Let the planning commence!!!

My Erin Condren Teacher Planner arrived in yesterday's mail!!!! WOOO!!!!! Decided to do a video for the unboxing so you can see what I selected for my own customized Teacher Planner. 

If YOU are interested in getting an Erin Condren Teacher Planner. I have some coupon codes that will save you $10 - that's about the cost of domestic shipping (that I got and is the cheapest option) + a few more bucks savings. Two of them are general use and one is a teacher coupon code that expires. Please see below for codes...

:: Coupon Codes for $10 off ::

Automated referral code so I can get product credits https://www.erincondren.com/referral/invite/andreaellwood0211-7505 

Teacher Coupon code, expires midnight PST on 10/15/2014 =>TLP1014TXG9EJWUL 

First Time ordering code, no expiration date =>WELCOME10

[If you want to read the rest of my review that would have been included in my video, click through to get through the break! Thanks!]

A mini walking tour of the Digital Art Studio Lab Classroom

I always showcase things of the studio art classroom but rarely do you see anything of the digital art studio classroom/lab other than finished artwork on occasion. So, here is a mini walking tour of that classroom.

The two courses that I teach in the digital art studio computer lab classroom are Graphic Design (which utilizes Photoshop) and Digital Studio (which uses Illustrator). Despite what the names of the courses imply or suggest, the Graphic Design is basically Digital Art I and Digital Studio is Digital Art II. One of my goals for this year is to change that within the course catalog so it makes a little bit more sense and there is better clarity with regard to how the two classes are connected.

Something else that you might have noted from the video is that I use a classroom management tool that is something I found from Pinterest. It's an "am I done" sort of check-list and I have it printed in color and laminated and then tacked in strategically decided upon places all around the classroom. The art teacher who originally designed it deserves so much credit for it and MORE because it is beautifully designed and created and BRILLIANT for the purposes of answering the question that the students always have of, "Am I done (yet)?" If you are interested in it, I wish I had the direct link to it but I cannot find it but the blog is HERE and it's called "The Lost Sock."

The All-You-Can-Color Bar :: Student-centered Art Education

Don't forget to enter the "Giving YOU the good stuff" (from Prang) fine-line marker giveaway by this coming Thursday, October 31st, at midnight HERE in the comments section. This isn't sponsored by Prang and is something that I just wanted to do because I like the Prang products so much after using them.

Remember: You don't have to tweet anything or follow me on any social networking conduits. 

Just answer the question in the blog posting HERE in the corresponding comments section and I will pick a winner randomly and announce it on Friday, November 1st! Good luck to you in winning it the prize!

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I teach all of the foundational level studio art courses at my school and I also serve as the department head of the visual arts and in my time leading to me taking the leadership role I now have, I have found that the best way to facilitate the foundational level art courses is by allowing them to be exploratory in nature.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard the student artists that come through my class ask things like, "Can I use *insert any color here*?" or (during a mixed media project) "Am I allowed to use *insert any dry medium here*?" While it might seem exasperating for me to field these questions, I actually don't get exasperated. More than anything, it breaks my heart to hear the student artists ask these things in their obviously timid ways.

I always start the year with a pre-assessment assignment that allows me to see how much they might already know/can do as well as gauge how confident (or not usually) they are starting out. My favorite type or pre-assessment is one that employs mixed-media approaches. This year I took some brilliant notes from a fellow art education blogger and made oversized foldables telling and and showing the elements of art. (I will be sharing these with you hopefully soon even though they are weeks overdue for this.) The endeavor worked out really well because it allowed me to preview some curriculum I would be instructing upon for this whole semester and it also allowed me to do one of my favorite things which was to set up a "color bar" for them to just dig right into.

The countdown (to the end of grad school) is ON!!!

Seriously, guys. I'm sorry I have been so absent so far this year. I am less than FIVE DAYS from completing my final two classes for graduate school and then I will have my MEd!!!!!! And these classes that I am in right now? They are the dooziest of doozies (of classes) that I have taken yet. But then what do I expect, right?

Thought I would share with you yet another Powtoons creation that I put together and submitted as a part of my capstone project for my Directed Practicum project. I was allowed to propose anything I wanted and so I decided to put together a "starter package" (for all intents and purposes) for a beginning secondary art education teacher. There are (4) components of it including the powtoon (see below) that took me a ridiculous amount of time to create. The other parts are a lesson planning template (the one that I am always hocking to you all that uses inquiry-based learning), an idea for studio art classroom design (if money were no object or anything - see pics below the powtoon created with Interior Design App on iPad) and a comprehensive list of suggested supplies (available upon request - just leave me a comment and let me know how to get it to you OR email me!)

Anyway, here's the powtoon that I call "State of the {ART} Education" (that's what I called my who project) and below are the images of the interior design for my "dream" art education classroom that go along with the notion of what I believe to be "State of the {ART] Education."

