Family Portraits

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!

The Mud Pies are Painted!

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.

That Mud Stuff?

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.

School Supply Drawings

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!

(masterpieces) Weaving

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) Autumn Tree

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!

Merry Christmas!

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!

Awesome Autumn Art

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!

One Full Week!

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!