Do I have to go back to the future?

This morning (Tuesday, 9/23/14) in the studio classroom

Clearly,  I have not held up any bargain/promise/proposal I have previously made to resume blogging. I am not even going to try and apologize about it anymore because I'm actually not all that sorry.

I mean... this blogsite has been really important to me. (Don't get me wrong on that.)  It has (more than) served its purpose of connecting me with other art teachers and working artists and designers. It's also been a terrific resource for folks if/when they have really REALLY needed it - be it for lesson plan ideas OR set/scene design ideas/how-to's/graphics for the many theater productions of which I have worked. I have gotten some awesome emails and comments from readers (about all of the aforementioned) and with every single one, I'm constantly humbled and amazed that anybody else thinks what I have done here has been useful or good.

(Please don't read all of this as a cry for validation and passive-aggressive request to feed my ego. I just seriously feel like I am 1) not that great of a writer to begin with, 2) OK enough at sharing what I have shared and 3) still learning so much myself that I am hesitant to "consult" because I'm still figuring things out myself/for myself - basically, I know I don't have the "answers" so I'm not trying to give anyone anything that is "half-baked.")

Related to all of the previous, the "fasting" I did years back from social media and then eventually from my electronic devices at large, I have found that since I have tried to return from that fasting, it's been hard for me to have very much of an appetite to keep up this particular blog anymore. I find that what I really crave (and am drawn to do) is to be more present in my classroom and with the incredibly talented (and hungry) student artists that I have been blessed to come to know. Despite how contradictory this sounds (especially since I am sharing this with you via digital social media), I find that one of the first things I want to do in order to start and end my days, are things that are not digital/virtual and are as tangible as possible.

In the past I used (and hated) using a teacher planning book/notebook. While I had lesson plans, I disliked writing them and I preferred using any (even every?) number of digital mediums/apps to write and archive them. Over at least half a decade later, I'm admitting that "my way" - of doing as many things digital as possible - is not nearly as productive or useful as I once thought. Through much too much trial and error, I've discovered that actually WRITING lesson plans in tangible ways (on real paper) has made teaching and learning (for both myself and my students) that much more tangible and REAL than it ever has been in digital format. This isn't to say that I have now decided that technology is bad but just... I have a new understanding of what it is good for and it's no longer as good for me (and my teaching efforts) as it once was.

My very well used Teacher Planning notebook - NOT digital!!! Thank you, Erin Condren for this amazing teaching tool. 

I've applied the understanding of the need for tangible things and organization in other areas of my life too. While I still use iCal across all of my devices, I don't rely on it as my sole means to keep me on track and on time. I have alarms and reminders set for things but I don't require them because I am actually remembering things before they remind me to not forget them. This is all because I'm using a paper planner (also from Erin Condren) for my non-teaching life...

I have no idea how my life was ever functioning at all without this Life Planner. Seriously. How did I do it? (Answer: I didn't)

The above looks fancier and like it requires more work to maintain it (as seen above) than what it actually does and I'm so thankful for that. I've come to find that it is true that when I fail to plan, I plan to fail and this has a domino effect in every direction of my life. This isn't to say I've become this incredibly regimented and "by the [planner] book" type of person of routines that cannot be deviated from and structure that is so rigid it hurts. Quite the opposite, I'm more relaxed and at peace and fully present than I ever have been in all of my life. I don't get worked up over stupid things and I'm truly able to do things like keep little things little because I have taken the time to better know the size and weight and TIME that most things take up in my life. And if something unexpected arises? I know how much size/weight/TIME I have leftover (or not) in my life in order to be able to squeeze/fit it into the time and energy that I DO have because I can see it so clearly as it's laid out in my planning notebooks.

None of the previous was ever possible for me when I did things digitally. Perhaps there's something wrong with me that doing this digitally has worked like this but I have found I just can't do things digitally as much as I have thought I could. I feel like doing things digitally (and thus asking less physically and cognitively of myself) has ended up giving me less HEART and SOUL to actually LIVE life as I know I have been called to do rather than giving me "convenience" and saving me time, energy, or money the way I have thought it worked when digitizing is used to its greatest degree.

Anyway, all of this is to say that 1) I'm still not clear about what I'm to do with this here blogsite though I know I'm not taking it down and 2) I'm still choosing to be more present in my actual and physical life more which consequentially means I am also choosing to be less present here (on this blogsite) and until further notice.