 



Here are some of the shots of the classroom design...

In my original presentation of the classroom design, there were "walking" views of each space shown in the aerial views of the total space. It was a LOT OF WORK but kind of fun and I really enjoyed how simple the interior design app was for iPad to use. It was very much "what you see is what you get" in its functionality and capability and also saved me quite a bit of moo-lah seeing as how it wasn't the hundreds of dollars that a CAD program like that would have been had it not been a (more expensive) app the way it is ($10.99 is what I think it was but it was worth every single penny).

Anyone, I am in the throes of my last (and most gauntlet-like) graduate assignment which is for me to write 18 weeks of curriculum. I have a lot of it done but that's not nearly enough because in addition to all that I still have left of that? I have a bunch of other items that need to also be attended to in order to wrap up both of my courses. I've come this far, right? When all is said and done I might start calling myself the "Little Engine that could." *wink*

See you next time when I have finished it all and I have (FINALLY) have my masters degree!!!

Creation from CREATION because we were created to create

Yesterday was the first day of 2D Design class OUTSIDE. You should have heard the joyous cheering from my student artists as they have been working toward this day for weeks now.

The foci of our latest creative endeavors (yes - there are way more than one) include but are not limited to the following:

• Learn how to draw and paint from observation
• Learn how to make marks with greater integrity and of a more "painterly" quality
• Get a feel for working with wet into wet mediums with oil pastels that will segue us into oil paint
• Learn how to create space within a work of art using an open palette of colors and their values
• Working alla prima type fashion
• Draw less of what we think something looks like (i.e. "lollipop" and broccoli trees) and more of what things really look like

Our set-up to work en plein air utilized the following materials:

Large drawing boards with Blick sulphite paper quickly and simply "stretched" with masking tape

 

Individual cups with single servings of one of each color from Crayola's Portfolio-brand Oil Pastels to give each student artist an open palette. Some students also opted to bring a fine-tip sharpie as well.

While the morning gave us plenty of rain, the afternoon provided just the right amount of overcast so it wasn't too sunny or hot to work out in our favorite spot surrounded by lots of interesting looking trees and a great view of the sky for attempts at both treescapes and cloudscapes.

This shot was heavily processed via instagram (my username is DreamPrayCreate, of course!) as the sky wasn't nearly so ominous looking as is pictured. Please pardon the artistic license I took.

And because I am doing my best to fight a horrible cold and flu bug sweeping through my school community and trying to overtake my household, I am barely making it through the day without indulging myself in the only vice that I think I might ever have: an ice cold can of Dr. Pepper bought at a heavily inflated price of $1 from the school store. The way I see it, at least I am supporting the school by indulging myself, right?

Also from my instagram feed. One of the alumnae that follows my instagram stream said the shadow cast makes me look like I am taking in an afternoon smoke or something. *facepalm* I AM NOT A SMOKER. I'm only a drinker of Dr. Pepper.

Anyway, I feel like all I do lately is apologize for not posting things that I said I would on this hear blogsite. Uhm... I have been sick. I have been completely souped up on Nyquil and covered in Vicks Vapo Rub. I have been working my way through TWO graduate school classes for my final month that will completely finish my Masters in Education. I have been doing what feels like eleventy billion other things that don't make sense to me but seem to suck up time that I didn't have in the first place. *shrug* I don't know what else to say other than all of this. *wink*

And I will not end this with another apology OR promise to be back here soon with things that I easily won't deliver.

Keepin' it real while I plan for the year

I have been up and at it since before 5am.

Well, hello there! And how are you today? Not sure what happened to me this morning but I actually woke up at 4:30 am, tried to go back to sleep for a bit and then gave up after about 15 minutes, and then submitted to waking up for the day and getting things started. And I have been up since then. I caved and took a 40 minute nap at around 3pm when I usually crash and require a "fix" of caffeine (in the form of Dr. Pepper is most preferred) in order to keep me in gear.

*sigh*

All things considered, I have actually gotten quite a bit done today. Here are some of the major bits...

Art Teacher Hack :: Managing Supplies in Classpacks

You ever have one of those moments when you are teaching/planning and something occurs to you along the lines of "Why don't you just do it like THIS?" and you do that very thing and all of a sudden you have a solid chunk of time that you never had before???!!!

I had one of those moments last week when I was trying to manage the classpack of Portfolio Series Oil Pastels that I both love and hate because they are a favorite and awesome media to work with. I mean, maybe it's me? But pretty much anything in classpacks is a real pain in my side to have to deal with. Are you the same way? Well, comrade-in-suffering-by-classpacked-supplies? OUR pains shall be no more!!!!

(Perhaps I am behind on this sort of classroom and classpack management technique but just humor me, OK?)

