Art Adventures with Middle School Students

Sticks and Stones

2012-01-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

"Sticks and Stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."

I don't believe those words. As any middle school student will tell you, words do hurt. Words are powerful. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. School will be in session, but we will spend the day learning about the positively powerful words of Rev. Martin Luther King jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, participating in a silent march downtown and creating a school-wide monument. Each member of our school will receive a stone.

They will write or paint the word "HOPE" on one side and a short message with their hope on the other: "To be Understood" "To Fit In" "No Bullying" "End US Debt" "Acceptance" "To Get Along" "World Peace" "Love" These are the messages my art club students used when they made their "Stones of Hope" last week. I was so proud of them!

The recently unveiled MLK Memorial on the National Mall in Washington DC bears the inscription, "From a Mountain of Despair, hew a Stone of Hope." These powerful words come from his famous "I Have A Dream" speech following the 1963 march on Washington. I hope this activity will be meaningful for students and staff as we consider the changes in our lives, the opportunities and possibilities in the years since the Civil Rights Movement.

Certainly at my middle school I look around and see a positive legacy of Dr. King's work and words. Students of all backgrounds work and play together. But they also behave like middle schoolers together. Which is to say, they sometimes exclude others as they themselves try to fit in. Name calling is one form this takes. Middle school students are adept at identifying differences and vulnerabilities.

So, the work of following through with Dr. King's hopes isn't finished and perhaps never will be, as long as kids are kids. They do throw sticks and stones. Our job is to move them to an adulthood where they do not feel it necessary. And that's all about creating inclusiveness and collaboration.

I am becoming ever more convinced that collaboration in art education is the way to go. The "modern art" image of the genius artist working in anguished solitude is so yesterday!
Many students leave elementary school hoping never to take another art class. After 5 or 6 years comparing themselves to the one or two 'gifted' artists in the class, they decide art isn't for them.
When I do partner or small group projects such as the Stick Sculptures pictured here, I get 100% enthusiastic engagement. A formal drawing lesson, each kid with their own blank white paper? Not so much. I hope when these middle school students grow up and grow out of their intense need to fit in, that building a stick animal with a classmate will have helped them work and play well with everyone. And that in some small way this art practice of collaboration and inclusiveness contributes to King's legacy.

Shining Stars

2011-11-20T11:32:00.002-05:00

On October 13th, 2011 Police Officer Trevor Slot, husband of my co-worker and friend, Kim, was killed in the line of duty. In addition to Kim, Trevor left behind his two young daughters and many, many friends. Students at our school created this sculptural work in memory of Officer Slot.

"Shining Stars" 2011
48" x 56"
clay, steel, acrylic paint

From the Mind, With Heart, By Hand

2011-10-09T13:46:00.004-04:00

A significant challenge teachers face is meeting the needs of all their many and varied students. As a 'regular ed' kid in middle school in the early 70's I knew there were 'special ed' kids down the hall in a classroom I glanced into but never entered as we marched in line to the gym. In gym class, during the dreaded square dancing unit, I came face to face with sweaty palmed boys but never the boy from the special ed room who knew the names of every shark that swam the ocean. I knew he knew this, because one day his class line passed my class line on the way to the gym. He was reciting. I was amazed. I had a vague, unconsidered idea that the kids in that room were there because they COULDN'T: couldn't behave, or do, or think, or become.

Flash forward thirty-five years. The words, "Every Child Can Learn," legacy of Bush era No Child Left Behind education policy, while not always creating welcome or helpful policy and legislation has had a positive influence in the way we think about educating kids. Even if we don't always know how to do it, even if we sometimes know, but don't have the man power or the technology to do it, even if it sometimes gets misinterpreted as Every Child Should Learn the same thing at the same pace.

This fall, at my school, we are working with an increasingly diverse group of students in larger numbers than ever before, with the smallest staff we've ever had. Teaching students who are hungry, tired, stressed out, distracted, or bored has always been part of the job, but in decades past there was general, societal acceptance that some of these students would move on at 12 or 16 or 18 to work on the farm or factory or family business. This way of doing business worked for many, if not most students, in the one room school house of the 19th century as well as the suburban schools of the twentieth century but for the 21st? Not so much.

I don't know the solution to the big problems in education today, but I do think a lot about what I need to do to reach all kids in my little corner of the world. In addition to students with a wide variety of learning challenges and needs, I have five deaf/hard of hearing students. Searching for a way to engage and involve these students, especially, I invited them to teach the rest of the class how to sign the alphabet in preparation for posing and drawing over-sized hands. This lesson evolved over several weeks to include creating henna hand designs and large wire sculptures around a theme of "Helping Hands."

