it into an art-hanging factory, laying the banners out on my tables and taping the mounted pieces to each side. We had to wait until after lunches, around 1:15, to start moving cafeteria tables. Could we get all the work done before 5:30?

The elementary principal really saved me, and the backs of our staff, by hiring a team of six movers to do that manual labor. Since they only speak Chinese, I asked one of our Chinese staff to be my project manager. She was able to be assertive and get all the tables stored away in the kitchen and elementary music classroom with no damage to the tables, cafeteria, kitchen, or the elementary classroom! Plus, she had the movers rearrange the remaining tables, according to my floor plan, to create a better atmosphere for the refreshments section of the gallery.

Other staff members came by to pitch in throughout the day on Friday. All my anxiety, all my stress, all the built-up tension, was carried by members of our team, from teaching assistants and office staff with a few minutes to spare all the way up to the head principal who, with the second grade teacher, sat chatting and making tape donuts for me as I arranged all the artwork on the banners. It was quite the team effort! Everyone was so supportive and excited by the results…and we finished before 4:30!

The space was truly transformed! It was a magical evening as the students arrived back on campus with their parents, searched the gallery for their piece, then lit up with a smile from ear to ear and ran around, showing their work to their friends and family! Students were just as proud of the artwork of their friends. It was a surprise to wander the maze of the partitions, rambling about and discovering the talent of their big brothers, little sisters, classmates, bus buddies, and new friends.

The event was a huge success, even the tear-down the next day. Yes, it was just for one evening. The space needed to be a cafeteria again on Monday morning. The movers returned on Saturday afternoon. Another teacher and I took down all the banners, then the movers brought back all the tables.

The Elementary Fine Arts Gala was a great end-of-the-year event for the school and a fun way to finish my first contract. The banners are now rolled up in the office, waiting to be used again in May 2011!

The Way Things Work

2010-04-20T21:16:00.007+08:00

Some things are just a little different on this side of the world.

Understatement.

Many things are very different on this side of the world. One of the most interesting adjustments is the lack of standards. I'm not talking about standards of quality here, though that is another discussion. I'm talking about the assembly line and interchangeable parts and all those other 2nd Industrial Revolution developments of 100+ years ago.

Everything is done custom. Sounds expensive, huh? In fact, it's quite cheap here. Underpaid laborers are much cheaper than automating factories with machines. Again, another story.

We've been looking to purchase a new drying rack. What was wrong with the old drying rack? Almost nothing. It worked just fine. It was a little small. Though it could hold 150 papers or something, it was best with A4 paper or a little larger (perhaps 12x16). My 38cm x 52cm paper hung over the sides by about 15cm. In the picture, most of the papers are half-size. Half-size (26cm x 38cm fits quite nicely).

Still, the main problem was one drying rack---two art classes. Separated by a flight of stairs. Really, it was my drying rack. The secondary students and teacher never used it.

So we budgeted to buy another drying rack. From the states.

Seems silly for a wire rack that ships partially or fully ASSEMBLED. At $150-$300 per rack, plus shipping across the Pacific Ocean...yeah, that's a beast.

Enter Shine Hou. She makes our school run. As "Assistant to the Facilities Manager," I firmly believe she is the reason our buildings don't fall down and our electricity works each day! Today was her last day before her maternity leave. I will miss her dearly.

Shine decided such a simple metal structure should be easy to get welded in China. Shine did her undergraduate studies in Industrial Design, and has great English! She put her workers on the task and next thing I knew, the maintenance men were asking for drawings of the structure.

At this point in time, my colleague decided she would just as well take my drying rack and let me custom design what I wanted for the classroom. What a joy!

I looked at a number of designs online. I decided I needed it to function in two main ways---to hold paper that is approximately A4 or slightly larger and to hold my 38cm x 52cm paper (a staple in my room for painting projects). While the rolling paper rack certainly has its advantages, and I'd just trained all the students this year to carefully put their own paintings on the rack, I decided to make use of my countertop space.

It seems like countertop space should be sacred. It is certainly a finite resource. Yet one of my biggest skills is the ability to collect clutter on any flat surface. Just check my office desk, my bedroom floor, or my classroom countertops for proof. If I committed countertop space to the drying racks, it would at least be organized! Bingo. That's my theme for the year.

So I set down to design the perfect drying racks. The drying racks would have an identical footprint, 40cm x 60cm, and be 50-some cm tall. One drying rack would be single sided and open to the front, to hold the infamous 38cm x 52cm paper. The other drying rack would be double sided, like the rolling version, to hold twice as many small pieces.

The price was set at RMB 2400. About $350. It was higher than I anticipated, higher than I wanted, but it was two racks, and no shipping cost. Plus it was less than we budgeted for buying and shipping one from the states. And it would fit my paper and my countertop perfectly.

Almost.

If only the welder had used the correct dimensions.

After three or more weeks of waiting, a fabulous 40cm x 40 cm x 50-something cm drying rack arrived in my classroom. In Shine's wisdom, she had suggested we only agree to one rack and check the quality. The construction was fine, the paint job was fine (a key issue since we don't want the metal to rust), but the dimensions were not fine.

My paper didn't fit.

I don't know how the welder got confused. The Chinese read 0123456789. And the diagram was clearly not a square design.

Despite the awkward, almost unusable size (they also added too many support pieces which makes it difficult to slide in a paper), I still love looking at my countertop and seeing the brand-new, custom-made drying rack. We negotiated a reduced-rate for the erronious rack. We've also taken the risk of ordering the two correct racks. I think we've gone over the diagrams enough times to make it clear for this second try. If not, I can always give the three awkward racks to the new art teacher next year and hold onto my rolling rack...

Did you notice the lamp structures in front of the drying rack? How could you miss them! Fourth grade is designing paper lamp shades again to coincide with their science unit on electricity. We glued the first paper shades on today!

Taste the Rainbow

2010-04-17T18:17:00.014+08:00

I've been without a camera for most of this school year. Sadness. My digital camera started acting up in the fall. I keep meaning to get it fixed. Though it might be cheaper in the states, or at least more cost-effective in the long run, to buy a new camera, labor is incredibly cheap here. Our tech guy suggested I see about getting it fixed. Easier said than done. I know a few camera stores in the states. I know no camera stores in China. And if I were to find the location of one (I'm certain there are dozens in my city), well then I'd still need to communicate with the employee. Alas, I am determined to attempt this feat before I go back to the states for the summer.

That all to say, I had a camera in my hands on Friday and couldn't stop taking pictures of my room. It started by trying to document the color in my life. I have rainbows throughout my classroom. I went to write about this today, but as I discovered, I haven't written about the renovations to my classroom. Most were cosmetic. Other differences from last year are about my desire to increase my systematic organization. With a year under my belt, I decided it was a good time to address how I used the space last year and how I could better use it this year. Plus, I found lots of great ideas online and a new year was the best time to introduce new systems to the kids.

So here's a taste of the rainbows in my classroom.

Can you see it? It's subtle. This is both rainbow AND organization. Last year, my TA randomly selected colors for the covers of the students' sketchbook. Some were pastel shades. Some were bright shades. 5th grade was pastel pink. What 5th grade boy wants a pastel pink sketchbook?

This year, I was very specific about the colors.

For 1st through 5th grade, I teach two sections. Five colors there, one per grade. If I lump the 1 class of PreK and the 1 class of K together, that gives me a "6th" grade---or six colors. RAINBOW. Let's stick with the bright colors please...

I also nabbed a great shelving unit from my colleague's classroom. She had some new cabinetry made to replace her largely inadequate storage. In the process, she got rid of these two pieces. Ten shelves, not very high each, are much better for storing student projects than the 8 shelves of last year. 1 class per shelf, 1st through 5th grade. PreK and K go in another part of the classroom. The left shelf holds the sketchbooks and some projects in process. The right shelf (twice as long) holds other projects for that class.

The colors continue into these pockets, lining the bottom of my white board. I stole this system from another art teacher who blogs about her classroom. At the beginning of the year, the students made name cards. All the laminated cards go in the left "Need a Job" pocket. After students have a job, their card goes in the "Had a Job" pocket. Once all the cards are in the "Had a Job" pocket, they get moved back to the "Need a Job" pocket. What are the jobs, you ask?

Try not to laugh too hard. I don't have chairs in my classroom. While the other teacher had a "Chair Inspector," I needed to change the term to more accurately reflect my classroom, thus the "Stool Inspector."

The name cards get displayed just to the right of the job using magnets. This little display is on the very left of my whiteboard.

Below are some signs from last year. My TA made the color wheel signs, along with most of the signs in my classroom. I prefer her handwriting any day...the color wheel signs are in English, Chinese Characters, and Pinyin (alphabetical spelling of Mandarin). Ignoring my ability to collect things on the top of my shelves (most of those items are 4th grade animal sculptures), notice the cork board walls! And if you look closely, you'll notice the new hooks in the hallway. Just a few of the changes since August 2008...

For you enjoyment, a few more rainbow spottings...

See more pictures of the room, last year and this year, in this album.

Don't paint!

2010-01-25T22:10:00.002+08:00

I'm doing this new (for me) choice-based art education with my PreK, K, and 1st grade classes. There are multiple centers each class (usually three, since I have three tables). After an introduction, the students can choose which table they want to work at and what they want to make.

PreK has had the painting center for a while now. There are only 6 PreK students. Even if they ALL want to paint, it's feasible.

The first few weeks, their color options were limited to two primary colors. We explored color mixing and made observations. Paint phased out for a few weeks, but has been back since the beginning of January. Amazingly, some kids would rather cut shapes and collage or make a paper weaving rather than paint!

Today, as one boy was painting with red, yellow, and blue, he rediscovered orange. I asked him how did you get orange? Red and yellow!

At this time, I was sitting next to a little weaver. This weaver is so creative and full of personality. He also happens to live in the same stairwell in my apartment building, so I see him a lot.

Not to be outdone by the maker of orange, the weaver posed a simple question.

"(Orange-maker), how do you make white?"

Pause. Orange-maker is a little stumped here. To be honest, I wasn't sure of the answer. White and black are the only other colors of paint I'll give to my youngsters. You don't mix white paint. It comes from the bottle. What is the little weaver trying to say? How do you make white? Don't worry. He didn't leave us in suspense for long.

"Don't paint!"

(Do you get it? Leave the paper plain, with no paint, then it will be white!) I nearly spit my hot chocolate out all over the table! Flat out cracking up! This 5 year old made a hilarious art joke! I'm not sure the maker of orange understood the joke, or anyone else in the room, but it made my day.

Later in class, my little weaver decided to weave two rows with the same color strips as his paper loom. It was a trick, you see. After class, I would look at it and think he didn't finish, but he really did! How tricky!

In other news, I was almost a real teacher today! I had four elementary classes, a double-period of AP art history, and afterschool activities computer art. On top of that, my colleague was sick, so the art TA was busy substituting in secondary art classes most of the day.