A typical Table Box and it's contents

My main system of dealing with everyday materials is to provide each of my students with Table Boxes. This is basically a plastic shoebox sized vessel that holds every day materials - pens, pencils, erasers, simple coloring materials, etc. I usually only pull out the Table Boxes at the beginning of a lesson when the students are drafting ideas and generally trying to figure out what they will do for their personal project endeavors. For what it's worth, it works well enough. However, it stops working so well when we get toward the midway of creative process when there are specialty materials that have to be drawn in. (This is where the whole business of classpacks comes into play...)

While I would love to assume that my students (who are high schoolers and mostly trustworthy I feel like) will be able to handle something like a nicely packaged and neatly organized classpack of beautiful Portfolio brand Water-soluble Oil Pastels, the keeping of such a thing just doesn't happen and I have learned enough at this point to not expect it to start happening. And why it doesn't happen and won't probably ever happen? I don't care what the reason is. The point is this: I just want a workable solution to end the issue of broken and/or disorganized classpacks of pastels (or pens or gluesticks or whatever) so that I don't have to have individual vessels for every little portion of every type of supply I might want to use.

So, I got to thinking: Wouldn't it be nice if I just had an individual tray for each table where I could portion things out almost catering-style? And I got all forlorn because I didn't have any trays until I realized that I DO because I could use the LIDS off of the Table Boxes that are already numbered (and the students are "trained" to use) to begin with!!!!

Oh My LANTA! What a gorgeous site and amazing solution this works out to be!!! I will never go back again!!!!

Something even better about this solution? It makes it REALLY easy to prep portions ahead of time and once they are prepped? They take barely any space to store until they will be used (see stack below). 

Prepped, trays stacked NEATLY and ready for distribution for the next follow-along demo in 2D Design

After they are used? I have the students take a moment to reorganize their portions on the lid trays putting them in spectrum order so when I collect the trays and then have to put back the colors in their respective compartments in the original classpack box that is NOT damaged in any way, it's completely easy-peasy for me. A bonus is that them learning to group and order their materials teaches them a little bit about the color spectrum and relationships within it as well!

And there you have it! My quarterly revelation (Seriously. How slow am I about this stuff sometimes?) of how to better manage both materials and my students during class activities. Let's not dwell on the fact that I might have told you something you already know and just virtually high-five me that I finally am a little more "with it." *wink*

Co-Teaching Art Education with Youtube :: How to Paint Realistic Trees

One of my favorite things to do with my projector set-up is to use it to present e-book pages, student work, masterworks, etc. on the white board instead of the projector screen. Why? Because then I can write and draw things on top of and/or around the image in order to better tell and show the students different things that they need to remember for their work. This teaching methodology works just as well for Youtube videos, too!

You can see some of the labels I drew in order to help the students focus on key points for their tree paintings.

In addition to the labeling, I also wrote a bulleted list (not pictured) for the students that included items like, "Don't forget that the silhouette of a tree's foliage is ORGANIC in shape - not perfectly round and lollipop-like." I also made a connection with their prior knowledge from Science studies and said that the shapes of their tree foliage should be almost amoeba shaped and the trunks with their extending branches should be almost arteries with their vein systems. I LOVE drawing connections from visual art studies to core content areas!!!

Here is the Youtube selection I used for the "co-teacher" this time...

And here are the before and after works of the students' trees! This time I had them each quickly draw what they thought trees looked like and, as expected, there was lots of "lollipop" stylings initially. Luckily, they learned a lot and quickly too about how to go about doing a more realistic and painterly visual depiction of a tree! The improvement from most all of their befores to their afters is astounding in some cases and even the most advanced students learned how to improve their technique!

In this example, the before is very broccoli like with the trunk being stalk like and everything! 

This student took it upon themselves to attempt a second tree (in the after) and was able to achieve great results  too.

What an improvement from before to after, eh? I think this one was very successful with the value and color work too.

Actually a very advanced student's work but even the before is very broccoli like. 

Much improved since the after doesn't have the exposed roots - though I get what they were going for.

I feel like some of the hardest (but most requested by them) techniques to teach are things like drawing/painting clouds and trees. Both are very similar in how you do them - and the students are slowly making that connection - but this repetitive exercise between what I shared yesterday and then today really help them to see that what looks so hard actually isn't that hard. Also, they are learning to see simpler shapes and masses within larger and more familiar forms (like trees and clouds) in order to better create them in their individual works.

The next step I took them to after this one with the trees (and yesterday's with the clouds) is to have them create a realistic sky with clouds. So, basically I am taking yesterday's work and having them apply it to today's so that they have a finished work of art. I am also going to encourage them to look up other tutorials like ones for waves or mountains in order for them to better understand how to combine different techniques to achieve a more realistic and refined landscape piece for the place of grace project that they are about to launch into.

