Learning to listen and then let go

Some weeks back, I started oil painting again after taking an unintentional sabbatical for quite some time. I was able to complete two 36 x 36 pieces in one weekend. I felt pretty uplifted by them both.

And then something happened with the second one I did. The longer I looked at it, the more I become convinced that it wasn't as it was supposed to be. There was an unnatural darkness about it that made me feel uneasy and prompted me to try and make adjustments to help illuminate it. Everything I did only made it worse and spread more darkness over it. My husband tried his best to convince me that I should just let it be and friends of mine gave me plenty of affirmations that is was "pretty good." I wasn't convinced though I ended it quickly by rubbing it down with turpenoid and not even thinking twice about it. I knew that finishing it and then wiping it clean was absolutely essential to the creative process for what this painting would be.

Lesson Idea :: Mehndi Hand Sculptures **Updated with Student Work** :: World Art Study

I promised this to you last week when I presented the lesson project idea of Mehndi Hand Sculptures and today I have the completed student work for you! This has been one of the most successful project endeavors of the Interactive Art History class in the (now) four years that I taught the class and I am seriously proud of how the students have done with this even with it only being the first time trying it. And? This is the second major project idea that I have done with Plaster of Paris so perhaps I have a signature medium for myself? I mean... does that even exist? Well, whatever, here is one more art education idea where Plaster of Paris is quite handy. *pun intended*

I feel like this is a great way to do the art of Zen Doodling and making it that much more challenging and impressive since it applies designs to a three dimensional surface. Some of the most interesting of designs were students who really attempted to depart from the minimum of simply sculpting the hand and then applying designs. The hands that were gestural were incredibly impressive and the students who attempted to add color to their hands - which made them decidedly less Mehndi in style - were even more successful overall. There were creative risks that some of the students endeavored to take and I am very proud of them for that alone. 

This project held student interest from start to finish and I helped to keep them invested by encouraging them to make their design work as densely packed as possible. I did not discourage the use of color and while classic Mehndi designs have a sort of natural feminine flair to it that might have turned the guys off, I encouraged the guys to think of tribal design work instead of things that were floral in nature.

I will definitely be doing this project idea again and now that I have one round of experience with it I fully intend to try and raise the bar next year. I am already researching and working on how that will happen so watch out for me next Spring when it's time (again) for the Interactive Art History class. And if you do this project idea with your classes? Let me know! I love seeing how much better and different things look beyond my classroom.

The ROYGBIV Project :: Put a fork in it! :: Pt. 5 of 5

Without further adieu... I present to you The ROYGBIV project in all of it's finished glory!!!!

The installation makes the gallery hallway such a happy place!

Once the students got to the point where they were able to start installing their individual sections of the total installation and they got to see it all come together they were really motivated to get the whole project DONE and it took only a matter of a few days for them to all really pitch in and get things hung up and adjusted no matter what subdivisions they originally volunteered themselves for.

One element that was a final "finishing touch" was hanging painted (with tempera) sheets of acetate sheeting on alternating window panels all the way down the hallway. The hope was that the natural light could shine through the painted sheeting and then cast colored light into the hallway. It didn't work but it did look pretty interesting from the outside and it has served as great encouragement for people to see it across the "quad" and then come walk through the gallery hallway when they otherwise didn't have a reason to venture that way in the first place.

Next  year when we do a different ROYGBIV installation I will allot money in the budget for colorful cellophane.

The sun group had some serious challenges with trying to rig up something that would support the overall structure, girth, and unexpected weight of the finished work. Fishing line did not work after trying it multiple times so the winning solution was to use 14 gauge aluminum sculpture wire that supported the sun from three different points. It doesn't look like a literal interpretation of what the sun looks like but I think it works being abstract the way it is.

The sun is suspended at one end of the hallway where it can hang the highest from the ground.

Obviously a good number of the rainbow drops didn't hold their shape perfectly but I think it's OK. The student artists who worked on them weren't totally disappointed and I was really proud with the way they pushed through to the end even when it was very VERY challenging and discouraging at times. Their perseverance is so commendable and they really pulled things together in the end.