I painted with 11 first graders with no TA!

I'd been reluctant to introduce the painting center to first grade because I was afraid they would ALL want to paint. I decided today that I would just select 4 that could paint. The rest would have to settle on a different center.

After establishing the tools we would need to paint (paint, paper, paintbrush, paint plate, water, spongebob) and demonstrating how to clean the brush, I asked who wanted to paint. All but 1. Ugg. How to pick just 4 students?

Suddenly, I realized I was better off letting the whole class paint. I gave the other boy the option again to pick painting. He just really wanted to draw. Ok. He sat at one table and drew while the other 11 students got painting supplies.

It took a few minutes to get every student every item, but I love recruiting the kids to help. They love to pass things out, and I like them to be responsible for things in my room. I also don't mind if they have to wait a little bit. They are not the center of the world. It's ok to learn patience.

At the end of class, clean-up went quite smoothly! I've established a clean-up system with 4th grade that works well for my room and resources. We implimented a modified version and managed to clean everything up, wash the tables, get out our art portfolios, document our center choice for the day, put away our portfolios, and collect our art shirts by the normal dismissal time.

About 10 minutes later, I'd washed the brushes and paint trays, packed up my things from the office, and was on my way down to the computer lab.

Overall, a successful day.

My Head of Department jokingly asked if I was preparing to move back to the states, teaching so many classes in one day, and without a TA. Only a joke, folks. I'm looking to be here at least 2-4 more years, and hopefully updating this more than twice a year...

Year Two silliness...

2009-11-08T16:36:00.006+08:00

It's bicycle time of the year. Yup, third grade is drawing bicycles again. This year, I wised up and scheduled the unit to overlap with fourth grade's figure drawing. Both drawing units require the same classroom configuration---two tables in the middle, the rest of the tables facing in. Amazingly, third and fourth grade are the only classes I teach on Tuesday and Thursday!

I did some quick calculations and realized I moved my room into this configuration, then back to normal 18 or more times last year. 36 times moving the tables...

This year, it should be only 8 round trips for the tables---8 set-ups and 8 returns to normal. (Being a 2nd year teacher is awesome. Planning in advance, I love it!)

The drawings are turning out well. I'd post some pictures, but my camera died :o(
This post isn't about their drawings anyway. It's about the silly things they say...

Remember my buddy Fred? He made Christmas Tree Korea. His brother, Jerry, spelled his name Favd and drew a yellow ocean...

Well Fred is making me laugh again.

To help them draw the bicycle, I need to get very close to them and see their eye-line to the bike. Mind you, third grade is mesmerized by this task of drawing the bicycle. They work silently, and not at my request. As I was up close and personal with Fred on Thursday, he loudly announced "you smell good." Nervous about my kimchi breath from lunch (Korean fermented spicy cabbage, pretty rough on the breath...), I said "maybe it's my Korean lunch." I'd only finished eating about 15 minutes before they came to class. "No, it's your skin! You smell like...chocolate!"

Seriously? Too funny. And the whole class heard. I tried to hold back the laughter! On top of all that, I was being observed by my department head. She was cracking up in the corner! At least smelling like chocolate is a compliment, I think...

Another funny comment came at the end of class. As third grade was lining up in the hallway, my department head (and good friend---she teaches elementary music) was walking through their class line to cross the hallway into our fine arts office. Tommy stopped her and said "you and Miss M, you're like best friends, right?" So cute! And she is one of my best friends in China...

A note from an ESL student...

2009-08-03T15:22:00.004+08:00

Dear Miss M....

Thank you for teaching
me, you are bestest
artist, (I think ^U^)
Next year, I want
to be more good
student of you.
When I think you,
I think about M&M.
See Ya later!
P.S. tell your E-mail
buddy!

I'm not sure exactly what this letter means. Who is my e-mail buddy and what I'm supposed to tell him or her? Perhaps typing this up fulfills the student's request...

One year down!

2009-06-30T19:30:00.008+08:00

There are so many things I did not blog about this year. If I get a chance this summer, I might write up some projects, though posting is becoming increasingly difficult from this part of the globe. (Thanks to my dad for finding a way for me to access blogspot!)

If I don't write up some projects, you'll have to hope I repeat it next year and take the time to blog about it on the second go-around.

During the last week of school, my efforts were focused on grading, returning artwork, and goodbyes. Some art classes were cancelled due to special activities. For the other classes, 3rd-5th grade, I had students fill out an exit-survey/year-in-review worksheet.

          The best part of art class is...
          My favorite project this year was...
          The most important thing in art is...
          When I think about next year, I hope we...
          In art class next year, I want to get better at...

I had a professor in college offer some wise words during an informal talk about his teaching experiences. I don't remember the exact quote, but he mentioned that you can't get your identity from your students, your self-worth from their opinion of you. I try to keep everything in perspective as the adult in the relationship, but I still desire to be a burst of light, source of love in their lives.

Reading these worksheets was encouraging, if not tear-worthy. Here are some exerts:

The best part of art class is...

when we are working on a projects (3rd grade)
drawing and making (3rd grade)
teacher is very kind (3rd grade)
painting (3rd grade)
Miss M (3rd grade)
i-pod and self portrait and all of the because I learned from Miss M. (3rd grade)
the teacher is king (3rd grade, ESL student---did she mean kind? she also filled out the talent show audition form saying she would be sining as her talent...)
talking (4th grade)
being with you! (4th grade)
it's fun (4th grade)
free drawing (5th grade)
we get to make lots of sculptures and projects (5th grade)
FUN!! (spending time with friends) (5th grade)
talking and concentrating on the picture (5th grade)
that I can finish quicker (5th grade)
that we don't have to fill out worksheets, we can make something (5th grade)

My favorite project this year was...

All of them (3rd grade)
weavings (3rd grade)
drawing cakes (3rd grade)
painting (3rd grade)
making sculpture (3rd grade)
paper mache bowl (4th grade)
all (4th grade)
painting the peaceful land (4th grade)
making lamps (4th grade)
umm...maybe the wire sculptures (5th grade)
the series thingny (5th grade)
our powerpoint posters (5th grade)
gridding (5th grade)
makign the wire person or the last project in the series with colored pencils (5th grade)

The most important thing I learned in art is...

to have self-control and work quietly (3rd grade)
how to blend color (3rd grade)
don't rush (3rd grade)
draw neatly (3rd grade)
to do your best job and be dilegent (3rd grade)
be neat and be awesom artist (3rd grade)
follow the teacher's directions (3rd grade)
paying attention to the projects (4th grade)
painting (4th grade)
about lights and decorating with lights (4th grade)
how to be an artist and painter (4th grade)
try (4th grade)
to draw some pictures creatively (4th grade)
ghost lines (4th grade)
designing (4th grade)
that we should love art (4th grade)
we can tell our thoughts by pictures (4th grade)
negative and positive space (5th grade)
that there are many things that you can do with art and they're all fun (to me sorta) (5th grade)
drawing or like the art history or maybe something like that or... (5th grade)
that there are even more types of art than I had thought (5th grade)
draw best as I can, express myself in the drawings (5th grade)
I don't know (5th grade)
how to design with computer (5th grade)
I learned how to draw contour lines (5th grade)
how to make a series (5th grade)

I could continue with the last two sentence stems, but most of those are "do more projects, get better at art, get better at drawing, paint, make sculptures, etc." Instead, I'll leave you with some portraits of yours truly. My students often decide to draw me, so here's a collection from 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders.

These kids are awesome! If you know my wardrobe, you'll notice some distinctive pieces, such as my peacock blue mary jane style crocs...

Lamps!

2009-05-13T18:24:00.014+08:00

One of my passions in teaching is integration. In 7th grade, my reading teacher told the class "you can read about anything, so I can teach you anything." Well he did, and since then, I've never forgotten the words mausoleum and gubernatorial.

My little sister is in his class this year. (We're ten years apart.) He's still up to his old reading tricks, and gave the same "I can teach anything" speech. My mom told me on Skype one day that it's the same for me. It's true! We can make art about ANYTHING! So how do I pick subject matter? I try to make it relevant to their lives, and often tie it to their classroom curriculum.

This takes a lot of planning. Unfortunately, it also takes effort on the part of the classroom teachers. If they don't talk to me about their units, I can't make connections. This year, I've sent a few e-mail pleas to the teachers---please tell me! I know it takes a few minutes of their time, but the reinforcement the students get in my class is DEFINITELY worth the effort!

One of those e-mails resulted in this project!

Fourth grade has a unit on electricity. Their teacher asked me "would you want to work with me to make lamps?"

YES!

I cannot claim to have taken any classes with Lyn Godley, but I did teach her son during my first student teaching placement. She came in and gave a presentation to the class about her lighting designs and the work of various KU students. The juniors then started a hanging light project, using IKEA pre-fab cords and making their own lampshades.

After a little brainstorming about the possibilities at our school with our students, Mrs. Early and I decided on a design. The fourth graders would discuss design and lighting in my class. Mr. Early (her husband and our facilities manager) would have his staff create wooden bases. The kids would wire the lamps in Mrs. Early's class. In my class, we'd make the paper shades and glue them to the wooden structure.

To introduce the art component, we discussed the difference between decoration and function. I pulled together a slide show of various lighting projects (compliments of Miss Emily and Miss Amanda: those are some beautiful lights you've made!). I even showed the movarian bell lights made by Miss Emily's elementary students during student teaching! When I got to Godley's crinkle lamp, I jumped over to a video on youtube about the lighting design by Godley and KU students for the outside of the Goggleworks. We ended the discussion by looking at various paper lanterns, including some rectangular lamps from
IKEA that looked quite similar to our basic design.

In the remaining classtime and the following week, the students created three possible designs for the lampshade. Our little mock-ups were quite simple---a half sheet of A4 copy paper (hotdog style) folded into four sections.

After all the designs were finished, we taped the open side together. Each student put their designs above three columns on another sheet of copy paper. The two rows were + compliments and - suggestions or concerns. I asked the students to think of at least one + and one - for each design.

Before the students read their sheets, I reminded them that these were not intended to hurt feelings. They should read all the ideas, think about them, but remember, they are just someone's opinion. They make the decision about which design should be implemented. (I didn't say implemented, but sometimes I miss using big words!)

If I'd been more careful in my planning, I would have designed the lamp size to correspond with the paper. Instead, I arbitrarily picked a size for the base. It was loosely based on the scrap of A4 paper I was sketching on and took into consideration the distance between the lightbulb and the paper. Unfortunately, when all was said and done, the long side of the paper was 1 or 2 cms too short to wrap around all four sides! Though it was frustrating, we made do by making three sides connected and a fourth separate panel.

Craftsmanship was very important in this project. I didn't have lots of extra paper for the shade. I told them the time to experiment was over. They made three designs already. Pick the best and make it carefully and neatly!