One of the biggest woes that I heard the last time I did place of grace last semester was students who had issues doing the simple things like clouds and things. After doing these brief exercises with Youtube the way I have, I predict that the students will turn out even stronger work than last semester just because they will be more confident and will have a decent amount more working understanding and real experience to apply to their individual works.

And one last reason why teaching using Youtube as your co-teacher? If you have students who are out of class for any number of reasons, you can simply direct them to your collective of linked videos and they don't have to be totally behind because they missed in-class demos!

Co-Teaching Art Education with Youtube :: Teaching how to paint realistic clouds

How do you feel about co-teaching methodology? Is it something you use at all? Do you like it? Love it? Or could you honestly just leave it?

I teach at a private high school currently but I used to teach core subject (Reading and then Social Studies) in a public middle school. While I don't have a requirement to use the co-teaching model anymore - both because of where and what I teach - I, honestly, miss it. Whether in a special education setting or not, I feel like it's an effective way to teach students especially for certain things. Now, visual art education is not something that would typically have co-teaching even in the public school because it's usually restricted to special education settings for core subjects alone. However, that doesn't stop me from trying to bring it into my visual art education classroom. Sometimes an extra set of hands in the classroom for the sole purpose of doing "hand over hand" type guiding would be awesome and it occurred to me that I could make it happen with the extra set of hands being my own!

Perhaps I am behind the game on this but I am discovering that Youtube is a wonderfully useful instructional tool to use in the art classroom specifically for the following reasons:

• You can start and stop it or replay portions of it as often as needed
• In real time demos, sometimes you can't redo certain steps but maybe one time for the students to see again so it can feel like you are using unnecessary amounts of materials. 
• When you are doing real-time demos you also can't see the students doing things alongside you as easily because you are the one in the front of the class. 
• If the students end up really going in the wrong direction while following you (in a real-time demo), they keep going that way (and using unnecessary amounts of materials, in turn) until it's too late to stop them. Of course, you can use their misstep as a teachable moment like anything else but? Well... I don't have an exorbitant amount of materials to use like this - do you?
• Youtube or streamed video almost always yields a captive audience for this age-group. Even if the video is bad? Well, it's that much more compelling for them to watch from beginning to end.

First off, picking the right Youtube video is key. I have about 53 minutes of instructional time but even with that much time, I have to consider getting the students set up with their materials and then the stopping and starting and replaying of the video that will inevitably happen. Through trial and error I have discovered that five minutes running time is about the most ideal. Below is a video that runs slightly longer than that but not so much that you can't make up the time with just fast forwarding through it. 

Here are some samples of what was turned out! Bear in mind that many of these student artists have incredibly limited experience in the studio arts. The 2D Design class is a foundational course which means many of them have never taken a high school art course before and maybe even never will again since taking this course satisfies a half fine art credit that they need for graduation. Considering all of the aforementioned, I would say the student work is very successful.

Some of my goals with this were the following:

• Quick(-ish) skill building for the purposes of having more successful and realistic finished works in the Place of Grace painting project that they are about to embark on. 
• Help them to realize the importance of the integrity of the marks they leave in their work so they are more painterly and, in turn, produce more realistic depictions of things in the end
• Teach them to paint what they see vs. what they think a cloud looks like
• Build confidence within them so they can see that doing something the right way can be learned relatively easily, can be very fun, and makes a huge difference in the quality of their work in the end
• Show them how to use color AND value together along with layering in order to show depth and dimension on a 2D surface
• Prove to the students the importance and power of following directions just as they are given because it really does produce stronger and better results in the end
• Complete an assessment for the creative processing of their individual paintings

Something that can be done in conjunction with this for the sake of really strong experiential learning and connection is by having them do a quick exercise before this where they draw/paint what they think a cloud looks like with no reference whatsoever about how it really should be done. They will likely draw the puffy, cartoon-like clouds and be convinced that is not only adequate but even successful visual depictions overall. Once they do the follow along with the Youtube demo at least one time they will see how easy it is to draw/paint realistic clouds and they will want to do it that way because it honestly does look so much better. 

Tomorrow I will show you one more round of co-teaching with youtube along with student work that was before the demo and after they had completed it. I will also discuss where to take this skill-building and how to connect it with others in order to have a series of assessments to evaluate them from in the end.  

Art Teacher Hack :: Best way to clean up Plaster of Paris

This is a great video demonstration useful for any projects using Plaster of Paris. I use Plaster of Paris a lot and after enough disasters with trying to clean up effectively (and failing miserably!) I thought really critically about what I had done wrong and discovered the secret to cleaning up dried plaster from the utensils and vessels/bowls that I was using!

The secret is... 