I hope you all understand. I hope that even what I am sharing now (in addition to what I have already shared) is relevant and useful in the dreaming, Praying, and CREATING of your own decision. In the meanwhile, I am being still and remaining in a holding pattern where I'm praying for each and every one of you, this blogsite, and myself so that I can better understand where/what I should create next.

God bless you, all! Have a great rest of your week and see you whenever I see you...

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."

Are you an ARTIST teacher?

This series of images documents the ongoing progress/process of a very large in-class demo of oil painting.

Just this past summer, I had the great honor and pleasure to meet one of my blog readers (Hi, K!) in part because they were doing their graduate studies capstone research project on the matter of not just teaching art but being an artist who just as well teaches. The whole idea was so curious and intriguing to me because I never stopped to think about what kind of teacher I am and even seek to be other than just trying to be the best professional art educator myself. 

Still, it got me thinking - have I been an artist teacher? What does it take to be an artist teacher if you aren't one? And, if you aren't an artist teacher, should you seek to be? And if you are an artist teacher, when do you stop being an artist and start being a teacher of art - or are those identities/roles so beautifully braided together that they don't beg to even try to be separated?

When I met with my blog reader, the intent was to be interviewed by them about the whole notion of being an artist teacher but it ended up turning into a very interesting and thought provoking conversation about that plus many other things. At one point they asked me something along the lines of if I wasn't an artist teacher or even an artist, what would I call myself. I sat and thought for a moment and then I declared that I am "curious" and that's what I believe that I am. Even now, months after that interview/conversation, I feel like "curious" is the best way for me to both explain, define, and identify myself. 

Last year, I believe I struck upon something incredibly important that has truly changed the trajectory of what I was trying to do when I first became an art educator five years ago. I realized the importance of process within the creation of art and I also started making a great distinction between the notion of CREATING art vs. making art. I did this not only in my own life but I also stressed this within all that I was teaching my student artists. 

I believe it's because of this that I finally started seeing more original, interesting, thought provoking, intentional and REMARKABLE artwork from my student artist more than I ever had before. It was incredible and the difference between what I did last year with my student artists and years before? You can totally see how much more on a different "level" it was and then continued to be with each next step they took with their learning and project endeavors. The difference between the two was that I made my teaching objective and curriculum a lot more about them (so, student-centered and inquiry-based) and a lot less about me (lecturing, deliberately steering each of them through very narrow paths of techniques for making things rather than creating them).

This year I tried something even more adventurous than what I did last year with an even greater emphasis on the importance of developing and having a creative process in order to be a more intentional artist and designer. While I have readily used in-class demos before, it's been in a way that kind of disconnects me from the process for the most part - meaning, I don't really show them much other than just demonstrating specific techniques. In my own experience as an artist though, I have learned that process isn't just figuring out and refining technique. It's about the perseverance, the critical thinking, deep emotional investment and personal connection with whatever work of art is currently in the works. All of that is even more integral to the creative process than refined technique but if I don't show the students that I go through this? I fail to show them some of the most important parts of the creative process and any finished work of art I might show them that I created seems to just appear vs. it being something that they truly see and understand was a labor of love (if you will). 

Finally got the stem and leaf (on the right) done the other day! Now to keep myself from going back and messing it up.

I have been working on a giant oil painting of a Hoa Quynh flower for weeks and going on months at this point. To say that it's been slow going would be an understatement and this is as much because I can't spend a ton of class time on it because I am constantly circulating and interacting directly with the student artists and their artwork as much as I have been just avoiding painting as I am wont to do even in my home studio. I am committed to pushing the painting through to the end though and even though the students have now finished their oil paintings, I refuse to give up on finishing mine because there is still so much process to share with them for them to learn of that I know will help them in their own journey to find and use their unique artist voices.

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 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.

Taking it from shape to form to cartoons-in-the-round

Right now, the 3D Design class is diving into the lesson idea that is Cartoons-in-the-round. It's such a favorite project for the students to do both because it offers them the opportunity to do handbuilding and work with clay and the subject matter? Well... cartoons are just so much fun! Still, for as much fun as it is, it's also incredibly challenging for so many of them. Most all of them are foundational student artists and this means that many of them have little to no experience with the visual arts. Just the same, that doesn't ever keep them from dreaming big about what they can create and as far as I am concerned, I am all about enabling them to make their seemingly impossible dreams come to fruition.