This past week I stood back and watched industrious groups of students exploring possibilities with chicken wire, plaster, paint and papier mache' all the while talking and sometimes arguing, but also laughing as they worked together to solve problems of space and form, balance and stability, texture and color and ideas and concepts. 100% engagement. A rarity, unfortunately, when so many students are struggling with so much economic fall-out at home and social fall-out in their budding teenage lives.

Grand Rapid's third annual ArtPrize event was wallpaper to our lessons having contributed to the growing notion in our community that making art is cool and it's for everyone. On recent Mondays students came into class buzzing with what they'd seen and experienced visiting ArtPrize with their families.

As students lined up to show their planning sketches to me, I struggled with my own art school, high culture ideas. Don't just illustrate, I exhorted, see if you can find a way to use negative and positive space mindfully, to engage the viewer in a deeper way, with layers of meaning. Kids walked away puzzled. I want to encourage my students' ideas, but push just a bit for them to think more critically, engage more fully, dig deeper into their concepts.

Check back soon to see finished sculptures.

To be honest, I didn't expect much with the finished sculptures. I was happy that the kids had reached our basic learning targets for the unit. I try to be all about process not product when it comes to art making. Chicken wire scratches were minimal and no one shot themselves or anyone else with the staple gun. Success!

So, yesterday, as I took a breather from helping kids solve technical problems, and actually looked at their work I was blown away. These young teens, all, in spite of and because of their many and varied needs have created works to rival anything at ArtPrize, from the mind, with heart and by hand. Passing kids in the hall, on the way to the gym, who knew what they knew, or could do or create, or become once given a chance?

Where Did the Summer Go?

2011-07-27T22:09:00.002-04:00

August is almost upon us. How did that happen? I'm spending the last week of July finishing up a two week professional development course at my county office of education. We're learning about the Common Core State Standards in Language Arts which charge non-English teachers (such as math or art, and even PE teachers) to also teach readin' and writin'. I think it's a great move. I also applaud the move toward a set of National Standards, although no one wants to call them this, hence the ackward addition of the descriptor 'state' in referring to these standards now adopted by 48 of the states.
We are in so many ways still separate colonies. Remember that colonial era drawing of the cut up snake "Join or Die?" I've always really liked that illustration. Public school teachers' state organizations may want to consider this message. We are being harassed from so many directions. In Michigan, not only do individual schools and districts have their own curriculum, teachers within a building often do not teach to the same set of standards or with the same materials. I welcome a move toward a more defined set of expectations for both students and teachers, but let's not forget the role of parents in this effort.

During my lunch breaks I step away from the computer screen, curriculum issues, and politics, for an hour and relax while I explore the possibilities of pen and ink. I've been playing with an antique fountain pen my mother gave me. Fun, fun, fun! I tend to be waaay too uptight when I draw. My own art studies revolved far more around craft as I was always intimidated by the drawing and painting classes. I took haven in the ceramics and fibers studios. So, I tasked myself with completing three to four very quick drawings each day this week, maybe two to five minutes each. Here are a few.

Interior Decorators

2011-05-29T17:49:00.000-04:00

Okay, let's admit it, fellow art teachers, sometimes we get a little tired of being mistaken for the interior decorator at our schools. We get asked to paint murals, posters and banners for special events, provide artwork for the central office and even decorate the bathroom walls and that's in addition to keeping a fresh display of work in showcases and bulletin boards throughout the hallways.

On the other hand, it's always satisfying, at the end of a series of projects to put together a display of student artwork that stops people in their tracks. It's always a joy watching students and faculty stop and talk about what they see. And it's even better when the artists report back hearing positive comments about their work.

But what I really love, is overhearing students show off their own art work. Like the other day when a student stepped out of the lunchroom with a friend, walked over to the bulletin board and said proudly, "See, I made that!" Then I heard, "Wow, I wish I'd taken art this year; that's cool."

Suddenly, I didn't mind being mistaken for the interior decorator. What more could I wish for than the opportunity to fill our school with artwork that generates good feelings and conversation.

An All Time Favorite: Pizza Box Biographies

2011-04-28T20:31:00.000-04:00

Our used pizza boxes have been brushed clean of crumbs, white washed with tempera and lightly marked with grid lines. The art room was buzzing with excitement today as students began sketching in the paintings of their selected artists. I am always amazed at the paintings selected. Everything from Michelangelo to Banksy, from the Sistine Chapel to the streets of London!