Use a FLEXIBLE mixing bowl so that you can do this when the plaster is completely dry

[watch the video below]

I tried scouring the local thrift stores for flexible mixing bowls but I actually found the best deal for them at the local dollar store!!! I would recommend when you find one/some that you think might be worthy of buying for your class, try and flex them in the store the way I demonstrated you do it to determine if they are worth the money. I mean... the dollar store isn't expensive but buying enough bowls for your class aren't cheap! I have had a few bowl end up cracking and breaking over time but it's been no more than a $3 loss probably so that's a pretty good deal.

The ROYGBIV Project :: Hiccups and Snafus :: Part 4 of 5

If you've been following me from the beginning of this series, you might notice something rather curious: It's all gone swimmingly well!!! Well, I hate to break it to you all but I'm about to show you some of the nitty-gritty that has gone on in spite of all of the stuff that has been really cool and incredible.

As I said in yesterday's posting, this project was chock full of "teachable moments." I find that most all of the project endeavors that I attempt to steer my student artists through provide more than enough fodder of that type but this one? Well! THIS one really provided!!! I'm going to discuss two of the biggies today.

 The first one was helping the student artists to deal with the challenge of figuring out the best technique and materials to be used and that this can sometimes only be figured out by way of trial and error. This meant that they did what they felt like was a lot of work only to have at least half of it fail "epically" (as they like to put it) after discovering that of the three different types of string we used, the one that was the colorful acrylic yarn (donated by me from my ridiculous "yarn stash" at home) would not hold up on the balloon forms even after it was coated in both of the different types of adhesive mixtures - one modge podge and the other watered down white glue.

The sad stringy mess of modge podge that had they attempted to salvage but in the end was just thrown away in the end.

They used watered down glue mixture but the  yarn just would not soak up the mixture in order to hold the balloon shape.

I predicted that this would happen and that they needed all cotton yarn/string to do the balloon wrapping but I withheld this information because their reasoning to do different types of yarn was for them to try and stay within the supplies budget and I wanted them to try out their alternative idea to save money. In the end, when they discovered that they had to have all cotton string, they were still able to stay in budget because the 100 or so balloons were cheap as they were sold in packs of 30 and were only a buck a piece. It was a good learning experience that taught them that even the best laid plans can't be totally sound and sure-proof. I was really proud of how they all handled the setbacks they experienced which required them to lost almost entire class periods of work just because of the type/quality of materials.

The second very important lesson of this project was a real biggie. It did not focus on supplies or really anything art related and was completely about interpersonal skills and the importance of effective and diplomatic communication. 

A little background that I haven't mentioned until now: 

The student artists worked in two different class periods - that sometimes didn't even meet on the same days - that I affectionately called East Coast division and West Coast division. I likened this arrangement to a large company that worked in different time zones but were expected to work on the same project because it was such a large endeavor that one division alone couldn't manage the whole thing. There were subdivisions within each division (sun, rainbow, clouds) and each of those worked in tandem with the subdivision from the division/class period. They coordinated the workflow by communicating with one another through handwritten notes that they wrote to each other. No names and personalization were allowed and they could only recognize the other group by simply addressing in a collective and general way. This was so no one student artist could demand that they were the one in charge and then call whatever was going on THEIR work that others were simply making happen for them. It wasn't about individual glory. It was totally about working together as a team and being unified.

So, the communication system mostly worked until individual egos started getting inflated and some student artists took it upon themselves to take up a real passive aggressive tone toward the other group (in written note form, of course) that started inciting some serious animosity between one subdivision across the two classes. (I won't tell you which one though. That's not important.)

A sampling of some of the note exchanges from all of the subdivisions.

I was monitoring the communication exchanges pretty carefully - both the written ones as well as the verbal and non-verbal ones that precipitated the written ones - and I addressed all of the issues almost immediately with redirections and reminders about what should really be focused on instead of what was being stirred up. The students had difficulty with accepting my pacification of all of the incidents but they did it with as much grace as you can expect they would seeing as how they are high school young men and women.

Then I ended up getting the stomach flu that has been going around everywhere and I was out of school for three days plus one more when school was out for inclement weather and when I came back? Well... I discovered that things had gotten UGLY and one subdivision found out what class and what individuals were in their partner subdivision and they started accosting each other outside of the art classroom in order to criticize about work being done/not done according to certain individual standards. My return from being so sick I lost seven lbs in less than a week that almost landed me in the hospital because of dehydration was me walking into what had become a pretty hostile warzone between two classes of one subdivision. I wasted no time addressing what needed to be addressed and in the midst of it all I discovered that one of the students actually tried to write an apology letter to the other group/class and their fellow group members tried to rip it up and throw it away to keep the reconciliation and apologies from happening! It was a MESS!!!