And the clouds group? Well, they had a bit of an unexpected advantage from the get-go because they didn't have to figure things out since they followed some directions found online. *shrug* They did have one of the messiest portions of the whole installation though so they had their fair share of challenge at times. Their original plan was to shade the clouds a little to make them look "stormy" but in the end that wasn't necessary and they simply used some of the natural darkness that was cast from the inside out that derived from the newspaper that they used for the center form of the sculpturing!

For a second try at studying installation art with the 3D Design class, I would say this attempt was successful. So many people - students and faculty/staff alike - have commented really positively on the entire installation and part way through the hanging of everything I already had inspiration come upon me for what will be done for next year's endeavor! If you can believe it it will be much of what you see here PLUS a little bit of some extra that is pure fun and lightheartedness. Hard to believe it can be bigger than this? I guess you'll have to hold me to that and visit me next year to see what it will be all about.

Thanks so much for sticking with me for this week long series! Next week is Spring Break for my school but I will be queuing up some postings that have been waiting around for their chance to be shared in addition to working on graduate school assignments and also (FINALLY!!!) doing some painting at the easel at my home studio.

Have a great weekend! See you next week!

---

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 :: 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!

---

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.

Quick Sculpting is AWESOME for Summative assessments

[This is from a while back but it's taken me a bit to get caught up so pardon me.]

 Do you do pre-tests/assessments in visual art?

This is from the very first assignment for the 3D Design class as a way for me to assess where each of them was starting from - skillsets, general understanding of art and design, etc. The inspiration for each of the sculptures was for them to sculpt what it feels like to look at a rainbow. Essentially, they were each sculpting an emotion which was challenging for some but at the same time many of them enjoyed the challenge and really sought to tackle it well. They were only allowed to use paper and simple adhesives like tape and white glue and they were instructed to do their best to make it as clean in construction as possible.

After they spent about three days working on it I had another class (a 2D Design class) critique and visually "read" what the sculpture was attempting to communicate while the 3D Design classes critiqued and read the 2D Design pre-assessments. All of the students were very interested in find out what the other students read from their work and I was able to read where they were in their art understandings and abilities! It was pretty successful overall.

Just for fun: Sculpting with Biodegradable Packing Peanuts

What is your experience with biodegradable packing peanuts? (They are also called cornstarch pellets.) They are an alternative to styrofoam packing material that appear to be the same thing but really are not. They are made out of cornstarch and they dissolve completely in water. Here is a video I found on youtube of some in a glass of water...

Silly (personal) backstory about these packing peanuts: 

I was first introduced to cornstarch pellets over 15 years ago when I was in high school doing yearbook. Some of our materials were shipped to us with them and going "green" was just starting to be a thing to do. I heard about them originally in science class and I was fascinated with the idea of them (I love things that are inventive and of out-of-the-box problem solving) so I was excited to finally see them in person. My science teacher had told me that you could eat them so I told my yearbook staffers (I was the editor-in-chief) that and I actually convinced everyone to eat one. After we had our fun laughing at one another and also being surprised by the fact that they were indeed edible, one of the staffers actually kept eating them! 

(o_o)

Yeah. *shrug* To each their own. 

Anyway, because I strongly dislike shopping in real time and at real places I do more online shopping than anything. Recently an early Christmas gift was delivered to me with the amazing-ness that IS cornstarch packing peanuts! I recalled my weird high school memories about them along with randomness I have read(and mentally bookmarked - as I do with everything) about using them for kiddie crafting and art.

The way it works is this: Put out a clean wet sponge, paper towel, or rag and then simply wet the end of one of the packing peanuts and then stick it to another one.

That's it! SERIOUSLY!!!

Here is my 4 yo daughter in action making a crown for herself...

You definitely have to be careful to not accidentally give your kid a glass/cup of water and just use a wet sponge or paper towel because if you don't you can bet they will just sit there and drop the pellets into the water and watch them all dissolve completely. So long as you don't do that though and your kids pay attention long enough to make something, you can even let them color what they made with markers!

I mean, I suppose you could try painting them but I wouldn't if I were use. I mean, you DO remember the video of how they interact with liquid, right?