I've improved (I hope) my methods of teaching the students about art movements and artist's style. I added a slide show, a game with Happy Bob, the bouncing ball, and an interactive "quiz." I will further assess the success of these methods as I work one on one with students during the coming week and can observe how well they apply what they learned about their artists.

It's always fun to help the students figure out how to imitate the style of their artist, mixing colors to match, trying to copy brush stroke and so on. And it's especially fun to see their amazement at what they can accomplish. Once students finish their copy painting, then they get really creative as they design a mixed-media pizza inspired by the artist and art movement they have studied. The puffy color wheel for Matisse is still an all time favorite from the Pizza Box Biographies art unit.

Time to Cut

2011-03-30T15:08:00.003-04:00

Michigan’s governor, Rick Snyder has a plan. Under his plan our family will need to reduce our spending next year. Since my husband and I are both public educators it’s a double wammy. My husband’s place of business, Grand Valley State University may benefit from the Governor’s plan to raid the School Aid Fund to provide funding for higher education. My school district, Northview Public Schools, definitely won’t. This plan is a little confusing. Like a big city shell game operator in a short con, Snyder isn’t supporting education, he’s palming the money to hand over to business in the form of tax breaks, and our children are the big losers.

But I don’t mind bringing home less income as long as we can still meet our basic needs and a few wants. Some of the extras will have to go. Paying down the mortgage will take a little longer, which will make the bank happy as they will earn more interest. Our entertainment will lean more toward family dominoes night rather than going to Celebration Cinema. But our middle class life style, like that of many of my students, includes a number of wants which we can curtail without too much pain. Here are a few to consider:

As I meander my way to work through Grand Rapids’ darkened streets on these early spring mornings, I am amused by the “Fahrenheit 451” glow, of big screen tvs in many homes from modest cottages to rambling ranches. In fact, after drooling over the gauntlet of flashing rectangles on our weekly trek through Costco, we finally succumbed last year and now have such a device dominating our basement. Flat Screen TV: $700, Comcast Service: $ 1200, Replacing lost remotes: $15, multiple times

Yesterday, we had a laugh in my computer class. I showed them my cell phone and compared it’s slender width to the towering stack of plastic cards extracted from my wallet. I happily await the day when I can throw out this growing pile of discount, debit and membership cards and just ‘swipe’ my phone. Surprisingly, many of my middle school students own a cell phone. I splurged on an I-phone for my husband for his birthday last year. Wish I had one, but the data plan is so expensive. AT&T Family Plan: $850, Teens’ Ring tones: a lot of allowance money

Some boys in the cafeteria were sharing their enthusiasm for World of Warcraft played on their X-box. I finally banned that at my home because it was just too much fun for my sixteen year old son: hard to spare the time for homework and old-fashioned face to face time with flesh and blood friends when computer games are on. I do, however, love my Nintendo DSi that I got at Target last summer. I don’t think I could fall asleep without playing solitaire, and I definitely couldn’t wake up without my DSi alarm. We caved and bought the kids a wii for Christmas. I threw my shoulder out boxing with my son. Nintendo DSi: $149, X-box Live Service: $60, Wii: $199, Ibuprofen: $2.85

I’m collecting used pizza boxes for an art project later this term. It will be easy gathering the 80 or so boxes I need. Like lots of hard working families we have a pizza night, burritos at Quedoba’s or a burger from Culver’s about twice a month, usually on Fridays when we’re just too tired to cook or everyone is going a different direction and we need something fast and easy. I usually make a salad to go with it to assuage my guilt. 24 Pizza nights: $500, Art supplies savings for my school: +$100

My two sons are growing their hair long. As a child of the 60’s, I don’t mind. At school, a new style I find adorable sported by some of my African American students is a modified Mohawk. Very sharp looking! Many girls, like my 14 year old daughter, are still wearing their hair long and sleek, but with carefully shaped bangs and layers. I am so overdue for a haircut, but finding the time for an appointment is a challenge! Haircuts for our family: $600, Roto Rooter to unclog the shower drain: $80

A student shared with me her excitement over the new puppy that will be joining her family in a few days. It was wonderful to see her face shining with the pure joy of this simple pleasure. Our cats keep us warm on these early spring mornings when my DSi photoclock alarm goes off too early and the temperatures are still well below freezing. Basic need or want? I’m not sure about this one. Veterinary care: $200, Cat Food: $150, Savings on heating bill: ?