I devoted one day that could have been working time to each of the class periods and we had a discussion where I re-established what was most important and I offered them some wisdom to help establish PEACE and ensure that it be kept and maintained. I told them that for the rest of their lives it would never be important who started what in whatever situation but that it was only the reaction that you might have that could ever stop what was allegedly started. I told them that I was not concerned with who was pointing fingers or where those fingers were being pointed and that if ever people wanted to reconcile? That had to be permitted to happen because peace and reconciliation is way more important than "being right."

The students all took "the talk" very well and I think this was, in large part, due to the fact that I focused on the big picture of the problem instead of micromanaging the issues. This is actually how I approached most all of the issues that cropped up throughout the project and though the students were frustrated at times in the beginning, the quickly got used to me presenting things back to them with questions like, "Well... what do YOU think we should do?" or when I responded to some of their multi-layered questions that were loaded more with their lack of confidence than anything, "YES. *smile*" From the get-go I wanted them to feel like they could handle things and that I trusted them to handle things in whatever way they needed to be handled and by and large they did this with everything except the communication issue. I kind of expected something like this would happen though and I was prepared to deal with it.

And that's about it for the hiccups and snafus for the most part. Come back tomorrow for the last day of this series when you get to finally see everything all put together in the gallery!

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This installation art study was student-centered and collaboratively designed and constructed (across two classes). It utilized paper sculpting and papier mache, string wrapping, spray painting and brush painting, fiber application in order to create a sun, clouds, and rainbow display suspended from the ceiling of the student art gallery hallway. It was originally presented in a week long series that showed the planning and creative processing, the beginning part of the sculpting/working stage, the point just about when everything was done being sculpted, and then some notes about when things went awry and how those things were dealt with. The final view of it can be found HERE. This project was meant to be a re-imagining of The Ombre Experience project idea.

The ROYGBIV Project :: Pulling it All Together :: Pt. 3 of 5

A view of the sun and some clouds without embellishments

The sculpting/fabrication process for this project went surprisingly quick despite how much work needed to be done. Before we got started I predicted that the clouds and the sun group would progress faster than the rainbow group and I was indeed right.

Every day I would have a brief discussion at the start of the class and give them feedback and also insight about how and why things were going as they were during the sculpting process both from my own observations as well as from the perspective of me being the "expert consultant" or the mentor to all of them. I would also remind them of the timeline that we were attempting to keep to and I would offer them suggestions about what could be done in order to either speed things up of the whole process OR attend to issues that might be arising. They also had the opportunity to ask me questions or present concerns about the overall scope of things and I was able to address things in some reasonably timely ways.

The second most exciting thing for them to do was to take each of their different elements to the next stage beyond just the foundational sculpting phase. The sun group needed to do some careful cutting work and then paint their object before embellishing it...

And the clouds group had to use a glue mixture to adhere the cotton batting and fiberfill to the cloud forms in order for them to look more realistic and have real texture...

The rainbow group? They plugged away wrapping more and more balloons in glue covered string while they also took breaks to spray paint what they had already made and dried completely...

One of the greatest challenges for me apart from managing some expected challenges betwixt and between them (and I will be address this in tomorrow's installment) was the fact that all of the fumes from the glue mixtures and spray paints being used were not fun to contend with in the studio classroom that I have which was never intended to be the studio art classroom that it is today. After about a week of me doing the best I could to air out the classroom just by propping open the door and then having all of the fumes waft out into the hallway, the building maintenance finally gave me my own window key!!!

The coveted GOLDEN key to the windows!!!

I am on pretty decent terms with the building maintenance team/management AND custodial staff because my path crosses with them in so many endeavors I might have but they like me enough because while I can present challenges to them, I am also one of the folks who can take care of their own messes and I frequently do so in such a way that I don't create a huge amount of extra work for them to do. For this endeavor? They finally just slipped me a window key and told me to be responsible with it - meaning, don't go opening everyone else's windows who might be asking for such a thing and also only use it in the art room when absolutely necessary!

Tomorrow I will share with you some hiccups and snafus of this whole endeavor chock full of some serious teachable moments before Friday when I will share with you all the final view/unveiling of everything as it is all installed in the art gallery.

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This installation art study was student-centered and collaboratively designed and constructed (across two classes). It utilized paper sculpting and papier mache, string wrapping, spray painting and brush painting, fiber application in order to create a sun, clouds, and rainbow display suspended from the ceiling of the student art gallery hallway. It was originally presented in a week long series that showed the planning and creative processing, the beginning part of the sculpting/working stage, the point just about when everything was done being sculpted, and then some notes about when things went awry and how those things were dealt with. The final view of it can be found HERE. This project was meant to be a re-imagining of The Ombre Experience project idea.

The ROYGBIV Project :: Kicking it off :: Pt. 1 of 5

 Last year one of the big winners of all of project endeavors was The Ombre Exprience that sought to allow my student artists to study installation art. It was a lot of work but it was very well received not only by the blog audience I serve but also the school community as well! People couldn't say enough about it and the success inspired me to make an installation art study a regular thing that I would do at least every Spring with the 3D Design class. The big challenge for me would be to do something that was just enough of the same thing to start a tradition but just different enough that it would offer something unexpected as well.