No starting again!

I also emphasized that this was THEIR light, for THEIR room. If they did a horrible job, it wasn't just their grade that would be affected. They wouldn't have an awesome project in their room, something in which they could take pride!

After the first day of coloring, we did a few tests. The shades looked best when the pencil side was facing out. Also, soft colored pencil was washed out by the compact fluorescent bulb.

As students finished, I worked one-on-one with them to glue the paper shades to the wooden dowels. The finished lamps looked fabulous!

While they wanted to take them home right away, there were a few things to happen first. One of Mr. Early's staff is an electrician by trade. He checked over their wiring before the projects made it to the artroom. He did a second check after the shades were finished. Also, Mrs. Early and I wanted the lamps to be in her classroom for Parent/Teacher conferences.

After a few days, the students finally got to take the lamps home. You should have seen the smiles as the students carried their projects to the bus that afternoon!

Inspired!

2009-04-18T16:32:00.019+08:00

Inspired has taken on a new meaning in my family. Copied, a fake version, knock-off, etc. On my last post, I showed some "inspired" work by my kinders. It is certainly a crisis with my students---many youngsters have lost their creativity, their imagination!

When they are given the option of "free-draw" (usually at the end of a class or end of a lesson, should the students finish early), some of my students cannot figure out what to draw. I remember being impressed the first time I saw a student take one of my art books and sketch a famous piece of art into their sketchbook. Now I've realized these poor youngsters just can't come up with an original idea!

As an art teacher, though, my lessons are far from original. I'm often "inspired" by the lessons of other art teachers. Recently, I've discovered the pletora of art teacher blogs---wow! What's more fun is catching up with Miss Emily and hearing about her lessons. During Christmas break, she shared with me some successful lessons.

Her first grade lesson on Ugly Dolls was a hit, in both countries!

Have you heard of Ugly Dolls?

I hadn't. What started as a little sketch on love letters turned into a successful toy line!

I started the lesson by reading a classic, Where the Wild Things Are. We talked about monsters and how we visual identify them. This led to talks about beauty and ugliness. Would they want a toy that was ugly? Introduce Ugly Dolls! My kids loved that the letters started because the lady went back to Korea for a period of time. We looked at various Ugly Dolls and talked about what made them ugly (one eye, long arms, etc.). Overall, we found most of them to be kind of cute! There's definitely a charm to these creatures...

The kids then proceeded to draw their own Ugly Doll using crayons on bright colored paper--orange, turquoise, lime green, and purple. Miss Emily used construction paper crayons, so her crayon markings are more vibrant.

(Construction paper crayons are on the list for next year!)

Next, the student cut out their creation. Turning it over, they tore up small pieces of paper towel, crumpled it, and glued it to the back of their guy. When the back was covered, we glued it to another sheet of paper and they cut around the edge. (I found it's best to insist that the students stop the paper towel one centimeter from the edge. This makes the gluing process much easier and neater.)

As my first graders finished their dolls, I gave them a small sheet of paper with stem sentences (the first part of a sentence). They named their Ugly Doll and explain why they loved it.

We finished class (the second day) by reading You Are Special by Max Lucado. Like many of his books, it is an allegory. Punchinello, a wooden Wemmick, eventually discovers that the man on the hill loves him because he made him, and that's why Punchinello is special. The man made him just the way he is! Punchinello does not need to worry about what the other Wemmicks think of him...when they think he's awkward and clumsy. It doesn't matter.

While there wasn't a "right" answer for the stem sentences, one student's response fit perfectly with the book! He wrote "I love my Ugly Doll because I made I love you and cute you are so good." All the students loved their Ugly Dolls because the dolls were their creation!

I was quite cruel to Tuesday's class and insisted they leave their Ugly Doll in my classroom. (Honestly, they never take artwork home on the day they make it!) I took pictures of the dolls with the stem sentences. On Thursday, I couldn't say no to the kids, so I just took a group picture before they took them home!

I'd love to tell stories about each doll. They are all so unique!

In the group photo, the middle boy in the front row actually had enough time on the first day to draw two Ugly Dolls. When it came time to glue the first doll to a new sheet of paper, he decided to use his second doll as the back! He has a double-sided doll! So creative!

Other dolls remind me of their creator! This one, in particular, just makes me think of the little boy that made it. He's the artist of The Pilgrim Snowmen from December!

(Click on the pictures to see them larger.)

Drawings by PreK and Kindergarten

2009-04-04T08:40:00.020+08:00

Back in August and September, my third graders drew portraits of their classmates. These were quick drawings, done using a template for facial placement, and modifying the template for the individual features. They drew in pencil first, and then colored it in with crayons. Over a few class periods, each student made about 5 drawings, and we stapled them together into a book. Two slices, above the eyes and below the nose, allowed three parts of the page to turn independently. We made some interesting combinations by only turning some of the parts...

So why am I mentioning this now? Well, the standard crayons created a problem when it came to skin color. The kids dug through all the old crayons to find three peach crayons. Other students used orange, yellow, brown . . . I decided I needed to get the Crayola Multicultural Crayons for next year.

I was able to order the crayons at the end of December. They arrived in early February. It was only a matter of time before I decided to use them. I broke them out one morning for the PreK class. We talked about the word family and what people we might draw in a picture of our family. One little girl really wanted to draw Kim Marie, the teacher's baby girl, but refused to draw her baby brother.

The part I was most curious about was skin choice. Each table had the standard eight colors intermixed with the 8 multicultural colors (six shades of brown, plus a white and black).

Some kids completely disregarded the skin colors and made their family purple, green, blue, etc.

Other kids carefully picked a shade of brown, usually on the lighter end.

Tony was funny. He drew his family members naked first, coloring them in completely with a skin color. When that was finished, he drew clothes on top of them with the standard eight colors.

Another girl cracked me up! Jessica's dad is Caucasian and her mom is Chinese. She and her sister both have black hair, but a lighter skin color than their mother(without the yellow undertones). She used black for hair and peach for skin when drawing herself, her mom, and her sister. When it came to her dad, she drew him using all yellow. Yellow skin, yellow hair. (He does have dirty blonde hair.)

Here are some of the drawings from PreK. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of Jessica's drawing.

The top right picture is Tony's, with clothing added afterwards. Underneath that picture, everyone in Isabel's family has VERY long legs! If you notice the names on those pictures, you might be confused. Rony? Rsabel? The class was learning about the letter R and practicing what their name would sound like if it started with the letter R.

This week, I did the same activity with my kindergarteners. The families are great, but it was the drawings after the families that ended up being the most interesting!

I think Jerry's drawing of his family became the inspiration for the later drawings by the boys at his table.

I asked him about koa. What does this say? Korea. That was a duh moment for me. Of course. About 2/3 of our students are Korean.

The mention of Korea seemed to inspire Ted, another Korean boy.

World geography might not be the best subject for our kinders. Not surprisingly, Korea is huge! Even our middle schoolers have been known to let out a gasp when they see the actual size of Korea on a map.

I'm not sure about all the countries, but the first three on Ted's map were Korea, China (the C as the top) and India (the i at the top). Japan was added, along with more Korean islands and USA.

The Indian boy sitting between the two Korean boys decided to draw a globe as well. You can see that India grew in size a little in Swayam's map. It's also daytime in this world.

Jerry also joined the globe action for his free draw. Now each table had two sets of the standard eight colors and two packs of the multicultural colors. While the other boys were coloring their oceans (and using the only two blue crayons at the table), Jerry said "I need blue! Is there blue? Oh I have yellow!" and proceeded to color his ocean yellow.

As one of the other teacher's mentioned, we do live on the Yellow Sea (but it's not yellow).

Let's look at the countries on this world. Of course, there's large Korea and many Korean islands. We also have a J for Japan. As he was drawing, he said "oh, Merica!" and labeled an island with an M. Later, he added a U on another island for United States. At the top, there's this u/C thing. Maybe that's China. I forgot to ask about that.

What happened to India? Just check out the moon on the left, and you'll find two circles labelled I. I think the rocket may be in flight to India.

At another table, a European boy, William, drew an airplane for the hundredth time in art class. Whether drawing, painting, or making collages, he makes an airplane once or twice a month. He's quite good at drawing them. You can see all the people inside the plane as it lands. Our kids, being expats in China, are frequent travelers.

Other students began drawing ships, particularly pirate ships. Perhaps this is because the local expat group put on the pantomime Robinson Crusoe just a few weekends ago. Joseph asked me how to spell Robinson Crusoe. I honestly didn't know. I have to look it up every time!

(Side note: Having recently devoted a lot of time to learning pinyin, the Chinese phonetic system, I have a terrible time sounding out long words when I'm trying to remember how to spell them! I was actually trying to spell Crusoe a few weeks ago and couldn't for the life of me figure out the last two letters! The long O sound in Chinese is spelled "ou" always, no exceptions. And the oe combination doesn't exist in pinyin, which might be one reason why I didn't think of it. Just now, I had to google it again and get the correct spelling from "did you mean robinson crusoe?")

Here are some more pirates!

I love that the two boats on the right are waving the Korean flag! It shows up a lot in my students' artwork. Remember Christmas Tree Korea--made by Jerry's older brother, Fred.

(Did anyone notice Fred's name in Jerry's picture? I let Jerry sound out his brother's name. f is clearly spelled fa. Then an r, which looks more like a v, and a d. Missing the e and the awkward r makes his brother's name look more like Favd, not Fred!)

Back to the pirate ships, I can't figure out what happened with the two on the left. I don't think they were made by the same student. Why would one student redraw the same picture? They don't have names on them, but here's my guess. I think one girl was "inspired" by the pirate ship of the boy on her right, which is how they both ended up with nearly identical pictures.

Inspiration, a topic for a later post!

Wonderful World of Weaving

2009-03-16T20:31:00.025+08:00

Weaving has taken over my school...at least in the elementary department. Back in November, my third graders started weaving. The project was based on something I saw during my Early Field placement. We began with some basic information about weaving. My beautiful, hand-woven scarf from Megan made an excellent visual! Looms, woven metal, woven plastic netting, and even traditional fiber weaves. Then the students received a rectangle of burlap. We talk about patterning, which is very important in weaving. The kids came up with a pattern for which rows they would remove from the burlap.

Keep 9, remove 2, keep 4, remove 2, keep 9, remove 2, etc...

The next week, we learned about
six different color schemes:

     Light and Dark (monochromatic)
     Warm Colors
     Cool Colors
     Opposites (complimentary)
     Neighbors (analogous)
     Neutrals

We looked at some art images, identified the colors in them, and named the color scheme. Then the students chose which scheme they wanted for their weaving. Afterwards, the magic began!