Governor Snyder’s plan is now in action: Let the elderly, the unemployed and the public employees cut back. Pink slips were handed out this week in school districts throughout Michigan. My younger colleagues are rethinking summer plans, setting aside personal and educational goals. Everything is on hold. Most will not know if they will be rehired until August.

Our governor wants to rob Peter to pay Paul. Raiding the School Aid Fund will do little to solve the economic problems of a society which enjoys so many ‘simple’ pleasures and, yet, is unwilling to fund basic needs. Thanks to Wall Street and the greed of a few we must now recalibrate our wants and needs. We need to pay for the social services it takes to lead a civilized existence. Among the most important: public safety, services for the poor, and education.

Our middle class family receives a check from the state of Michigan every April. Why are we getting a tax refund? I am able to pay higher taxes to fund the social services that make Michigan a great place to live. I might draw the line at starving the cats, but if I need to cancel cable tv, give up the occasional Starbucks run, actually cook dinner on Friday night…so that my colleagues can receive reasonable unemployment support, so be it. Business might not be happy with this loss of revenue, but Snyder’s tax break will help make up the difference, right? Or, how about another plan? Let’s consider meeting our needs without sleight of hand confidence tricks. How about a fair tax structure with the burden shared equally between business and individuals living above the poverty line. What will you cut when the time comes?

Public School: What a Bargain!

2011-03-16T21:15:00.000-04:00

My daughter belongs to a local gym. It costs about $15 for an hour long session of gymnastics. Shoving the living room couch aside, I had tried to teach her myself with a YouTube video, but it turns out there’s more involved in safely teaching a back handspring than can be gleaned from watching a video. Educating our children is expensive, but I knew if I wanted to keep both my daughter and my house in one piece, I needed to let the professionals handle it.

According to USA TODAY, the average, per-pupil, public school expenditure in 2010 was $10,259. Where I live, in Michigan, with all the after-the-fact cuts and last minute give-backs of recent years, we're spending somewhere near $7500 a kid for about 1260 classroom hours, which amounts to around $6 an hour, less than half the hourly cost of my daughter’s gymnastics classes. Membership in the public school system is such a deal!

My children, like their teachers, spend many hours at school above and beyond the seven hours of a typical school day, participating in an astonishing variety of activities—from sports, to fine arts, to academic tutoring—provided by their hard-working, devoted teachers. When you consider this value-added experience, our membership fee to belong to American public education is closer to five bucks an hour.

I just cut a check for piano lessons for my three kids. The going rate for these private education lessons? $24 an hour. My youngest, too old for group swim classes, needed some private lessons: $30 an hour. I am fortunate that our family is able to provide these experiences for our children, and, I am glad that families unable to afford private music, art, athletic experiences, or academic tutoring are able to send their children to public schools where we still offer these opportunities to everyone who walks in the door. What a deal! Not only do we at public schools provide academic instruction and enrichment, but we often feed and clothe and counsel. And as if that were not impressive enough, our schools provide special needs assistance in many forms, such as speech therapy, adaptive technology, and ESL instruction.

I am very proud to be a part of the public education club. At $6 an hour, most Americans can afford the membership fee, and the rest of us can chip in fairly painlessly to provide for those who can’t.

Like many families, when our children were small, we scraped together the money to send them to preschool for three mornings a week. (Then, as now, there was no public preschool available.) It was difficult financially, but we managed it, because we knew that early educational experiences were important to future success in school. I remember how thrilled I was when our youngest started public school, and we no longer had to struggle to find that extra grand or so a year to pay for preschool. Today, that preschool costs $1485 for the year, or about the same $6 an hour of our K-12 public schools. Why is it that many gladly pay to join preschool yet balk at the cost of our K-12 system?

Education is expensive. Just as gymnastics students need trained professionals and safe facilities, our school-age children need books and computers, counseling and tutoring, and top-notch, highly educated teachers. All this for six bucks an hour? What a deal! If it was offered on Groupon, we’d snap it up. I am proud to belong to the public school system both as a parent and as a public school educator for over twenty years. How about you?