One of the big challenges I always have in teaching visual art is helping the students to see things in different ways. Sculpting is always a great adventure because of this challenge since the students inevitably pick subject matter that they know can be done in clay but they have a hard time figuring out how it will happen. Since I do not permit them to trace their selected cartoons, the frustration of the project always sets in very very early on. They print off pictures of what they want to do and insist that that is adequate for them to sculpt from. I never EVER allow it to stop there and I require them to draw (from picture reference) both a straight on front view and then a perfect side/profile view of their selected subject. I describe what they need to draw by telling them to draw a "mug shot" of their cartoon.

The majority of the students are ALWAYS frustrated by the drafting portion of this project though because they cannot figure out even how to draw things. I have found it's very helpful for them to see simple step-by-step directions (always readily online) of how to go about drawing cartoons...

via

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Both examples above definitely help them to see how to go from simple shapes to complex forms and I teach them to interpret complex forms by visually "reading" them as simple shapes. I even offer them a key for when they are drawing and "reading" their subject matter by reminding them of how the four basic shapes look as 3D forms - circles are spheres, triangles are cones, etc.

After I do this with them, I project a random character selection onto the white board and then I draw in (with their prompting) the simple shapes found within the overall complex form. Then I turn the projector off and show them what the simple break down is...

Can't find the original cartoon but this was a baby tiger I think

I encourage them to do this simplification process to whatever they are attempting to draw not just to figure out how it should be drawn but also to show them that if they do this, they can use this to determine what complex forms they will need to have in order to put them together to make their character in sculpture form! They can even count how many spheres they will needs, cones, etc.

The students are working on sculpting all this week but they are supposed to be done by the end of this week in order for us to have enough time to dry them completely and then paint and fully articulate them. This will end up being the very last project that we do in 3D Design and I am really glad that it is working out like this.

Why ride waves when you can paint them :: Oil Pastel studies of waves

In continuing to prepare the 2D Design class to jump right into landscape painting from picture reference for their turn of doing a Place of Grace, we got our proverbial feet wet by wave painting!

While we could have done a youtube instructional video for this one, after the clouds in the sky and the tree, I felt like they should attempt the waves a little more on their own. I did provide some instruction for the purposes of prompting them to connect what they would do with the waves back to the tree and the clouds - like helping them to realize that the crest of the wave is not unlike the clouds or the foliage of the trees. I also helped them to see the darks, mediums, and lights of the sections of the wave as well as helping them to understand where things should be more heavily blended and where their marks should be preserved as they are.

Overall, the goals of the wave painting were to allow them to have a lot more autonomy, be a little more intentional with their marks, and prove to them that they can paint (and well at that!) by using a picture as a reference. I differentiated the instruction by allowing them to select which wave they would do but by the end of the exercise they all had attempted to do both to of them. I projected two pictures I found of wave paintings online and I projected them split-screen style on the dry erase board so I could label them as I needed to.

You can see some of the labels I drew on top of the pictures. 

And here is the student work! The students are getting better and better with their marks and I am so delighted with how they are becoming more "painterly" with their work overall. I am especially excited because this is a class of student artists who are very much foundational in what they know of art so this is their first major endeavor into really producing something that (for them) will feel a lot more legitimate. See if you can figure out which wave (A or B) that they did based upon their work!

This student wasn't done but I believe they have the essence of the wave they were attempting.

There was a lot of peer tutoring going on amongst them a they did their work and I know that helped. Many of them also learned (and demonstrated!) the importance of not just drawing in the center of the paper and using the whole space of the paper. Showing them how to bleed and anchor the shapes, colors, and values to the different sides of the paper really helped them to better understand the overall composition of each of their pieces.

One last thing I did was to play a youtube video as background "music" in order to make their painting as full sensory as possible. It was so relaxing hearing the waves crash every day that they did this. Here is one I used...

This is the first year that I have used youtube at least every other day - for either co-teaching instructional purposes OR to do things like helping to create a more authentic experience of creation in the studio classroom and I am going to keep doing it because it has really made a difference for the students and their work.

Something else of all of this painting of landscapes? I am convincing them (as I told them I would!) that despite any of their individual claims that I ALWAYS hear from them of "I am not an artist," they not only will come to love and crave the experience of painting but they will also be good at it too!

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.  

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.

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 :: 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.