Many students were able to thread the large, blunt needles on their own. Others needed help from me or Mrs. Yang (my TA). A few art classes later, most students had completed the whole weaving! For the students that didn't finish for one reason or another (worked slowly, missed classes, etc.), I simply cut the burlap into a shorter rectangle. Then Mrs. Yang sewed all their names onto the weaving for easy display on bulletin boards.

The next weaving project was with fifth grade. We had just a few class periods before our Christmas break and the end of the semester. I decided to use that time to review three things the students should already know...warm and cool colors, the basics of using watercolors, and weaving.

It's especially hard in an international school to know what the students have learned already. About 2/3 of my fifth graders are new this year. For the rest, they've had four different art teachers from 2nd grade until now!

I showed the students some watercolor basics and asked them to explore, creating one page of warm colors and one page of cool colors. After the pages were dry, they were allowed to cut them into strips (1-3cm wide) and weave them in any way they saw fit. I encouraged experimentation during the whole process.

Finally, first grade got their turn. Again, I based this lesson on something I saw in Early Field. We started by making our paper loom. I decided it was important for the children to make it themselves. I stepped them through the process, emphasizing that they needed their "listening ears" that day in class, and they MUST follow directions!

We started by folding our paper in half, hamburger-style.

Next, we put the bottom of our ruler along the fold and drew a line across the top of the rulers. What a coincidence, the students were learning about rulers in math class! One function of a ruler, to draw a straight line!

Then we used our ruler to measure--another ruler function. We put the left end of the ruler at the edge of the paper. I wanted the students to make every 4 cm along their line. I started explaining this by saying "Put a mark at 4cm. Now we need to add 4. What is 4 plus 4? 8, so put a mark at 8cm." As I was stepping the students through the process, it just came to me. Our ruler was simply a NUMBER LINE! The first graders spend a lot of time using a number line. I was able to draw the hopping arrow to show the kids how to count up four numbers on the line, and in the process, add 4!

Once they'd marked every four centimeters, they switched to the fold side. This time, they placed the top part of the ruler touching the fold. Again, they used their number line and marked every four centimeters.

Next, we turned the page so the fold was on the left. I identified the drawn line on the right as the STOP line. This was very important! They used the ruler to connect the dots from the fold to the STOP line, drawing with their pencil from the fold to the STOP line, at which point in time, they STOPPED! If you haven't taught first graders, you wouldn't understand how important it was to say this, say it again, and make them say it over and over!

Once their lines were correct, they were able to get scissors. They started with the fold close to their body and cut along the line. What happens when they get to the STOP line? You STOP! Really, you'd think I was crazy if you saw me actually explaining this to the kids...over and over, loud and dramatic!

Amazingly, they were all successful!

The following week, I demonstrated the UP and DOWN motion of weaving. We looked at the checkerboard effect, talking a lot about doing the opposite thing as the previous row. The students were given a selection of neutral strips--white, light grey, dark grey, and black. They were to create a pattern in their strip choice. Some stuck to the tried and true ABABAB pattern. Others attempted something more complicated.

The final class period was spent using oil pastels to draw patterns on the checkerboard. The kids really liked using their name in the pattern.

In February, I attacked our school with all three weaving projects. In addition to the two bulletin boards outside my room, I convinced classroom teachers to lend me their hallway boards for a few weeks. I intermixed the projects, trying to put the work of one child next to their brother or sister's classroom. Usually, they're really proud of their sibling's work!

My attack was purposeful--in February, we offered Weaving as an afterschool activity for the students. Many of the 4th and 5th graders had seen the burlap project and asked about weaving. I think my media campaign was successful! There are about 10 students in the activity on Monday (lower elementary) and about 5 on Wednesday (upper elementary). Since I'm teaching Computer Art at the same time, Mrs. Yang came up with the weaving projects and teaches them to the students. So far, lower elementary has done many smaller weavings. Upper elementary is still working on a cardboard loom. Both sets of kids seem to love it!

Figure Drawing with Fourth Grade

2009-01-16T10:30:00.023+08:00

Back during my glory days at Kutztown, NAEA invited Sandy (retired teacher from Boyertown and Crayola Rep) to come and do a Crayola demonstration. She also spoke to my Early Field class. In all her projects and comments, one thing that stood out to me was doing figure drawing with elementary students! It seemed crazy--very ambitious! I didn't do figure drawings until Art III in 12th grade!

Her results were beautiful. I was convinced.

My drawing curriculum involves a lot of drawing from life. My 3rd graders drew the bicycle for four weeks. That's also a project I did in high school. But these kids can handle it! It challenges them, but if you give them the tools (three types of lines: straight, angled, curved, and some ENCOURAGEMENT and CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM), they can see it and learn to put that down on paper!

One thing Sandy said about doing this project: She always put the kids in costumes.

There are lots of benefits to costumes. Costumes lighten the mood. They can create a social studies tie-in, with the appropriate dress and props. Most importantly, they deflect the attention from the child, and their body, to the inanimate clothing, and its folds, bumps, lumps, seaming, etc.

I find this to be very important to my children. In Asian cultures, standing out from the group is not viewed as a good thing. It is a collectivist society, and you want to fit in. There may be pressure to fit in in the states, but we still put extreme value on being an individual. You're a star. Here's your chance to shine!

My students can be very shy when singled out. The costume puts a barrier between them and the group, and makes it about the clothing.

It also makes it so much easier for me to offer constructive criticism. Excuse me, you didn't make her butt big enough... Instead, I can say, look at the way the costume bumps out in the back. Make sure you draw that line. None of the costumes are fitted (check out how long most of the sleeves are!), so it always provides that option to comment on the thickness created by the costume.

I am also very careful to redirect any comments that might hurt the model's feelings. When a student is bold enough to hold up their drawing and say "look at how crazy you look," I am quick to add that it's not because the model is weird-looking, but because the drawing is crazy.

All of the students blew me away with the results! Here's an album of some of the highlights. Click on the link below the slideshow to look through the images slowly and read my captions...

http://picasaweb.google.com/art.abroad/FourthGradeFigureDrawing?authkey=Fqj6-A7yzpA&feat=directlink

I rearrange the classroom before the students come in the room. I put two small tables together in the center, making a square. The longer tables are then arranged, all six, around the perimeter of the room. I randomly place the students at the six tables, looking into the center. Any student that wants a chance to model writes their name on a small piece of paper. All the names are put in a bowl and I pick out two models for that class period. The first model comes with me to get a costume from my office, which is directly across the hall (remember, I have a TA, so she is still in the room with the kids). We come back, everyone giggles, and the model hops up onto the table. Each model does three poses. Usually one standing, one sitting on a chair, and one sitting directly on the table. These poses only last 5-7 minutes. Being still for that long is VERY challenging for the models! I remind the students not to worry about drawing eyes, noses, mouths...it's about the clothing! After all three poses, the model takes off the costume (just worn over his or her clothes) and the new model comes to get a new costume. Lather, rinse, and repeat!

Interestingly, most of the kids can finish a decent drawing in those few minutes. I remember wanting at least 15 minutes, maybe more, when we did figure drawing in high school.

One of my students is incredibly talented! I've seen her gifting in other projects, but the drawings make it very apparent.

I was showing her drawings from our second class to Mrs. Greene (the secondary art teacher). I told her that I couldn't take any credit for her skill level. Looking back at her first drawing, I do see improvement based on my suggestions. Her first drawing is "perfect" in a bad way. It's more like a fashion drawing and less like an actual person. I talked to her about not drawing a straight line if the belt actually is at a slight angle. We talked about the specific folds, seaming, and all the details of the pose.

The drawing on the left is her first drawing. The drawing on the right is from the second class.

The shirt had puffing at the shoulders, and the LONG skirt with a stretchy, gathered waist, was actually inside out, so the unfinished fabric edges were visible down the back of the skirt.

I made an album with some of her drawings.

You can see two of her drawings from the first week, and five from the second week, after I talked to her about drawing the specific folds, seams, draping, etc.

I'm not sure I can draw this well, and certainly not in five minutes!

http://picasaweb.google.com/art.abroad/FigureDrawingsOfOneStudent?authkey=jdKCM_W-q4Y&feat=directlink#5291648769834105938

By the way, I didn't say ANYTHING to the class or invidual students about line quality or using value, yet some of the students used both very effectively!

Turning into my "mother"

2009-01-15T06:16:00.004+08:00

I don't actually mean that I'm turning into Momma Mel. (Well, that might be true too...)

I was thinking about that perennial story, that one where new parents realize they are literally turning into their parents--the things they do, the things they say.

It's not that I'm intentionally replicating the art teachers I've had...it's just the main experience I have to go from when deciding how to do things.

About a month ago, I was overwhelmed by a bunch of pieces of scrap paper. It was all A4 copy paper, some white, some colored, and all used on one side. I didn't want to put it in the recycling bin. I also didn't have a jelly jar cabinet with that teal tray where we collected scrap paper in my kitchen in Pennsylvania.

I don't know where the idea came from, but I went to my paper cutter and chopped the paper into quarters. I think that means the paper is now A6.

I took the stack and put it on my desk. Now I use it to write quick notes, to do lists, etc. I wish I had a little beige metal tray to contain the stack. Then I would truly be copying one of my high school art teachers, Cathy Kammler!

In another such moment, I found myself singing (in my head) about the primary colors:

Red, yellow and blue
Red, yellow and blue
I see you, I see you
You are the primary colors
You make all other colors
I wish I were a color like
Red, yellow and blue

My elementary art teacher, Mrs. Blahut, used to sing this song to us. It wasn't until I was thinking about writing about this experience, "turning into my art teachers," that I realized the song is actually Three Blind Mice.

This week, I also did one of those things I thought I'd never do: I had my third grade students paint a value scale.

It's not that I intentionally made a pact against the task. It's just so traditional. It's a meaningless,* skill-based, production task.

Especially at the elementary level, students can learn about value and color mixing without making value scales and color wheels! At a basic level, my PreK kids understand tints. Color plus White makes it LIGHT! Adding black makes a color darker. (I wish I could figure out a rhyme for this.)

My kids learn color theory and value through experience. PreK, Kindergarten, and First Grade don't know I have bottles of orange, purple, green, brown, pink paint! I've only given them the primaries, white, and black. They've had to "find" all the other colors!

I haven't painted with second grade yet, but I don't think I'll let them use anything but the primaries, black, and white. I let fourth grade choose from the whole array, but encouraged them to mix A LOT. We were looking at The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. As a class, we established that he didn't use any color directly from the bottle (we don't have bottles of yellow ochre, otherwise that might not have been true...). They were intentional about creating just the right blue for their sky (or blue-gray, gray, blue-green, pink-purple sunset, etc.), the right greens for the vegetation, and the right natural colors for their animals.