Politicians, Pokemon and Pop Tunes

2011-03-06T21:09:00.002-05:00

Sarah gives me hope. While politicians and pundits rage about public employee wages and benefits and regular folks, tired of dodging pot holes, look around for someone to blame, Sarah reminds me that not everyone is out for what they can grab for themselves. Last week Sarah gave me this cute, pink, pokemon character of her own design. Yet, it was her birthday. That teens lean to the center of self is true, but we forget, that teens don't spin on this central axis ALL THE TIME. I'm not so sure about politicians.
A few days ago Sarah came to class wearing a yellow, felt hoody she'd sewn without the aid of a pattern, sporting pikachu-like horns. Sarah's classmates, by and large, admire her creations and her courage to "step lightly to music she hears" however unpop-tunish it might be.

Meanwhile, the pop tune by Jessie Jay, "Pricetag," is getting a lot of air time on the radio. Check out her message:
"Seems like everybody's got a price, I wonder how they sleep at night, when the sale comes first and the truth comes second..."
I like this acoustic version better than the more slick tune with BOB, on the radio play lists. I played this song last week for each of my art classes. They were glazing ceramic pendants, personal symbols they designed or adapted from common symbols. This year, as most years, I was dismayed that I had to explain to a student or two why they couldn't make a ceramic swastika as a personal symbol in MY art room....still, I allowed the dollar signs....so Jessie Jay's song was kind of my antidote. Censorship? Subversive teaching? Guess I'm guilty on both counts.
But for every swastika wearing teen there are a hundred others, Sarahs all, who do not judge, for whom the truth and the needs of others come first, a lot of the time. Look at these cards my students made for the baby cousin of a classmate recently diagnosed with leukemia. Gives you hope, doesn't it?

ZooPal Plates from Toddlers to Teens

2011-02-21T18:12:00.002-05:00

Kassie's Critters

It's a big advantage as a middle school teacher having a young teen in the family. My sharp-eyed, perceptive, 13 year old daughter helps keep me 'in the know' in lots of ways. She advises me on clothing and hair styles, keeps me up to date on the latest hit tunes and popular singers (we're in the middle of Bieber Fever) and is great at finding my misplaced reading glasses, keys, coffee cup, kindle...
My Daughter has been an excellent teaching assistant for years. As a toddler she was always ready to help me create new Mothergoose snacks for a series of preschool lessons I was writing. Now that she's older I enlist her uncomplaining help every August for a day of unpacking, counting and sorting boxes of art supplies. She also helps me find my way to a more teen friendly class environment: "Mom, don't ever call on kids randomly, we hate that." (Guilty!) "Mom, the best part of Mr. X's class is that we get to sit with our friends." (I always separate friends.) "Mom, group projects are the best!" (I need to remember to do group stuff more often.) My daughter is my best teacher!

So, naturally, I asked her advice a few weeks ago in creating a new clay project. I wanted something that would really get kids excited. Clever girl that she is, she came up with the idea of making 'zoopal' plates, and I think she hit on a winner. When I announced the project last week, much to my surprise, students in every class burst into spontaneous singing of the 'zoo pals' tune. It was hilarious. Who knew these items from their toddler days would have such a lasting impact?
For those who don't know, ZooPals have been around for awhile. They are animal paper plates, a Hefty brand product (think garbage bags) cleverly designed with a shape that allows for ears or feet depending on the animal represented. Check out the complete list of 60 here.

Madame Matisse Never Looked So Good!

2011-02-03T10:16:00.001-05:00

Students entered the darkened classroom to behold Madame Matisse, projected as a four foot monstrosity on the wall. These young teens, 13 and 14 year olds, first demand to know if "it's" a man or woman; her samurai hair and dense brows confuse them. Study sketches of master works are a great way to get your students to closely examine art work. They make so many cool discoveries.
In preparation for creating their own original drawings with dry pastels I had students make study sketches of Madame Matisse. My 7th and 8th graders found her green face stripe and hair style quite hilarious, but as they worked they began to discover interesting, more subtle details: the blue shapes in her hair, such as the triangle just above the forehead, the stripe of red reflected light at the hairline, the green and cream triangles that form her neck. Efforts at matching line and shape and color resulted in students gaining a deeper understanding of both Matisse's paintings as well as using pastels to create a variety of effects.

Big Brush Slippery Fish

2011-01-25T22:06:00.003-05:00

I found this big brush in a tiny junk stall in Suzhou, China. I have no idea if it's actually an old calligraphy brush or just made to look so. Either way, I thought it was cool! My students agree, impressed by it's massive size. The handle is about a foot long. They took turns today trying it out.