This year I think I really managed to do what I set out to do by focusing on the idea of hanging a rainbow of some sort in the student gallery hallway but rather than me coming up with all of the ways it would be done, I decided to make the project completely student centered and have them come up with how it would all play itself out. The only stipulation I made was that (unlike last year) there had to be representations not only of a rainbow but also the clouds and a sun.

In order to help them be inspired and have ideas start to take root, I showed them examples of installation art and otherwise "outside the box" art via youtube...

And then I conducted class discussions and friendly debate about what was most important in order to accomplish what we were setting out to accomplish and then each of the students spent a day or so coming up with individual proposals about what we could possibly do - either for the whole she-bang or for specific elements like focusing on the sun and clouds. Students were not allowed to put their names on their proposals - that were drawings with brief narrations and explanations - and I presented them using a document camera and projector to the two different classes that were doing this jointly for everyone to vote anonymously with post-it notes that I simply collected and adhered directly to the paper proposals. The ideas with the most ideas automatically became the actual inspiration of what we would end up doing with the three elements of the total installation.

Once voting was done, I presented the final selections to the two classes and then I had them sign-up for the three different ideas/inspirations offering them both the pros and cons presented by each idea. I challenged them to not pick portions of the project where they would be working alongside their friends and I also told them to not let the difficulty that might be presented to dissuade them from working on the element of the project that they really wanted. They all did a great job at divvying themselves up and I was very pleased with not having to make that decision for them. I wanted there to be some real ownership of the creative decisions and actions they were making and taking and doing things this way established it from the get-go.

Good ol' fashioned sign-up sheets! Nothing beats doing it like this.

After the subdivisions of teams were established in BOTH classes that met during two totally different times of the day, I took each class to the school's computer lab for them to do research about materials and supplies that would help facilitate the ideas established with the class voting process. I invested a total of about $75 for the project of my own money and gave each subdivision (rainbow, sun, clouds) $25 to stretch as they needed. I had things like paper mache powder and newspapers and some raw materials already in the art room inventory but felt that a $25 cap was reasonable for them to be both challenged to use wisely and also get what was needed in order to bring life to the idea overall. Each class had about one class period in the computer lab and then they collaborated and coordinated their ideas for a "shopping list" for me at the local Wal-mart for me to get what was needed.

Another part of the process was letting them have some time in the actual space were the installation would be hung. Basically, they got to have a site visit so they could take real measurements and have a better visual understanding of taking the idea of paper and placing it in a physical space. It was helpful for them and "mini field trips" are always a welcome change from staying in the studio classroom.

The planning stage was capped off with me having full confidence in them because they provided me with pretty comprehensive plans WITH supplies lists that also included pricing information in order for me to ensure that I wouldn't end up spending more than I told them I was willing to. I told them to think of me as being a client of theirs who had a zany idea that I wanted to make happen but no manpower or know-how to be able to do it. They were really able to imagine this scenario and treat with some real-world type interaction and appropriate reaction for what needed to be done.

 

Tomorrow I will show you what happened when we actually got our hands on the materials and start bring life to the ideas that they came up with and were working towards.

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This installation art study was student-centered and collaboratively designed and constructed (across two classes). It utilized paper sculpting and papier mache, string wrapping, spray painting and brush painting, fiber application in order to create a sun, clouds, and rainbow display suspended from the ceiling of the student art gallery hallway. It was originally presented in a week long series that showed the planning and creative processing, the beginning part of the sculpting/working stage, the point just about when everything was done being sculpted, and then some notes about when things went awry and how those things were dealt with. The final view of it can be found HERE. This project was meant to be a re-imagining of The Ombre Experience project idea.

The Interactive Notebook :: Creation beyond the Art classroom

Did you know that before I become the private high school art teacher and blogger that I am I was a 6th grade core subjects in the public schools? Indeed I was! I spent two years at a public middle school teaching Reading/Language Arts and then Social Studies and then - praise be to GOD(!!!!!!) - I was given the opportunity to be where I am doing what I am now. And while I love what I am doing now and wouldn't ever want to go back, I still remember all of the ways and days spent getting bit by the bug that helped me to find my heart for teaching and then follow it to where I am now.