In third grade, we're painting cakes, Wayne Thiebaud style! I did a lesson with 6th graders in England, so I was very excited when Miss Emily told me about a lesson she did with her third grade students in Pennsylvania. I decided it sounded like fun, plus it didn't require me to make enough cake for the whole class! (In England, I made two layer cakes. Each student got one slice and drew it, using contour lines, in their sketchbook. We then used tracing paper to repeat the image three more times so we had four slices of cake to paint. Of course, at the end of the class, if they had behaved, they got to eat their slice! Drawing from life, classroom management, and a tasty treat all in one!)

For Miss Emily's lesson, we spent the first class period looking at Wayne Thiebaud's paintings and learning to draw 3D solids. Cylinders for the cakes, triangular prisms for just one slice! We also used cones to draw none other than an ice cream cone! A sphere of ice cream, or a rectangular prism brownie! I'm getting hungry...

Between the first class and the second class, I started paging through some old Art Ed magazines in our office. Low and behold, a School Arts from 5 or 6 years ago includes this EXACT lesson! Drawing 3D solids, painting with tints, all while looking at the work of Wayne Thiebaud! I know there's nothing new under the sun, but really! Coming across this exact issue, in China, in the middle of my project!!! I don't know where Miss Emily got her idea, but I doubt she was reading a copy of School Arts from when we were still in high school!

This article talked about having the students do a value scale with different colors, noticing how colors respond when mixed with white or black. I read the paragraph a few times and eventually decided the author had a point. Some colors react funny when mixed with white or black. Who would think that yellow plus black would look greenish?

About 15 minutes before my kids showed up, I made the decision. We would do a simple value scale of the primary and secondary colors. My PreK kids may know what happens when you mix white with a color, but I didn't teach my third graders when they were in PreK. I have no idea what they have learned and how they've learned it! Before they waste a lot of paint and slop some crazy tints on their final piece, they should have a basic understanding of color mixing.

This class period also served as a chance for students to practice mixing on a palette, cleaning their brush, and painting neatly (in the box).

I went around and discussed some of the scenarios with the students. You need a lot of white to really change the color, but only a little bit of black. White is weak, but black is very strong.

One of my students got sick of washing out his brush between colors. He wised up and counted how many more tints he had to make...four. He made four small dabs of white paint on his palette, one on each side of the square palette, and washed out his brush. Then he counted how many more shades...five (he must have stopped in the middle of second color). He made five small dabs of black on his palette, one in each corner and one in the center. He had a little 9 square checkerboard on his palette! He then went color by color, mixing his primaries and secondaries with the white and black dots on his palette.

Surprisingly, the kids weren't bored with the task. They got quite excited about the results, especially the shades. Orange and black looked like chocolate!

This week, we'll revisit Thiebaud's paintings, comparing his colors to the colors on our chart. Hopefully, the kids will decide they need to use lots of tints in their final painting. Then we'll be ready to start painting...

*Not that the task has no value, or that there isn't a place to refine skill to this level, but there is no greater meaning, enduring understanding, big idea to reproducing a color wheel or value scale. I think this type of skill development is a better fit for secondary/post-secondary. Skill development in elementary goes hand in hand with exploration, creativity, and tasks with broader meanings.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-20T19:01:00.020+08:00

Sheng Dan Kuai Le!

A 2nd grade Illuminated Manuscript project involving illustration, adornment, and some technology (font type, size, bold, italics, etc.). They chose the song excerpts from a list of six different Christmas texts. The storybook capital letter and border were areas they used pictures to explain the text. We also used the computer lab to explore the visual design aspects of word processing.

Click on the images to make them larger!

The brown row on the top of this border is Santa's sleigh with all the reindeer and their silver bells!

Why does Miss M need a fireplace?

2008-12-18T17:05:00.005+08:00

Ok, I'll give away the correct answer in the beginning. It's for the lower elementary (PreK-2nd) Christmas program. The setting is a living room...kids in pajamas, listening to a bedtime story. Clearly, a fireplace would help set the stage.

The fireplace was constructed last week (through our facilities department), but with the upper elementary (3rd-5th) Christmas program last Friday, I had NO TIME to paint the wooden structure.

Suddenly, it was this week, and we needed the fireplace ready for 10:30 am, Wednesday.

I managed to get a beige basecoat completed on Monday. That left the stones for Tuesday.

Tuesday is also my heavy load for teaching. I threw the dress code out the window and wore painting clothes all day long. Between classes, and even during classes, I painted! The typical routine: explain to the students why I have the fireplace and why I need to work on it, start them on their project, and then get back to painting! Some second graders finished their project early and wanted to help. The inside black and top brown are complements of that class!

My last class of the day was 1st grade. I wasn't finished with the stone, but I knew I could not paint during that class. Those kids demand my whole attention!

Retelling the story later, I described the fireplace as the elephant in the room. That's completely the wrong phrase. Sure, it's the big thing in the middle of the room, but EVERYONE is talking about it!

I got first grade seated and quiet as quickly as possible. It was time to start the spiel. Raise your hand if you can tell me what that it? Since most of my kids are non-native English speakers, they don't know the English word "fireplace." Instead, I get the word fire, accompanied by hand motions and sound effects! Yes, in English, we call that a fireplace.

and WHY does Miss M need a fireplace?

The most popular answer was "to be warm." It may be cold in our school, but this fake wooden fireplace is not a solution to that problem!

Answer number two, from Justin, the creator of the pilgrim snowmen below, "so Santa can come and bring you presents!"

As every first grader knows, I live in my classroom. And how is Santa going to find me all the way around the world in China? Clearly, I need a fireplace. It made perfect sense to him! (Never mind the fundamental structural differences between this faux fireplace and the real-deal, namely a chimney!)

Sitting on the ground, doing some finishing touch-ups!

Snow Family

2008-12-17T22:05:00.007+08:00

To say my mom likes Snowmen would be an understatement.

Christmas decoration in my house consist of LOTS of snowmen. The best part about the snowmen collection, was, even though the tree and nativity get put away in January, the Snowmen sometimes make it all the way into February! Recently, Momma Mel has been getting restless and started packing them up sometime in January, but there's still hope...

I decided to do some snowmen projects with my students. I didn't quite get all our fall-themed projects finished in time for appropriate display around school. At least if these projects were Winter, and not specific to Christmas, they could be displayed in January and February!

I found this book in the library called Snow Family. Not a classic, but it's cute and rhyming! Who doesn't love a rhyming book? So fun to read aloud!

The concept is that this little boy's parents take care of him, tie his scarf, kiss his cheek, and put him to bed at night. Yet all the Snow Kids have no parents to take care of them! They run around the fields, laughing and playing, but lose a mitten here, a boot there...

After running around the woods with the Snow Kids, the boy decides he needs to make them a Snow Mom and Dad to take care of the Snow Kids!

We read the book one week and then started the drawings. A small part of our last project was with oil pastel, so this drawing continued their exploration of the medium. The last project was on white paper, emphasizing the oil/water resist possibilities with oil pastel and watercolor. This time, we focused on their opacity---being able to color white, yellow, pink on DARK BLUE PAPER! Working with oil pastels is like doing a magic trick with crayons to these kids!

I told the first graders they were to draw their whole family as snowpeople. Moms, dads, brothers, sisters, grandparents, pets. Anyone in their family!

How would we be able to tell who was the Mom and who was the Dad? What they're wearing, what size they are, and some of the kids took it upon themselves to label their snowpeople...

This week was their second and final day of the project. Just a quick exploration of symbolism and oil pastels. Here are some of the results!

I like to call this one The Pilgrim Snowmen. Especially before he colored the hats in with light blue, these snowmen looked like they were ready for a Thanksgiving feast! It's hard to tell, but the guy on the right has a gold buckle on his hat! This boy's family is actually 5 people. Notice the two smaller snowmen in the background. Dad's the one wearing a Santa hat, and does the guy in the middle have a sheriff's badge?

These snowmen are "country folk." A little cowboy hat and vest? Mom's wearing a sweet straw hat with a flower attached. The cloud of action on the right represents the three siblings. "We're fighting" she told me. Notice how she labeled the boys with their names and a blue heart, and the girls with pink names and hearts!

To continue the trend of fighting, this girl told me her mommy and daddy were on one team, she was on the other, and they were throwing snowballs at each other! To be fair, there was a snowball fight in the book. Look at her mom's eyelashes! I told her I can tell how beautiful her mom is because of her pretty eyes!

Here's your last snow family picture. This is actually a stop-action movie, all on one page. Early animation! The first thing he animated was the sun. It's actually just one sun, he told me, not three. The arrows show how it moves across the sky. The green under the white along the bottom of the page is the grass, as the sun melts the snow. Then he added an arrow from his snowman into the house. He told me he was only dressed up as a snowman, then he took off his costume and walked up the stairs. The last bit of animation---the fireplace with the smoke going up and out the chimney!

from my kindergarten ARTIST

2008-12-17T21:34:00.009+08:00

A new painting from Rachel ("Miss M., can you tell I'm an artist?)

Kindergarten started class by attempting to mix 8 colors for me and paint them on a worksheet (on top of the printed name). Red, yellow, blue, orange, purple, green, pink, brown. Here was the kicker, they only had red, yellow, blue, and white!

Unlike the 1st grade painting sessions, we spent less time explicitly stating the mixing combos. Instead, I wanted to see how much they'd figured out on their own. Kids were allowed to tell each other what to mix, but each student had to mix their own colors. Some were more successful that others. After they found all 8 colors, they could move onto their painting.

Most students finished early, and since my paper stash was SUPER LOW, I didn't have extra papers for another painting. Instead, they cleaned up as they finished, and when a group was ready, I read a picture book called Snow Family for the last ten minutes of class. (Look for a post SOON about the first grade projects that go with that book.)

My artist was unfazed, even as EVERY OTHER KID in her class was finished, washed up, and listening to the book. Her back was to me as I read, and I never saw her turn to check out what was going on. Rachel was focused on that painting. Finally, with less than two minutes remaining, I told her it was time for her to stop and wash her hands. She said a simple "ok" and went to the sink!

I asked her about her painting. It's quite different from her "corners" piece (picture below). She didn't really have a story about it. I think she was simply caught up in mixing colors and painting them in beautiful patches across her paper. My little abstract expressionist!

Funny Moments

2008-11-22T21:36:00.008+08:00

I was trying to decide today which class is my favorite. I can't decide. I'm like the mom that says "all of you are my favorite" or "I don't have a favorite."

I was also thinking about funny moments this year. A few teachers were talking about those moments when you just crack up in class and can't stop laughing. I have a lot of fun in art class, but not so many moments of huge laughter, so much that it disturbs class.

I did have one really fun class when I totally lost my composure. 4th grade had come for class. The music classes nearby and cafeteria were a little loud. I knew I wanted to talk for a while at the beginning of class, so I decided I should close the door to block the noise. All the students were sitting, and instead of asking someone to close the door, I walked over to do it myself. As I got close to the door, I started turning towards the class and closing the door at the same time. The door opens into my room, so I was pushing it closed away from me. Turns out, not all the students were in the room. For some reason, one boy was straggling behind. I closed the door on Steven's face. My only clue was the loud clunk and the burst of laughter from my students. Since I had been addressing them as I went to close the door, they were all looking at me and saw me shut the door in his face!

