The Giant Paper Airplane Fly Off :: Just for Fun

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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One of the greatest art ed resources that I think I might have at any given time is something I call "back pocket" project ideas. Are you familiar with these? Perhaps you know them by a different name. Perhaps you call them "plan D" or "the plan you have when all else fails." *ha!*

Seriously though. For me, "back pocket" project ideas are those that add in plenty of learning but also allow for just as much fun just for the pure fun of it. They are also good for those times when scheduling is tight and doesn't allow for longer running projects OR for when you need a "filler" but you don't want to use fluffy filler because... well... why just fill time, y'know?

Last year at the tail end of the year, I did two "back pocket" ideas that were a huge hit. This one actually was inspired by the fact that I was slightly annoyed with the fact that a paper airplane craze got kicked off among the students and they would be flying across the room at any given time and most of them were not even that well designed enough for them to fly even part way across the room! I was constantly saying to the students that if they were going to endeavor to throw paper airplanes, they should at least design and make them well enough that they could actually fly right!  All of this got me thinking that perhaps I could take my personal irritation of poorly designed (and made) paper airplanes and allow for a real teachable moment.

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 :: Making it happen :: Pt. 2 of 5

This stage was the absolute messiest of all of the stages but it also was the one that the students really enjoyed because it allowed them to really explore and experiment with the creative process and truly give life to the ideas that they were tasked with. Here is a little of what each of the groups were attempting to work with...

Sun group

Idea was pretty close to THIS idea that I had originally shown them

• Wanted to paper mache in order to sculpt a single extra-large spherical structure
• Needed an exercise/yoga ball for their form
• Wanted to pull in some texture by adhering muffin/cupcake paper cups to the outside of the structure after it was completely sculpted
• Wanted to use lighting in order to illuminate the structure from the inside out

Clouds group

Idea derived from THIS I found and showed them during the lesson intro

•  Required them to do paper mache to sculpt multiple different but similar structures
• Needed lots of balloons for the form of each structure
• Required cotton batting/stuffing for the texture of the clouds
• Wanted to do at least seven clouds in order to fill out the gallery hallway space

Rainbow group

Idea was inspired by THIS that I found and showed them during the lesson intro

• Required them to use watered down glue mixture to soak string so that it could adhere to individual forms
• Needed lots of balloons for what would be over 100 individual forms suspended from the ceiling
• Required paint in Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Violet

We spent at least a week and a half total of class time doing just the fabrication/sculpting of all of the different elements of the total installation. It was definitely messy and that's not something that all of the students were keen on but with lots of encouragement and redirection from me that this was a GROUP effort and we needed to be unified in order for it to really be successful, it became a rare thing for any of them to sit and be idle for too long. Most all of the students wanted to play an active role because they fully understood that the effort we had to put forth was major and collective. They truly started understanding that if one person didn't invest themselves, the whole of the project would ultimately suffer.

Two groups needed newspaper for papier mache so they banded together to create triangles - because that's the best shape for seamless and smooth coverage - in order to prep the paper.

The sun group gets started on the first of many layers!

The clouds group also got to work but they had an easier time than the sun because there were multiple cloud clusters to work on.

The rainbow group had perhaps the most challenging of all of the elements of the installation to work on both because of the sheer number of items that needed to be sculpted - they were shooting for about 100 total to fill the space we have - and because working with string coated in glue mixture? Well... it's just way messier than papier mache. Surprising that anything could be that way compared to papier mache but it was true! Also, wrapping and layering the string had to be done a little more strategically (read: it was less forgiving than papier mache) so there was a bit of a learning curve for everyone in the sun group.

The sun group discovered it required at least two people to coat the string and then wrap a balloon with the glue coated string. They tried to have at least two stations of this going at once.

One of the balloons that they did as a "prototype" to figure out if it would work, how long it would take to dry, etc.

One of the major challenges from this stage (as with almost every project endeavor I do) is dealing with how to store things when they are in the WiP (work-in-progress) phase. I share the studio art classroom with a part-time faculty member and while it might sometimes seem like I have a pretty cushy set-up (based on what I share on the blog) the room I share with the other teacher is about 2/3 the size of what I know most art classrooms are that are not shared. This always creates problems when it comes to storing supplies or student works on top of the fact that I know my colleague is not usually thrilled with some of my zany endeavors. (They are much more neat and tidy than I am.)

For this project I solved some of the project by storing some of the bags of balloons behind this huge canvas that another student has been trying to work on when they can...

Far from ideal but making the best of what I have is all I can do

Tomorrow I will show you the next phase of the project when we were getting to the stage of finishing up the sculpting and fabrication of the different elements and starting to install it all in the student gallery hallway.

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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 :: Sneak Peek of a series!!!