Last week I really got to reminisce and revisit that time when I started teaching by facilitating a professional development workshop at an inservice event done by my school every year. I don't know when this inservice event started but in the four years I have been here it has been formally named "Brainfest" and we have invited other local area private schools to join in the day that includes at least two teacher-led workshop sessions for professional development purposes and then a wonderful catered lunch. Just about anybody who is in attendance can jump on the side of being a facilitator and you're allowed to instruct/speak on just about anything you want to. Last year I paired up with a colleague and did a workshop focusing on the Millenial generation in the classroom. This year I single-handedly tackled the AVID Curriculum's brilliant idea of the Interactive Notebook that I used to use and LOVE daily in my early teaching career days of the core subjects. Ever heard of it? Well! Let me just tell you about one of the most awesome ways to teach AND learn on any content area and grade level EVER.

In a nutshell, the Interactive Notebook is multi-dimensional vessel for a student to collect knowledge every day and then be able to take and CREATE something with what they have learned. Every page of a student's notebook becomes completely unique and is created to have a specific purpose for something else to springboard off. Also, many of the pages require action in order to access the material/information on them. Students have to lift, fold, tuck, adhere, or color just about every page of the book so that their notebook becomes (for lack of any other way to put it) a POP-up version of what was once a boring school notebook easily lost, forgotten, or despised because of what it contained. Each project or double-page spread is a mini-project unto itself that only serves as encouragement to keep doing more and more and MORE pages and spreads. You want to talk about good return on investment? The Interactive Notebook is absolutely worth it's weight in Ticonderoga pencil leads!

[via] This person can't get enough of the Interactive Notebook either and I don't blame them.

I LOVE the Interactive Notebook and before I was able to be in a classroom that allowed me to create without bounds, the Interactive Notebook mostly satiate the unquenchable thirst I have to be creative AND create. And because I can't help but remember where I came from, I fully acknowledge that were it not for the Interactive Notebook, I probably would have quit teaching forever and maybe even never made it to where I am now.

As a visual art educator I feel like I am always having to "fight" for and assert my position that I am a "REAL" teacher. So sad that I even have to acknowledge such a thing but it's the truth. *Shrug* Doing this session for my colleagues last week at the Brainfest was a great way for me to really prove and SHOW that cutting, pasting, coloring, and CREATING has a place not only in the art classroom but also in EVERY classroom and content area. It also showed - without a shadow of a doubt - that I am not simply "hanging out" with my students everyday "making stuff." It was a blessing to be given the opportunity to share what I love with everyone I work with and help them to see that what I love aligns and scaffolds beautifully the things they do in their classrooms.

I don't have the full presentation to show you about how/what I did at my session because it was a very hands-on step-by-step process that I did alongside them where I helped each of the attendees make their own "take-away" notebook page-by-page by way of showing them demonstrations with a document camera. Every attendee was from a different subject area - core subjects and electives alike(!) on ALL grade levels - and not one of them had ever tried something like this before in any of their classrooms. By the end of the session each of them was very SOLD on incorporating it into their classroom goings-on and they were very excited to do so even despite their hesitation just because this was something different than what they have ever done.

I am a visual art teacher but I also know I am so much more than that and that goes the same for YOU. We as art teachers know we are something special (seriously - it's OK if we toot our own horns to others and not just sit in our art rooms being misunderstood!) but nobody will know that if we don't show them. I mean, we teach our student artists everyday the importance of SHOWING over telling. So, I implore you all to do something similar as what I did - you don't even need a special event to do it - and teach one of your colleagues how powerful folding, cutting, pasting, and coloring can be. And if you need any help? Here are some awesome links for you to help be a better teacher of teachers yourself...

• An entire book in PDF version of Foldables from the awesome Dinah Zyke who is the pioneer of foldables
• Foldables just for Mathematics in PDF form
• Another PDF link for Foldables for Social Studies
• Foldables for Language Arts on a teacher's wikispaces site
• A whole site just for Science Foldables 

I shared the above links with the attendees of my workshop and I hope they are useful to you or a colleague you might know. Here's to spreading the LOVE for CREATING a type of learning that will only greatly expand upon itself. 

Update: Classroom Management for Classes that PAINT!!

Sorry this video isn't edited or anything fancy like the last one. I am fighting a cold and I have little (to no) energy to be fancy this week and it will be pretty miraculous if I don't end up out sick at all this week. 

Anyway, thought you all might appreciate an update on how the classroom management for painting activities has gone since I introduced it at the beginning of the year. As things have happened, I have decided to change things up a bit! Check out the video for just what I decided to do differently and why...

And this almost does it for me for the semester. As I said last week, the kids have been working diligently on their final projects and at this point they are all pretty adept and autonomous at doing the things they are doing. This means that I only need to play "lifeguard" (if you will) while the students are all doing what they are doing. It's kind of nice to have it be like this because it means that I did what I set out to do this semester (and I did it pretty well!) but it's also kind of sad too because when this happens? It means the end of the semester is definitely here.

So... this is all to say that I don't really know what else I will be sharing here on the blog between now and a little bit into when the new semester kicks off other than my own art endeavors. *shrug* Bear with me and I will be back to things that are more art education centric.