Startled, I opened the door to see what had happened. I had knocked him onto his butt, and he was sitting on the floor, quite confused and startled himself! Thankfully, Steven has a sense of humor. I asked if he was okay and gave him a hand to help him get on his feet again. Meanwhile, the class was roaring with laughter. Even as I tried to start the lesson again, I started laughing more. It was just one of those moments!

The other classes that ALWAYS cause me to laugh are PreK and Kindergarten. The kids say and draw the funniest things!

For example, take this little girl named Rachel. She's in kindergarten. This picture is from the first week of painting. She told me "Miss M, I'm an artist. You know how you can tell, see how I paint the corners! I could paint all day. I could paint for a whole hour!" She was so excited to be painting!

I also got a kick out of William's painting. At the beginning of class, I explained to the kindergarteners what they need to be ready to paint. I compared it to a place setting for a Western meal. We looked at a drawing on the board of a plate, cup, napkin, knife, fork, and spoon. We mentioned how we would need different things to eat Chinese, like chopsticks. All those things make us ready to eat our food.

Next to the place setting, I drew their painting set-up. We compared the picture to what they had at their seat. I explained each item--their paper, paintbrush, water cup, paint palette, and spongebob (I don't think I've explained spongebob yet...for another post). Then it was time to paint!

As I walked around the class, I realized William was inspired by my place setting picture. Check out his painting! And if you look above him to the white board, you can see my place setting on the left and painting set-up on the right!

Awesome Autumn Art

2008-11-21T20:26:00.021+08:00

When I started thinking about my elementary art curriculum, I decided I wanted to do eight types of art projects each year with my students. Structuring the program this way, I would expose the students to many types of art, and build on their knowledge each year. Ideally, we would do two types of art each marking quarter.

In the book The Art of Teaching Art to Children, the author has five or six categories. I started with this list, but adapted it to my leanings. My eight:

Drawing
Painting
Printmaking
Collage
Sculpture
Ceramics
Weaving/Fibers
Design (product design, graphic design, architecture)

I don't know how successful I will be at touching all eight categories in each grade. Check back in June for that update.

2nd grade recently finished a printmaking project. I took Intro to Printmaking in college for my multiples requirement. Unfortunately, we did mostly intaglio printmaking--etching, aquatint, etc. I did entirely intaglio projects. Metal, acid, large printing presses. Not exactly appropriate for 7 and 8 year olds.

Our professor did introduce collagraph as an optional technique. I never tried it, but my roommate was a big fan of collagraphs. My other small taste of collagraphs was a lesson I observed while student teaching in the UK. The teacher made collagraphs with his 11th graders.

I decided to do collagraphs with the 2nd graders. The Art of Teaching Art to Children gave me good ideas about how to adapt this process for young children.

I wasn't sure what I wanted the students to make collagraphs of...what was the subject? I just knew I wanted them to explore collagraphs as a type of printmaking.

I wrestled with the subject matter for a while. I hate arbitrarily deciding subject matter. I really want my art projects to be an extention of learning in the classroom. Why should I draw ocean creatures with 4th grade if 3rd grade does a science unit on the ocean? I tried to find out more about the 2nd grade curriculum. They were about to start a science unit on solids, liquids, and gasses. I couldn't figure out how to tie that into collagraphs. The social studies unit--autumn and thanksgiving.

I wasn't very inspired. Eventually, it was the day to start the collagraphs and I still didn't have a subject matter for the project! Sometimes, all it takes is a little pressure. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier, but autumn leaves! We could make collagraphs of leaves. The students could look at different types of leaves and draw one large leaf on their matboard "plate." Then, using string, cardboard, window screening, and fabric, students could define their leaf.

If I could do the lesson again, I would get real leaves for them to draw. Not having any trees that actually belong to me, I was nervous to begin snatching leaves from trees around China. In China, even without posted signs, everyone knows not to walk on the grass. Grass is for looking at, not walking or sitting on. I wasn't sure about the philosophy towards trees and their leaves, but I didn't want to test it. Even the trees on our school campus weren't up for picking. We rent our space from another school, and I think the tree leaves are probably not part of the rental agreement.

Instead of real leaves, I printed out photos of leaves from the internet. Students drew their leaf and started the collagraph fun! I suggested they use string to define the outside of leaf and the veins. Another material would be perfect for filling the background.

Some students picked up on defining shape through textures (or lack thereof). Other students could not think through the process and wanted to use green materials for their leaf.

After two classes, the plates were a collage of materials! My TA used some type of furniture varnish to seal the plates.

The printing day arrived! We didn't have printing ink, so I decided to mix up tempera paint in four autumn hues: deep red, rusty orange, mustard yellow, and brown.

I didn't test my plate first, but went right into the demonstration in front of the students. Ooops! Turns out brayers and tempera paint are a BAD combination.

Change of plans. We used wide paintbrushes to apply the paint to our plates.

I told the students to write their name on the lower right corner of their paper. They were also to number the print. One of the special things about printmaking, I explained, was once you have a plate, you can print it over and over and over and over and over again!

They were to leave their paper at their table, take their plate to the "inking" table, paint on one hue, take their plate back to their table, place it face up and put the paper down on top. We found it worked better to press the paper into the plate, rubbing our fingers all over the paper to press it into the plate, then trying to stamp the plate down onto paper.

The results were certainly mixed!

Here's one print that turned out great! I let the students switch their paint color, so this student has a little left over yellow mixing into his red print. I think it looks all the more charming for the yellow.

The first day of printing was just before parent/teacher conferences. I took some of the prints from each student and put them up on a bulletin board in the elementary building. Here's a shot of three different prints. The middle print is from the same plate as above. The other two prints are also quite successful for 7 and 8 year olds!

I decided to do a second class of printing. This class started with a mini-critique of the single-hue prints. We looked at some examples of prints and discussed which leaves were easy to see and which leaves were hidden. Looking at the plates, we talked about why certain plates hid their leaves, and other made them easy to see. We then talked about what we could do to make all the leaves more visible. Since we weren't going to change the plates, I suggested we use two different colors of paint--one for the leaf and one for the background!

Interestingly, many of the plates that did well with the single-hue prints seemed less successful in two colors. The leaves were so visible in the first set of printing because of the use of positive and negative space. Most often, the leaves were white with printed vein lines. The other plates, though, had printed textures inside and outside the leaf, so everything just printed in the one color.

Now, using two colors, the first set of successful plates didn't look any better. If anything, the second color distracted from the positive/negative space. On the other hand, the plates without negative space really benefited from the second color. Everything still printed as positive space, but inside the leaf was one color, and outside another. Here's two examples of these prints.

Here's the bulletin board. I'll need to change it soon since Autumn Art doesn't seem appropriate for December!

I think for an experimental project, the results were great!

Afterschool Art Takes the Cake!

2008-11-05T17:54:00.002+08:00

One fun thing about my job is afterschool art. Students sign up to stay afterschool for one hour and participate in different activities. In September and October, the session was five weeks long. A whooping 24 first, second, and third graders signed up for Monday afternoons. It was a nice treat that only 8 fourth and fifth graders signed up for Wednesdays.

For this session, I decided to do an exploratory art theme. On the first day, I told the 4th and 5th graders we would be studying verbs. The confusion was beautiful.

Was this afterschool English class?

I asked them to list verbs for making art: draw, paint, collage, print, sculpt... I explained that each week we would be exploring a different verb from this list of five.

For drawing, we did mixed media work combining colored pencils, oil pastels, crayons, markers, and other drawing media.
For painting, we learned various watercolor techniques.
For collage, they made representational and non-objective work.
For printmaking, we made styrofoam prints and monoprints.

Eventually, it was the sculpting week. I couldn't decided what material to use. Third grade made cardboard sculptures. That would be one possibility. Fifth grade was already in the middle of a wire sculpture project during their class time. Clay would be impossible.

Suddenly, it came to me. My principal told the 4th and 5th graders we could have ice cream on the last day if their artwork was A-quality. (They'd been asking about grades for afterschool art, and ice cream seems like a good grade!) Given the situation with dairy, it seemed like a great alternative would be CAKE SCULPTING!

Family Fun and Ace of Cakes became great resources. I made two round cakes, one square cake, and 6 cupcakes. I also bought two cans of white icing, Skittles, M&M's, and Fruit by the Foot in various colors.

Once again, I used the "catch them off guard" motivation tactic. I don't know the official name, but I'm sure Julia taught it to us in Early Field. I told the class we all needed to sit at one table. I asked them what types of materials are used to make sculpture. Clay, stone, metal, wire, cardboard. They listed some main ones. We wouldn't be using any of those materials. We were using something new, and before we made our sculpture, we needed to research this kind of sculpture on the Internet. At this point in time, I played some Ace of Cakes videos from FoodNetwork.com. You should have seen their faces...a lot of confusion, for one. An American girl whispered under her breath "wait, we're using cake?" For other kids, it didn't click until I carried the cakes into the art room. Yes, we were using cake!

On Ace of Cakes, they talk about using standard round and square pans, then cutting and carving into the shapes. At this point in time, we looked at some cake designs from Family Fun. I printed out instructions that consisted of cutting cakes into different sections and reassembling with icing to create pencils, panda bears, and more. Before we decided on a design, we cast our collective vote in a web poll for the best cakes on the Family Fun website. There were some inspiring designs!

Someone offered a palm tree for our design. I liked the idea. It seemed mildly challenging, but doable. The square cake would make a great tree trunk. The round cakes could be cut into palm fronds. Lastly, the cupcakes would make cute little coconuts!

We began cutting. The kids were quite hesitant, but I reassured them we could always "glue" pieces back together with icing. I scored guidelines for the cuts onto the cakes and let different students hack away (using butter knifes)! We also trimmed the cupcakes to make them more spherical.

The next step was a base coat of icing! Still, the kids were a little too delicate. It was getting mighty close to 4:00, time to go home! I found the best method to expedite the process was to slop a huge glob of icing in a section and let the kids spread it around. Each student took turns icing the tree. For time's sake, we decided the sides didn't need icing.

We had a little extra cake from the round pans and decided to make some sand for the tree. Of course, all the small trimmings had already been consumed by the crew, but these were large chunks!

After the base coat, the decorations kicked into gear! It was an all-out mad house as they quickly covered the fronds with anything green, the trunk with brown and purple items, and the sand with yellow and orange. We decided to leave the chocolate cupcake au natural because of their brown color.

Thankfully, we didn't need blue or red items. Those candies made for extra snack!

Eventually, it was time to cut the cake! We barely had enough time to give each kid some cake and send them to the bus with their treat.