I am so delighted to bring a whole week/full series starting next Monday of a look at the start-to-finish of an installation art study and project I just completed last week with the 3D Design students. Two classes did the project together and it took about a solid month to do it and while collaborative learning can sometimes be a bit of a nightmare for both the teacher and the students involved, this project was a HUGE winner overall. Not one student felt excluded and wasn't whole-heartedly invested and I also didn't feel like I was ever trying to push or shove the efforts of the over 45 students that did the project together.

This project is one not totally different from what I did last year with The Ombre Experience endeavor but it twisted and expanded it some with the intention for it to be totally student-centered in how it established and unfolded itself. It was quite intense and consuming and for that reason I don't feel like I could come close to sharing it and discussing it with you all in just one or even two blog postings so that's why I am stretching it out. Anyway, come back and check in on Monday! That's when I will be kicking everything off. 

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.

Lesson Idea: The Deconstructed Book | 3D Design

This lesson idea is actually from my personal archives and is a project that I did my very first year of teaching at my current school but then I did it only one or two more semesters (out of a total of nearly eight that I have worked so far) after I did it the first time. I stumbled upon the original idea on Etsy probably at least five years ago but probably more and (like I always do) I mentally bookmarked it for the purposes of knowing that I would need it again in the future.

When the Lord was finally so gracious to put me in the classroom as an art teacher? Well... I got right to work with it and every student artist of 3D Design I had (of three sections total) did this project and we filled the student gallery hallway with these and it was, in a word? INCREDIBLE. It was like exploding books were simply raining from the sky and without me even realizing it I had essentially facilitated the first installation art exhibit I of my life. In the history of the school where I teach nobody had ever endeavored to hang student work from the ceiling so it was quite a bit of something to behold and (thankfully) I didn't get in trouble for drilling holes in the ceiling. (Sometimes it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission, right?) I wish I had some pictures to share of what it looked like but I don't and to show you what it really looks like we all are just going to have to wait for this coming semester's 3D Design installation exhibit endeavor because I plan to do the idea with them but put a bit of a spin on it. (You'll have to wait for the details of that!)

Still, I wanted to share this with you now because a parent of a student at my school is an art teacher at a local amazing public high school and she sent me an email asking me how I did this project. I started to respond to her email but then I realize that what I was about to respond with to her is something that others might enjoy knowing about as well and why don't I just put it on the blog? So... here I am! And here it goes... this is how I went about teaching my student artists how to do this deconstructed book project.



(My husband was so nice to keep the yelling at bay during the filming of this video. He knew I was going to be doing it and I hardly paid attention to him and the fact that he turned the TV down and kept a lid on the yelling specifically because I was filming the video! He is such a good guy that husband of mine.)

(Also and again, please pardon the ridiculous book that I was forced to use because I didn't have any other book in the house that I otherwise would have wanted to deconstruct. I still cannot figure out where the book came from in the first place and I am completely embarrassed to have it in my house for the language that was used in it alone! I mean, I don't consider myself a type who lacks a sense of humor and there was a stage in my life when I definitely did use some rather colorful language (like that found in the book) but still! Anyway...)

 So that's the deconstructed book art education project and lesson idea! Hope this was helpful to you and if you end up giving this a try, please let me know how it goes because I really love seeing how other people do things differently than I do.

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: Continuous Line Art - Wire sculpting | 3D Design

This lesson idea is one I haven't done in quite a while but found I found these pictures (on an old portable hard drive) and thought they were worth sharing!

I did this project with the 3D Design students my first year teaching visual art ever and I led them into the project with a continuous line drawing study. Each of the students was required to come up with one object that they would sculpt in 14 gauge aluminum wire (you can purchase it here from DickBlick.com) but before they could sculpt it, they had to show me their idea drawn with a continuous line. When they had completed the continue line drawing of their chosen object, they each received 90 feet of it that they were not permitted to cut in order to echo what they learned in the continuous line drawing exercise.

Overall, this project idea was a big hit but it I also couldn't push it to last for any more than one solid week of class meetings. That's pretty quick for me because my goal (from the beginning) has always been to do longer term project endeavors. I believe the students turned out very successful and interesting samples of work but it went very fast for them (during both years that I taught it) and I don't know that they learned anything super significant other than that wire wrapping is cool and fun.

If the future I would really push the students to focus on contours lines when they draw in continuous line technique and I would definitely push them to not do just any object but one that has purpose and meaning to it once it is fully sculpted.

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.

Prom is in the air...

One of my favorite times of the school year is prom. It's always so exciting to see my students get really excited about this anxiously anticipated event and hear the hushed conversations about "will she/he or won't she/he?" regarding prom pairings.

