Lesson Idea: All Creatures Great and Small | 2D Design

This work was done almost three semesters ago by the 2D art and design students and I never got around to sharing it with you all! While it didn't pan out entirely as I had planned it would, I feel like the final works are still interesting and provided a great in depth study of lots of the principles of design and elements of art. I called this project endeavor "All Creatures Great and Small" since the subject matter was animals.

The inspiration of this project endeavor came from Heather Galler's Art on etsy. Clearly the students saw what Ms. Galler did and took a whole lot of creative liberties but I didn't have the heart to tell them not to be quite so ambitious and adventurous.

The students worked on poster board support and then used solvent based pens and markers to draw and color each of their works. I stressed the importance of using the positioning and arrangements of the patterns in order to show correct form as much as possible.

Too Good to Keep to Myself :: Prang Ticonderoga Product Review

Disclosure: Compensation was provided Dixon Ticonderoga company. 

Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and are not indicative 

of the opinions or positions of Dixon Ticonderoga.

Dixon Ticonderoga sent me the Prang Marker set alongside a competing set by Crayola.

One thing I noticed almost immediately was the fact that the Prang set included (2) more colors beyond what could be a standard 10-color set in addition to the fact that the Prang set had both French and Spanish translations on their packaging. Crayola's only notes that they are preferred by teachers which I cannot lie that I know quite a few art teachers (me included) who swear by Crayola brand anything.

Keep Calm and Paint Sumi-E

In addition to Spring bringing all of the studying of installation art with the 3D Design class, the other thing that Spring brings is the Interactive Art History's class unit of doing Sumi-E ink painting...

I have already shared the lesson/project idea HERE and it's quite popular as it's become a real mainstay in the popular posts list link in the right sidebar over there. ------------------------------>

This year I found a great instructional video on how to paint Sumi-E on youtube and I shared this in addition to showing them some quick demos. I think this particular video is really great for an introduction to Sumi-E painting...

Also, as I mentioned previously when I originally shared this lesson idea, I ban the listening of "personal music" (that is: music that the students listen to from their own music players with headphones) and everyone listens to nature sounds while they do their ink wash painting instead!

Here are two that I used this year and they were quite popular and it was amazing how calming it was for the otherwise hustle and bustle of the classroom...

I would turn either of the two videos above and just play the sounds through the speakers as I would quietly circulate the classroom in order to check on the students as they worked. Also? There were very few protests from the students! Well... at first a few kind of fussed about it but after just one class period of this - and we had four total - there wasn't a complaint that I remember because I think the students really appreciated it in the midst of their days.

I don't have finished pieces of work to show you right now because I am currently on Spring Break and I forgot to snap some pictures of them before I left campus but I hope to share them with you in the coming weeks when I am back to school and in the swing of things.

Give Handmade | DIY Sharpie Mugs

So this is kind of unoriginal of me but that isn't the point. You know those Sharpie mug tutorials that are all over pinterest and the DIY crafting blogs? (Perhaps I am behind the times and they were actually all the rage last year or something. Whatever.) Well, last week I made some of them as gratitude gifts (just in time for Thanksgiving!) for the three gals from work who I call my #bffl (best friends for life, if you didn't know).

Some things about us:

• We call ourselves many things including the "Multi-culti Crew" but more often "The Unicorn Club" because it seems so girly and middle/high school-ish and silly.
• We sometimes talk in hashtags to our kids and to each other because it is ridiculous, annoying, and also endlessly entertaining/amusing.
• We are all so fluent in the language of sarcasm that it might as well be our native tongue at this point. 
• Last year we used to do this thing on Thursdays (when we all had a planning together) that we called "Thursdates" where we would skip out and go and get ice creams or smoothies or coffees of whatever. The point was simply for us to just get off of campus for a little bit on a day that was almost Friday.
• We are all so different but at the same time very similar and we have a unique and wonderful bond where we can be somber and (sort of) crying for one another in support as much as we can pray together as much as we can busting our guts and laughing in the next moment. 

I love these ladies like nothing else. I really do. They are such a God-send and I am thankful for their friendship every day!!! And for all of these reasons, last week I made them all some gifts of gratitude where I made some giant Sharpie mugs with personalized designs for each lady. See below...

This was for the original unicorn of the group. On the side of the mug you can't see it says "#unicornstatus"

This was for the original unicorn's little sister. I have mentored this lady in the ways of professional photography and she is an outstanding talent in the way of portrait photography especially! 

This is the mug that actually started it all. I posted the one mug I made for a student on instagram and this lady saw it and showed it to her awesome mom and they laughed for 15 minutes straight and then she told me she had to have one. 