Between the nibbles of cake and candy during the sculpting, and the LARGE portions of cake they took on the bus, I'm pretty sure none of the kids wanted dinner that night!

The next morning, as one fifth grade class came to art, they said "did they really decorate a cake yesterday in afterschool art?" It was true, and a few stray bits of icing and cake crumbs around the room confirmed it!

Here's the whole crew with our Palm Tree cake sculpture!

So yummy, Christopher is licking his fingers in the picture!

Why I Love 3rd Grade

2008-11-02T16:35:00.008+08:00

Third grade is the only grade I have yet to write about. Funny, because I love the classes. I have two third grade classes and one ESL class that is a mix of second and third. I've been doing third grade projects with them.

Our second project for the year was a sculpture piece. We spent a lot of time discussing the difference between 2D and 3D things. Alexander Calder was the artist inspiration. We looked at his stabiles and mobiles. You'd be surprised--even with 85% ESL students at our school, many of the kids were familiar with baby mobiles above cribs!

Calder took flat sheets of metal and combined them to create 3D sculptures. Obviously, we couldn't work in sheet metal. Instead, corrugated cardboard was the building material.

The project took three class periods. The first was construction. The second was construction and base coats of paint. The third was details with paint.

The idea for the project came from a project my co-op taught during my early field experience. She had more constraints on the assignment. I just let the kids go for it! Some went abstract. Others went for representation. The goals for all students were stability and utilization of space.

One impressive sculpture was Levarage by Agnes. First of all, the title! She's an ESL student. I'm not sure where she came up with the word "leverage." Second, she went for the open house feel. Some students were hesitant, but she jumped in. Right away, she cut her cardboard into these long strips. She then began assembling them, carefully balancing the beams to create her house.

Another fun sculpture from ESL: Christmas Tree Korea! Fred made this Christmas tree. For some reason, instead of a star or an angel at the top, it has the flag of South Korea. Our school is almost 70% Korean. It's amazing where this flag shows up in art class. His tree is also partially orange. I'm not sure what that's about...apparently Asia doesn't limit Christmas to red and green.

As the weeks went on, I thought "what am I going to do with all these sculptures?" Thankfully, I had counterspace to store them while in process. At the end of the project, I asked the librarian if we could use the top of the bookcases to display our work. She obliged, and we had instant exhibition space!

The kids titled their work and labeled small cards to place next to their work.

Transporting the sculptures down two flights of stairs and up two more, from the Fine Arts building to the Elementary building, was quite a feat! Some sculptures were in need of repair by the time we reached the library.

Overall, I think it was a success!

Here are the sculptures in the library:

Our next third grade project involved drawing from observation. Once again, these kids blew me away!

I borrowed a bike from a staff member. I rearranged the room so all the tables were around the perimeter of the room except for the middle table, which held the bike. (Note to self: this was a pain! The three classes meet on three different days! Lots of rearranging of tables and lifting of the bike...)

I told the students this was a challenge. Drawing a bike is a HARD THING. I had to draw a bike in high school. They were only in third grade! Where do you even start?

Here's where I pulled out some Mona Brooks. I decided to forgo the "circle" and "dot" families (confusing for ESL students, since we're not talking about circles as defined in geometry). Instead, we focused on straight lines, angled lines, and curved lines. With each type of line, we found examples on the bike. We also did some interesting body movements. Too bad I can't effectively demonstrate those on the blog. Here's my attempt:

        Straight line: simple, arms out straight to the sides, parallel to the floor.
        Angled line: a little "robot" or "walk like an egyptian" action here. bend at all the joints.
        Curved line: ballerina bends here, trying to make your arms as curved as possible.

I tried to stress drawing what you see, not what you know. We looked at the bike from different angles. Sometimes, the wheels don't look like two big circles. Sometimes they look like rectangles. This was a challenge for some students. Some sat staring at the bike head-on, but drew the bike in profile. I told them what a lovely drawing they did, but that's what the bike looks like from the side. They should do another drawing to show me what the bike looks like from the front. We talked about squished circles, too, when the wheels were at an angle.

We began drawing with standard drawing pencils. Most of the class supply are HB. Some of the third graders had already discovered 2B and 6B among the bunch, and learned the difference. Still, basic graphite drawings. I told them to pick one part of the bike, draw it, then use lines to draw the part that connects to that, and then use lines to draw the part that connects to that, and then use lines to draw the part that connects to that.

When the kids told me they couldn't draw something, I asked them "what kind of lines do you see?" Once they told me, I said "Ok draw it."

Some students barely finished one drawing. Others did two or three. When they were finished, they moved to a new part of the room to draw the bike from a new angle.

The next week, I pulled out the ebony pencils. The richness of the line made for some interesting drawings. I stressed using the pencils in different ways--sometimes pressing lightly, sometimes pressing hard. Sometimes doing lines, sometimes filling in the shapes. Some of these drawings were gorgeous! They had the perspective down a little better, and the variety of tones were so interesting!

Below is a drawing from that week. This student, Paul, draws such energetic scenes from his imagination. His understanding of perspective and line quality shocked me! To be so imaginative and also able to draw from observation beautifully! The front handlebars of the bike are rotated to the left, so the front wheel was angled, and thus a "squished circle."

When I look through all the drawings of the bike in his sketchbook, he just gets it. He sees it and he can tell me what he sees using the pencil! I can't believe a third grader did that drawing!

The third class period was colored pencils. We talked about naturalistic and expressive use of colors (without those terms).

At the end of each class period, each student picked their best drawing for the day. We gathered together and looked at all the best drawings. Sometimes we said two positive things about each work. Other times, we looked at drawings that effectively used value or color and discussed how they did that.

The fourth week started by looking through the sketchbooks. Each student picked their best drawing. Using that as a guide, they found the spot in the room where they could draw the same view of the bike. Each student got a larger piece of nice drawing paper (compared to the A4 copy paper of their sketchbooks). They did a similiar drawing, using the previous drawing as their guide. All class period was spent on this one drawing. As a final piece, these drawings were displayed around school.

Another reason why I love third grade: I stopped by a staff member's house last Friday. His son is in third grade. The son came up to me and said "I've been drawing my bike." See, in China, we keep bikes in our apartments. His is in his living room, and his mom confirmed that he's been drawing it on a regular basis!

Painting!

2008-09-10T19:44:00.000+08:00

This morning, my principal asked about my work load.

Is is too much? You're teaching PreK-5th grade.

I found the question quite timely. Just last night, I told my mom that I'll never be able to teach in the States.

What are you trying to tell me? she asked.

I reassured her that these almost two months had not turned me into a life-er, as they're called. For now, I'm here, and since I'm here, my energy is focused on here. Decisions about my life after June 2010 will come later.

But this is what I was saying...

I am SO SPOILED (or spoilt, as the Brits would spell it).

Let me reiterate, if you don't remember, my "full load" involves teaching 13 classes a week. Those 13 classes, each has a class size of 7-15 students! On top of all of this, Mrs. Greene and I work with the art teaching assistant, a local Chinese woman who has been at the school for 4 years. She is in the classroom for most of my classes, providing another set of adult hands, along with helping purchase and prep materials.

Yesterday, I painted with 9 first grade students during the last period of the day. We had about 15 minutes between classes. It was just enough time for me and Mrs. Yang to set up 9 painting stations, fully equiped with water, paper towels, two paintbrushes, a 15x20 sheet of paper, and a palette with red, yellow, blue, and white paint.

Side note: My students were so excited to paint this week that one student brought paintbrushes from home! Waiting to come into the room in the hallway outside the classroom, another student commented "but she only has 7 paintbrushes!" I assured him that I had paintbrushes too, and every student would get a paintbrush, even if she didn't have enough for everyone in class...

At the end of class, I took the students to the bathroom next to my classroom to wash hands. (My classroom sink isn't classroom friendly.) When I came back to the classroom, clean-up was well underway.

Paintings were on the drying rack.
Tables were wiped down.
Water buckets were rinsed out and drying.
Palettes and brushes were collected, and she was cleaning them all in the classroom sink.

At the end of the day, I painted with an entire class of 1st graders, all class period, and did not wash out a SINGLE paintbrush.

Painting is typically a labourous undertaking for an art teacher.

It's quite easy at my school. Mrs. Yang and I, we have it covered.

I am so thankful, and my students will truly reap the rewards. They LOVE painting!

Today, I painted with 7 PreK students. It was the second week in a row of painting for them. You should see the learning! Given limited paint options (teacher-planned, of course), they make such discoveries...

Last week, each student had one cup of paint---the color of the table where they sit. Then, they worked with a friend from another table with a different primary color. I moved their seats around so we had one red-yellow pairing, one yellow-blue pairing, and one blue-red pairing. (One student was absent, so we had six students exactly.) Each group had one long sheet of paper. They took turns making dots on the paper in a line. As their classroom teacher told me, they were working on basic sequencing. Every other made a nice alternating pattern along the paper.

Next, I gave each pair a palette. Each person was supposed to put some of their color on the palette, then MIX IT TOGETHER!

Nevermind the fact that their classroom teacher had already taught them about green, orange, and purple. They even predicted what color would happen when each combination was mixed, still, actually mixing the colors on their palette...

IT WAS MAGIC.

You should have been there. There's no way to put into words the excitement of a four year old when they first mix together blue and yellow and see that it really does make green!

They were blown away. For the remainder of the class, each student painted their own 15x20 sheet of paper using their color and the color of their friend. We had trains, flowers, faces, birds, and a student who just covered the entire surface, systematically, from corner to corner, with yellow-orange paint. The great thing is, the large sized paintbrushes combined with their developing fine motor skills meant that most of the objects just looked like blobs of paint! But they were trains and flowers, faces and birds.

This week, I wanted to build on those experiences. I knew their teacher recently introduced them to the color white. This would allow for new mixing opportunities...

When the students came into class, their places were all ready except for paintbrushes. This was my attempt to stop them from painting until I gave my intro.

It didn't work. Two students just put their hands directly into the palette of white paint.

After brief encounters with paper towels, we were ready to get started.

What color is your paint today. White! And what color is your paper? White! Oh no. How is that going to work? White paint on white paper? What should we do? We need another color! Good idea! Everyone can pick ONE color to add to their palette.

Last week, we mixed colors with our friends. What will happen if we mix our color and white?

No one knew, so we needed to try it!

Another amazing moment, as students around the room found light blue, light yellow, and pink. Gasps, literally gasps, and huge smiles.

So adding white makes a color lighter...

And pink, as I explained, is a special name we use to talk about light red.

My intention was to have them paint with those two colors---white and the color they chose. One student requested another color. I decided two primaries and white would be fine. There's no chance of all-brown paintings with just two primaries.

I let each student pick a second primary color. The color mixing that ensued was so fun! Look for some PreK paintings to be posted in the future...