Per tradition at my school, the young men always work hard to devise exciting, unique, creative, and unexpected ways to ask the young ladies to be their dates. This applies even for those intending to ask on the grounds of going as "just friends." Every year there are always a few standouts that really the rest of the "proposals" off the map but it's still fun to watch the guys really do their best to be as chivalrous as possible with their efforts.

This year one of my student aides (an advanced art student who I have had in almost every semester in some capacity of teaching) had a bit of a dilemma with deciding who and how he wanted to go about with the whole business of prom. I have had an ongoing inside joke with him that he needs to start using the expression "bomb dot com" more often. I mention the phrase itself within conversation at least three times a week. At this point he just laughs at me and says it back but I still have wanted him to really make it one of his signature phrases because, come on! It is AWESOME!!!!

With prom fast approaching and (as of yesterday) him still without solid plans for who he would take, he finally came in this morning at first period and said, "I got it!!! I KNOW WHO I WANT TO ASK!!!!!" As it turned out, that individual was another advanced art student who is really sharp, funny - just an all around great girl. And me being me? I pushed an idea that would draw upon the bomb dot com joke that we have been throwing back and forth.

In a little more than an hour of working together fervently to get things together, I'm delighted to present to all of you the work of art that my student and I made for his prom proposal...

Can you tell what it is? It's a triplet of faux dynamite sticks (fashioned from a random cardboard roll that was laying about the art studio classroom and would have just been thrown away) bound together with some painters tape and then a giant note with the big question.

I have yet to hear whether or not the answer to the question is yay or nay but I just happened to be walking through the hallway when the girl opened her locker, saw it, and pulled it out and from what I observed? She was both amused and delighted with the "gift."

I love my job. Seriously. Perhaps I should change my job title to Art Teacher and Matchmaker extraordinaire.

Lesson idea: Visual Puns

This is not my lesson idea. It came from Princetonol.com and it's called Pop Art Sculpture - Visual Puns.

Anyway, this was the major project that wrapped up last semester's 3D Design class. The students spent some time brainstorming puns and then we went through the process of figure out how they would be fabricated. I followed the instructions offered on the linked lesson plan (aforementioned).

Jumbo Shrimp

Shoo fly

World Peace (Peas, if you will)

Collie Flower (Cauliflower)

Star Fish

Seahorse

This was a fun project but I don't believe we will do this again because the sculptures were pretty big and will therefore be hard to display in the student gallery. (I'm still figuring out what we will do with them because I really do want to show them.) I'm thinking a spin on this idea could translate well to clay (I would use boneware which is the same stuff I used for the Cartoon bust sculptures) and the whimsical nature of the designs would definitely be fun for the kids. Also, the sculptures would be easier to show in the gallery.

Lesson idea: Paper rose sculpting

I'm a huge fan of projects oriented around holidays/seasons/special occasions. It's something that I guess is really more often done for younger age groups (elementary specifically) but I always feel like it's fun even for my high schoolers. Usually I plan long in advance for specifically timed projects but this year I forgot about Valentine's day until it was just about upon me and so brainstormed and pored through the supplies inventory to find something that could/would work and NOT look thrown together.

Enter: the Infamous Paper rose.

I call it infamous because in my world? It is. I have been twisting paper roses for as long as I can remember and have shared them with folks during every major stage of my life...

• Working on the geriatric floor at the psych hospital right after college
• On dates/while being courted by wonderful gentlemen during my college years and after
• In my college dining hall or dorms for almost any of my friends' birthdays or when they were dealing with messy/ugly/sad breakups with boyfriends
• When I have been at any number of restaurants waiting for my food to come

You can sculpt and twist a paper rose out of just about any flexible/pliable paper material. I usually use napkins or paper towels since that's what usually seems to be on hand but those certainly don't make for the prettiest roses in the world. What is ideal is (of course) tissue paper in colors common to roses. And if you're really lucky, you also might have some floral tape, green duct tape, or paper tape on hand that can be painted the appropriate color for the stem and leaves.

Since I'm in an art room and am largely the controller and orderer of the raw materials supply I knew that we had more than enough brightly colored tissue paper AND paper kraft tape (adheres when you moisten in) to sculpt both parts of the rose. The hardest part? Showing the kids how to sculpt and model the rose by rolling and wrapping and twisting the tissue correctly and then wrapping the stems as snugly as possible to look the most realistic.

I don't have a picture of the dozens of roses they made but here is an example one that I had for them. They twisted and sculpted the blossom and covered the stems last Friday and they will paint the stems green today to be able to pick them up by the end of the day...

This is a really fun lesson that could easily be adapted to younger kids and even larger roses.

BTW - Happy Valentine's day!! Thanks for stopping by and loving this blog enough for me to have a reason to keep posting! (Even though I don't post nearly as often as would be worthwhile *wink*)