It's hard to tell but these mugs are actually gigantic. I got them all at Michael's and I have been scoping them out for (literally) years. You can't just give a gigantic mug to someone though, y'know? I mean... you can but it can be taken in the wrong way or at least not fully appreciated. For my fellow unicorn ladies though? I knew that they would appreciate them completely AND they would use them!!! It is this reason why I did gigantic mugs and not just standard ones. The point was that they mugs would make a statement and that's why I opted to make them as big as possible. (See below the picture of me holding the one. That's not forced perspective, people. The mug really and truly is that gigantic. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!!!)

See the giant mug in relation to a standard sized one? I tell you what. Gigantic mugs RULE. 

I might only do Sharpie mugs in extra-large/gigantic size from here on out. Seriously. I mean, they are awesome but (also?) I always automatically enlarge things so the larger surface area was a lot easier for me to work on.

So there you go. The Sharpie mug on the gigantic scale. If you are interested in making some for yourself you can pick them up at your local Michael's or other arts and crafts superstore. I would hyperlink them here but I can't find where to buy them online. They were about $10 in the stores though if that helps you at all.

WiPs: "Extra-dimensional" - Creative processing | 3D Design

The 3D Design class is running like an incredibly well-oiled machine these days. This means that even though I am treating this year like I am a first year (but really sixth year) teacher, I am keeping to my self-imposed project and teaching schedules. Basically, I and my students are beautifully on pace.

The students are seriously loving this project and I am loving that! They are fully invested in what they are doing, they are showing sincere investment and intention and purpose in their designs and craftsmanship.

Currently they are in the stages of both Figure out & Focus and Stick or Scrap from the inquiry-based teaching and lesson plan model I am doing that can be found HERE. They are learning how to use drafting and drawing tools and techniques to give their design ideas more depth and dimension and they are not being shy about venturing into uncharted territory like the fact that most of them have limited (to no) experience in the way of optical illusion art and design.

For the beginning of the project (Explore & Experiment) they all tried out ideas on drawing paper to satisfy their own curiosities and now that they are beyond that, each of them is required to complete a 6-block worksheet (because the unassembled cube has six faces) where they need to demonstrate correctly and very precisely drawn patterns as they will be put on the faces of the fully assembled 3D cube - each face is 7"x7" but the worksheet has blocks that are 4"x4". 

I am requiring them to complete the worksheet because it serves as a more refined version of a rough draft as well as giving them one last practice run at correctly and neatly drawing their designs before they get to their final piece. The other thing the worksheet does is that it serves as both a formative assessment as well as a visual guide (almost like a study guide for a test) that can be used in open-notes style and form for when they finally apply their finally decided upon patterns to their large 7"x7" squares.

I have definitely been doing my best to inspire and propel conversations that strongly connect what we are doing with creativity and creating back to scripture and to their personal lives (as faith is informing their walk with Christ). I truly believe that the continued conversations are really helping them to understand the truth that the Lord Jesus Christ does exist apart and aside from time and space and the rules don't apply to Him. This is kind of how it is for optical illusion art - the 2D surface that it exists on breaks the rules that normally apply to a flat surface. The place where Christ breaks apart from optical illusion art is that He is not an illusion and He very much exists to love, save, forgive, and uplift despite what it might appear at any given time.

The other day in the midst of me organizing class materials, I pulled out the stack of disassembled cubes and as I was laying them out it struck me that in their unstructured state they make a perfect cross...

I pointed this out to my students and they were just as tickled and delighted with this fact. I couldn't have asked for a better and more instructive teachable moment than to show them that Christ's image is all over and through the process of this project. Truly what we are doing and learning is anointed and blessing us. If this wasn't a "God-moment" type of thing then I don't know what is!

Lesson Idea: Our Common Threads - Printmaking | 2D Design

In this introduction to printmaking project, some of the learning objectives included the following:

• Create original works as inspired by the masterworks of printmaking artists such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg
• Visually present social and cultural commentary (explained below) from a Christian worldview
• Learn how to design and create limited edition prints from start to finish
• Use a 2D surface to show a 3D image/form
• Learn and use visual art vocabulary of printmaking

I kicked off this project with a Keynote presentation of printmaking that focused on the works of Warhol and Oldenburg so that they students could see and discuss examples of Pop Art. We took the idea of what Pop Art does - glorifying the already glorified - and we attempted to create designs that did  a little bit of the opposite by picking every day object and glorifying those. The students were instructed to pick objects that would be owned by the "haves" just as much as the "have nots." They were to think about and be able to verbalize the reasoning of why their object might be something the "haves" take for granted while the "have nots" might really prize for specific reasons. We had lots of in-class discussions about the differences between the haves and have-nots and I also share the work of photographer James Mollison in the collective he created called Where Children Sleep. (I showed them the website but I also have the printed book - which is outstanding - and the students were awed by what they saw.)