I was thinking tonight, at this point in time, seven years ago, I wanted to be a preschool teacher. I was just starting high school and wasn't serious about art. I didn't sign up for Art 1, only the ceramics elective.

I still love teaching PreK. I am so glad their class got added to my workload. But I love the other grades too. Surprisingly, I even loved my high schoolers at Fleetwood and my middleschool and highschoolers at Stoke Damerel. I hope to have more interaction with secondary students at our school as time goes on and the program develops.

I love kids of all ages, and I love teaching. But teaching art is definitely a blast! I wouldn't want to trade it for any other subject...just look at the faces of my first graders as they line up outside of the art room, eager to come in and start painting!

I see the other first grade class tomorrow afternoon. I can't wait to see their excitement!

One Full Week!

2008-08-31T18:19:00.000+08:00

This week was the first FULL WEEK with students.

Five student days.

I'd like to say it was nothing, didn't wear me out or anything.

In all honesty, I was so excited for Friday to finally come! And then, just in time for the weekend, some sort of bug knocked me out COMPLETELY on Saturday. All day Saturday...I'll spare you the details.

Thankfully, I started feeling better this morning, so I had all day to sleep, start to eat, and regain my strength for ANOTHER FIVE DAY WEEK! But I did miss having a weekend, where I could do things for myself...

Check out the picture below! I came in last Monday to find a BRAND NEW CEILING AND LIGHTING in my art room. I was told that they would be putting in new lights, but I didn't realize the lights and drop ceiling would come at the same time. I don't have much of an opinion about the ceiling. It looks nice, and that extra 2 or 3 feet would never have been used. This is supposed to help with heating and cooling costs, and now I have better lighting!

Probably the biggest news for this week is that I'm teaching the Pre-K class! Once a week, for 30 minutes. It's a small little class of 7 students. One girl cried hysterically about coming to art class. Thankfully, one of the classroom teachers stayed and sat with her. About 5 or 10 minutes into class, she finally stopped crying.

It's a fun class, especially since I have four of my colleagues' children as students. Two of the boys' dads work in the secondary building. One little girl's dad is a music teacher and the head of fine arts. And another little boy, his dad is my principal, the principal of the elementary school.

Pre-K was learning about colors in their class. We practiced our cutting skills by playing "HIDE AND SEEK" and finding the colors that were hiding in magazines.

The yellow table cut out yellow items.
The red table cut out red items.
The blue table cut out blue items.

Then a teacher helped each table glue their bits onto construction paper. The classroom teacher that stayed helped the yellow table, my TA helped the red table, and I helped the blue table.

My principal's son was sitting at the blue table. At one point in time, I thought he said "I like you." Then I realized, he was probably saying "I like blue" since he was sitting at the blue table and cutting out blue items. A few minutes later, I was helping him cut out some more items. This time, it was clear as day. "I like you." Yes, this little four year old boy likes me.

He also likes my scissors. They spring open to help young children with their fine motor skills...

He saw me two days later, on Friday, pointed at me and told the person he was with "I like her."

Here are the finished Olympic bulletin boards---designed and created by the 5th grade classes.

I'm so impressed.

Nearly everything is their own creation. I stapled the items on the board, with their direction. I also created the flag of South Africa on the first bulletin board. (It's fairly complicated, and the students were struggling, but since our secondary principal is from South Africa, I thought I'd help them out!)

I love the way the first bulletin board combined the Olympic rings and the word "Olympics." Genius.

And check out the finished torches on the second bulletin board...those torches are the result of rulers, protractors, "paper and pencil" math calculations, mental math, and research at home! (One boy from the group printed out color images of the torches at home and brought them in for the second class so they could get all the details perfect.)

Lastly, some finished hand designs from the 2nd graders and the 2nd/3rd grade ESL class.

This girl really impressed me. The front of her book is beautiful. She finished early, so she began designing the back. I didn't ask the students to think about the arrangement of hands on the front cover, but merely to overlap the hands to cover the entire page. She took this to the next level when she designed her back cover. It's things like this back cover that make you smile and realize your students are learning, applying their understanding independently, taking risks, and finding success!

I read this passage in The Art of Teaching Art to Children on Friday night:

Sometimes the art room gets really quiet. It's the tip-0ff that the kids are deeply involved. I haven't asked the children to be quiet. They are simply expressing their involvement in the work by a high level of intensity, combined with a deep focus. They are immersed in the art materials and in themselves.

I started tearing up. Already, there have been many quiet classes in the art room. I love to facilitate this type of involvement in art, in the process of creation!

Sometime, I need to write about 3rd grade. They're awesome! The discussions we have about art, their increasing drawing skills, and the crazy portraits they're drawing of their classmates...it's a great time!

An Infestation of Ladybugs!

2008-08-21T22:17:00.000+08:00

Today I made my first mistake as a teacher.

Okay, it probably wasn't my first mistake, but it is noteworthy.

I was teaching the other batch of first graders, so I was doing the same lesson on favorite colors (see first day post). Here was the mistake: The students had already selected the crayon that was their favorite color, but I didn't pay attention to the colors they had selected. Instead, I randomly chose red as my example. I explained that ladybugs are red, but to draw a ladybug, you would also need to use the black crayon. Then I drew a simple picture of a ladybug on the whiteboard.

Last week, I deliberately chose a color that NO STUDENTS had picked. This week, I didn't notice that two of the nine children had picked red.

Guess how many ladybug pictures I ended up with?

Not two. Twice that many. FOUR.

Yes, even though only two children choose red as their favorite color, two others managed to work a ladybug into their picture. Beach scenes with ladybugs, flowers with ladybugs. It almost didn't matter what you drew, you could add a ladybug to your picture and make it better!

It is quite flattering to have so many students follow your example, but five ladybugs doesn't contribute to the goal of developing independent thinkers. Maybe we can work on that next week...

Pictures of My Classroom!

2008-08-16T14:08:00.002+08:00

Sorry the picture is a little bit blurry. It's a good overview of my classroom, though. There are three tables, each with six stools (red table, closest to the camera, yellow, to the left, and blue, closest to the door and easel).

There's also a supply table/teacher's desk in the corner behind the door. It's not really my desk, because my desk is in the fine arts office, right across the hall. You can see the blue sign for the office through my classroom door. My name is on the blue sign, along with the other art and music teachers.

Behind the supply desk, the words next to "ART" are the character traits for the year.

I have lots of bins of supplies, labeled with post-it notes (by the previous teacher). Working on the organization of supplies is a long term goal, especially as we purchase more supplies.

All the paintings above the shelving are from the secondary classes last year. They will probably come down and get moved to the new secondary art classroom.

(Last year was the first year at this campus, and all the art classes for both teachers were taught in this room. The secondary classroom is a work in progress, but functioning this school year. Slowly, this classroom is transforming into an elementary space as Mrs. Greene's classroom gets set up.)

Here's the front of the room. Below is a detail of the displays I made during the staff days before school started. The "Flavorful Folds" display was Miss Emily's idea! There should be a similar display in an elementary art classroom in Pennsylvania.

Beyond the traditional hot dog and hamburger folds, Miss Emily introduced me to the taco fold (square paper folded diagonally), the burrito fold (folded in thirds), and the kite fold, a variation of the taco which I decided to call the ice cream fold (keeping with the food theme).

I also spelled my name for the students, though I'm certain most will call me "Miss M."

The "Awesome Artists" wording of the rules was also Miss Emily's idea, though I'm not certain of her specifics for how to be an awesome artist. Mine are:

Awesome Artists are excited about ART
Awesome Artists do their best job
Awesome Artists treat others kindly
Awesome Artists take care of supplies
Awesome Artists follow the teacher's directions

Of course, since many of my students come from homes where English is not the primary language, I realized I needed to make sure my international students knew the word "awesome." The subtle difference when you teach at an international school...

Below is a detail of my construction paper shelves.

I love the colors!

Here are the "in-progress" sketchbook covers of the prize-winning second graders (a class of only five students, for now). They were captivated by this project! Then again, what student doesn't love tracing their hand...

This student's cover is almost finished. I think it will be stunning when he finishes the small shapes from where all his fingers overlap in the middle of the page.

The First Day of School!

2008-08-14T21:53:00.000+08:00

Today was the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

Well, sort of...It was the first day I taught in my first classroom at my first teaching job in my first school! Yesterday (13 August 2008) was the actual first student day, but it was a half day, and the elementary students did not go to specials. Today started specials, which meant ELEMENTARY ART!

That's right, folks, after months (literally) of uncertainty, I am teaching kindergarten through 5th grade art classes.

Mrs. Greene, the other art teacher, is teaching all of the secondary courses. (Sidenote: Very unfair that her last name is a color and my last name is Melachrinos!)

The classes come once a week, 50 minutes for 2nd-5th grade and 35 minutes for kindergarten and 1st grade. With one kindergarten class, two of all the other grades, and one ESL class, I teach 12 classes a week. Yes, that is all, and it is full time. And Mrs. Greene and I share a teacher's assistant.

My job is nice.

Today, in addition to being my first day, was my "long" day. I taught four classes. Here's the run down:

5th grade--designing and working as a class to create an Olympic-themed bulletin board outside the art classroom.

4th grade--a discussion of the Fuwa (Olympic mascots) and their symbolism, followed by sketching their favorite Fuwa.

2nd grade--working on the cover of their sketchbooks. On the red cover paper, they traced their hands six times, overlapping to create lots of shapes. Each shape was outlines and filled in with crayon, covering the entire front cover.

1st grade--drawing an object using their favorite color crayon and sharing the pictures with the class. (Lesson idea complements of Miss Emily)

Some things worth mentioning, by class:

5th--the table drawing the Olympic torch debated the conical shape of the Beijing torch design. Also, they asked for a ruler, protractor, and calculator to create their exact replica twin torches for the bulletin board.

4th--clearly, there are favorite Fuwa. Of the 14 students, all chose Jingjing (Black Panda) or Huanhuan (Red Flame). No one chose Beibei (Blue Fish), Yingying (Yellow Antelope), or Nini (Green Swallow).

1st--it's one thing to know that girls mature faster than boys. It's another thing to witness is first hand in your classroom. Night and day. 1st grade provided the first discipline problem. One boy refused to color a picture. Apparently he was having a bad day right before art class.

And lastly, 2nd--they get the prize! When I was demonstrating the steps of the sketchbook covers, at the end, I showed a partially-finished examples. The class erupted in a collective gasp! Definitely the best reaction I've ever received for my artwork! And they worked so well on their own projects, quietly. You could have heard a pin drop! It was making me so uncomfortable, I tried to engage the students in conversation. They were too involved in their artwork...

I'm sure people would love to see pictures of my room. They are coming! The room is still a work in progress, but I'm quite pleased with my little home. Little being key, but with a max class size of 18, and an average class size of 12, it works!

One class tomorrow, 3rd grade!