The other night, my daughter pulled out the packing pieces and asked me to join her with sculpting and crafting. I had just put her flannel bedding on for her so I had elephants on the brain and so I ended up mindlessly making a baby elephant for my daughter. She was thrilled with the finished product:

If you interested in doing this sort of thing at home and want to order packing pieces you can either from a shipping company like Uline. You, of course, have to buy in bulk but if you are doing this for a project for preschool or other early childhood activity setting, that could work out. Also, here are some other blogs who have also adventured into the arena of sculpting with the packing pieces:

• Kids Activities Blog by the Quirky Mommas
• Special Education Services of Plano Independent School District
• Straight Dope Dad blog
• DuPage Childrens Museum blog

The crucible of painting for The Crucible

Yesterday was my first day back to school after two days of cancellations for Hurricane Sandy and I ended up having to ditch out on almost all of my classes because of set painting for The Crucible.

(-__-)

Well... I didn't really ditch out on all of them, some of them I were drafted to join me in the endless pursuit of dry brushing every surface to make it look like distressed wood grain. Also, my department head covered some of my classes (like study hall) and I took some of her students in addition to some of the ones I had and drafted them into painting as well.

TOGETHER, WE CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

The official shirts for this production are so choice. Praise the Lord for a marketing and design team that shares the same vision as I do by doing things stylistically in a minimalist fashion and VERY WELL at that. 

As it turns out, we have sort have been doing what we've been doing wrong and after much contemplation, I am going to try and turn this set building ship on a dime and lighten up the wall panels so they look more like the three separate vertical planes (on each side) that we wanted them to be to begin with. It just makes more sense that way!

I was sitting back in the sound booth and it just occurred to me that it should be done but rather than being the killjoy and telling the students, "OK... we are going to have to do at least two more... MAYBE three... more rounds of dry brushing to light the value on some specific sections."

Before I made them all do it, I took a picture with my phone and then burned and dodged it in photoshop to have an actual example of what we were going to be doing when we changed it all up. I say: Work SMARTER not HARDER!! 

This might be the most frustrating and rewarding set design and painting I've done so far. It was conceptualized to be as original as possible - though the two faculty directors/producers did cull and give me inspiration images to (literally) draw the set designs from. The craziness that was Hurricane Sandy has definitely set us all back a little but Lord-willing we will make this all happen and it WILL be AWESOME.

Lesson Idea: Form of the formless - Subtractive sculpting | 3D Design

This lesson idea included some of the following learning objectives:

• Create original works of art using minimalistic style and non-objective forms
• Visually communicate an emotion, idea, thought, suggestion, or experience from a Christian worldview in 3D form that is can be mounted on a pedestal and then be free-standing in presentation
• Learn the creative process required to design and create a non-objective sculpture from start to finish
• Understand and experience the challenges of unique sculpting material (in this case, a large very porous block of foam)
• Successfully utilize techniques such as subtractive sculpting and painting to intentionally create and communicate a specific message

This was only the second project for the 3D Design class and it was very challenging for them. Thankfully, they really rose to the challenge and (I feel) really invested themselves in order to create works of art that are original in nature, thought provoking and compelling, and carefully crafted.

This project was supposed to take a little more than two weeks and it ended up taking nearly a little more than three weeks. The thing that pushed it over the two week limit was the thought processing itself because for at least half of the class, I had to help steer their ideas so that they wouldn't be so obvious when they were fully created. To help them, I modeled (via me talking aloud and then illustrating things on the board in front of the class) a creative thought process I might go through that takes something concrete and turns it into something abstract. Some of the students understood what I was going for after that but plenty others were still lost.

Each of the students had to draft (3) different views of their sculpture idea and they had to tell me their inspiration and thought processes behind their idea. If what they presented to me was too obvious and I could figure it out (based on what I saw) because it was contrived or cliched, I would push them back to the "drawing board" and rework their idea. Some students had to go through this as many as half a dozen times. When the deadlines drew closer for the different stages of the whole project, I would talk with each student 1:1 and attempt to help them cultivate and develop their inspiration into something that would satisfy the requirements of the stage they were in. Here is a posting I did some time ago of the students working on this project.

The students were allowed to paint their pieces any one color they wanted but (for differentiated instruction and learning) if they wanted to use two colors (two was the limit) then those colors needed to be painted and blended in a gradual and seamless fashion to show an almost ombre effect. The pedestals (bases and posts) of the pieces could only be of a neutral color that included black, white, brown, or gray.