The students used scratch-art foam printing plates to create their printing matrices and they went through an exhaustive process (as framed by this original instructional method that I developed and have been using for all of my lesson plans) in order to go from inspiration to as series of four limited edition prints per student. Each student was required to destroy their individual printing matrices right after their fourth impressions were made in order to absolutely ensure that their prints would all be limited editions.  Why limited editions? Well, because I want them to feel as much like true artists as possible! I posted something of the creative working process last week and HERE IS THAT POSTING if you want to see what we did and how we did it.

Here is a sampling of some of the amazing print sets I will be going through to evaluate and grade. I am SO proud of what the students designed and created but I'm also really overwhelmed by the amount of artwork that I now have to grade!!! Normally it's only one piece per student. Requiring the students to do a four part series of work basically quadrupled my work load. Oh well. It's worth it. (Or I keep telling myself that.)

I think these prints - shown in two different orientations - were very successfully created.

This particular student artist is VERY naturally talented at drawing specifically so her design was very well done.

This is another student who is great at drawing and has terrific attention to detail. (Obviously.)

I am not sure if the misspelling of the word 'homeless' was on purpose or not but knowing this student, it's probably safe to assume that it was completely intentional. Such clever students I have!

This design was so simple but so successful! I had a hard time picking which print to share with you. 

One of the few prints that was done in grey ink. I am such a fan of grey but I love how this student mixed the color and then applied the ink so it resulted in having a very subtle vignette to this print.

I appreciate the distressed quality of this print. I also think the color combination helps to add to its success.

This is one of my favorites overall. The design of the plate itself was wonderful and the use of color to make it look like the color of the flame and then the black that represents charring? And the distressed look of the ink? AWESOME!

I really enjoy the simplicity of this one and the fact that the student used just one single color. 

This project was a HUGE hit for the students and I will most definitely do a printmaking project again with the 2D class. It was just enough of an introduction to this artform that it really whet their palettes and left them hungry to do more art of this type and... well... any type really. Now that this project is over they are super excited to get started on the next one (which is even more challenging). It's all about strategic planning and I am delight to report that my strategy is playing out very nicely. *wink*

WiPs: "Common Threads" Printmaking project | 2D Design

I am doing printmaking for the first time ever with the 2D Design classes and I cannot tell you how much fun we are having with it!!! Ever since I have started teaching art, I have always had a challenge with 2D Design class specifically and this year? My world is rocked because I am loving almost everything about it. What took me so long to realize that 2D Design class can be awesome?

Printmaking is just SO awesome because it is absolutely chock full of moments of "big revelations" when you finally peel the printing plate off of the support and see what the print/impression looks like! 

All of the adventures with color mixing and arrangement and ink application are really fun to watch happen!

My issue with the 2D class hasn't been because of the students by any stretch but much more the artwork and project ideas themselves. I am naturally more inclined to like, understand, and want to create artwork that is 3D. It's just how my brain works. And because of that? Well... it's no wonder that the 2D Design class has presented such an incredible challenge for me as a teacher.

I (mostly) do not enjoy drawing but I do love painting if only for the truly tactile and sensory opportunities that painting always presents. Little did I know that 2D art and design can offer sensory experiences that have plenty of dimension as well. I stand corrected!

Setting up an "inking station" in the back of the classroom just happened like this and it's work so well I am keeping it.

Right now the students are in the midst of stages 2 and 3 of the creative process/framework I have been using for all of the 2D design projects/lessons so far this year.

(By the way, I am working to get a template for this up and going so that you can access it and use it more readily if you want to. I will also try and present all of my lesson plans in this format for them to be easier to understand.)

My goal is to push for this project to be finished by the close of this week and for the 2D students to be moving on to their next project, "A Place of Grace" (that employs painting from photo references with oil pastels) - by the beginning of next week.

WiPs: reMarkable typography project

The 2D classes just finished their first project (pics of this are forthcoming) and today we jumped right into their next project: Macro-level fingerprints infused with lines of scripture.

I am SO excited about this project even though it's not my unique and original idea. A few months ago I saw it featured on Pinterest.com. (Great network to be a part of if you aren't! But if you want to be then let me know and I will gladly forward you an invite.) The original idea was to take the lines within the fingerprint and use lines of narrative text to tell the little bit of an autobiography but I felt like using lines of scripture would provide even greater meaning for the students.

Today was the first day of the project and we jumped right into it by literally getting our hands dirty and trying to get some good clean solid fingerprints...

I have already enlarged one class set of prints and I have even managed to streamline my workflow by knowing the exact proportions with regard to enlargements so the two more classes I have yet to do should be a cinch!