I (personally) feel like they did a really outstanding job with this project despite the fact that I really put them through the paces to design and create works of art that took them a week longer than the projected due date to create. Here are some of the completed pieces that the students worked so diligently to create.

Lesson Idea: The OneLiner | 2D Design

One of my favorite things to do with the students is continuous line blind contour drawing. It almost always yields works of art that are interesting and intriguing. The element of surprise and leaving the act of creation up to a little bit of chance helps the students to let go of themselves and learn to trust themselves as well. It also proves to them that successful pieces of artwork don't always come in moments of highly-controlled planning and preparing and some of their best (and most favorite) works sometimes come organically and spontaneously.

This project was called the "One-liner Modern Art" drawing but I decided to just call it "The OneLiner" because I felt like for my purposes? That just makes more sense. The idea of taking the continuous line drawing and melding it with the technique of blind contour drawing aimed to teach them to learn to do mastercopy type work as well as drawing from still-life observations. They were also able to experiment with mixed media and they used crayon, watercolor, graphite, charcoal, ink, and marker for the coloring of their line drawings.

I adhered to the same framework I started with and introduced to you all last week with the Drawing from the Abstract lesson idea and this project idea (like the aforementioned) was inspired by something that I found in the Drawing Lab book that I love so much. I tried to preserve the essence of the drawing exercise but I expanded upon what it suggested and then fit all of that into the framework I am continuing to use for the creative process the students are learning to follow:

1. Explore & Experiment - The students did speed drawing exercises both from still-life set ups as well as masterworks (I used this one from Picasso that is so popular - yes, the students did this upside down)
2. Figure Out & Focus - The students did multiple peer reviews in order to help them consider techniques that they might have tried OR identify which technique they have used so that they can use it again and then intentionally create a work of art using that technique. They also did trials of either mastercopy works and/or working from a still-life set-up. They also tried out color palette ideas and different mediums.
3. Stick or Scrap - The students looked critically at their own work and they decided whether they liked what they had been doing or if they wanted to go back to step #1 or #2 in order to create something that they felt was a little bit more successful and adhering to their goal with the work of art. Some of the students decided to abandon their mastercopy efforts and decided to go with one of the still-life set-ups and vice versa. They used intentionally decided upon color palettes and applied the color in specific ways.
4. Know & Go - This is when the students got their final support to work on (watercolor paper) and they went confidently in the direction using specifically decided upon techniques and color palettes. 

I differentiated instruction with this project by offering them four different drawing examples for them to choose from if they did mastercopy works and two different still-life set-ups if they wanted to work from observation. I also allowed them to use whatever medium they wanted to work with as informed by their creative processing. Here are the two still-life set-ups that I gave them to work from...

I encouraged the students to get up from their seats and position themselves as they decided would output the best and most interesting perspective of the still life they selected. They had large drawing boards and I also allowed them (on some days) to listen to "personal music" in order to help them stay focused on their task at hand.

Some of the final works the students created are here! I am SO proud of them for what they both learned, figured out on their own, and created INTENTIONALLY vs. just making for the sake of making something. They worked very hard and it definitely shows (I think)...

Mastercopy work

Still life

Mastercopy work

Mastercopy work

Still-life

Still-life

Still-life

Still-life

Many of the students initially thought that they wanted to do a mastercopy but then they changed their minds because they realized the creative liberties they could take by creating something completely original (and in their unique styles) by working from observation. It was very exciting to see this discover this and also watch their technique and individual works develop from trial to trial and then make it to the final work that they turned in. I am having an especially difficult time picking pieces to go into the student gallery and that makes me so excited!! Now if only I could have the wall space to be able to show them all.

---

Don't forget to enter the contest 

of this blog's first ever giveaway of my "favorite things!!!"

REMEMBER: You have to leave your comments on the blog post that announced the contest found HERE VIA THIS LINK in order to be officially entered and considered in the final count to be randomly chosen for the prize package. Don't forget that there are TWO ways to be entered in the giveaway and the cut off time/date is Tuesday, Sept. 25th at midnight EST!!

---