My attempt at copying these slippery, beady-eyed fish with the big brush was not so impressive. It amazes me how sumi-e' can look so simple and yet be so difficult to do well. My inky fish slipped off the big brush, slug-like and lacking the lively flip and flop of this yin yang pair. Tomorrow, for my lesson on line, I will encourage my students to capture the essence of an animal in a few simple strokes with a small bamboo brush and india ink. I know the results will amaze me; they always do!

I love the red, rectangular stamp signatures on asian scrolls. I have some strips of thin foam material which the students can cut and stick on cardboard to create simple stamps. While they work on their individual 'signature' stamps I will invite a student at a time to take up the big brush to swish and swoosh an 'S' of a fish on a long strip of butcher paper; together we will slip and drip some inky fish into a river edged in red print symbols.

A Helping Hand?

2011-01-08T18:23:00.001-05:00

Like any teacher, I want to help my students as much as I can, however, if I thread one student's needle, I'll be stuck for the rest of the hour. The line will snake like a boa, encircling and ensnaring, constricting any hope I had of wandering freely among the industrious weavers in my art room and my students will limit their chances of gaining a skill. So, we practice the fold, pinch, jiggle method of needle threading. Needles with really big eyes, of course, make this process much easier.

Often I have students with various disabilities that make needle threading, cutting with scissors or other fine-motor, tool use, challenging. These students have so much to gain from fine-motor practice in the art classroom, but far too often, well-meaning adults step in and take away the opportunity to develop these hand skills. I sometimes have to ask a classroom aide to step back and allow the students to do the art project on their own. I try to explain that the process is more important than the end product. On the other hand, it is important to lend a hand or gently guide a hand if a student is becoming too frustrated. At these times, I am grateful for another pair of adult hands in the room.

Whether working with children in a classroom or raising your own children, deciding whether to give a helping hand or encourage the child to do it alone can be difficult. If you thread all their needles you may be stuck threading all their needles. However, if you let them do it alone, while there's the risk of a pricked finger, there's also the possibility of moving beyond perceived limitations.

2010-12-24T12:54:00.001-05:00

Scrambling to capture a three second pose.

I am in awe of people who can take charcoal in hand and zip, flick, swish, three strokes and they've captured the human figure. During a recent figure drawing class I struggled to loosen up. Poses were held for three seconds, so there wasn't much choice! The teacher, witnessing my struggles, instructed me to use the side of my charcoal to blacken the entire paper. Then using just the eraser, I was told to 'find' the highlights. This was a fun exercise. Instead of defining the figure with line, I was freed to see the form. I'm excited to try this approach with my own students next term.

Drawing with eraser.

Self-Portrait

In this self-portrait my grim expression reminds me of old photographs in which the subjects, stiff and formal, appear to glare, lips pursed in anger, at the camera. Rather than capturing ill humor these photos reveal the discomfort and effort exerted to hold a pose for the duration of the long exposure time needed to record the image. That's pretty much my experience trying to draw my reflection in a mirror and hold a pose simultaneously!

Cheating?

2010-12-17T16:14:00.000-05:00

My students sometimes ask if they can print out a picture of something they are trying to draw or paint. I usually let them. This is useful for reference.
Sometimes, a clever student will come up with the idea to hold their paper and picture up to the window and trace.Once in awhile a student will just cut to the chase, grab some scissors and paste the element right into their art work. Inevitably another student will cry "cheating."
But is it? I really think it depends on the artist's goals and the purpose for the project.
So, I made this pen and ink watercolor painting for a friend for Christmas and I cheated. In my practice sketches I was really struggling to get the roof angles correct. I was working from a photograph so I just printed out a couple in the size I wanted for my final painting. I cut the houses out of the background and traced the roof lines. Because my goal in this painting was to record a specific house, I wanted to be fairly accurate. In a different painting I might be more loose and less concerned with precise lines and angles. I hope my friend will forgive me for cheating!

Time Out/Time In

2010-12-02T10:07:00.000-05:00

I took some time out, or maybe it was time IN. After months of planning and mountains of paperwork, I said goodbye to my students this fall and headed to China to add a child to our family. It was and continues to be an incredible adventure. Peaks and valleys. Luckily, my bag is weighty with tissues and treats, bandaids and bananas and the perfect portable paint and sketch kit put together by my wonderful mother.

visit Mom's site for pen and ink painting
tips and techniques.

A second only to Hermione's bottomless bag!

My fave hoodie left behind somewhere in Guangzou

A Canal view in Suzhou

Colonial remnants in a Nanjing Garden

A Match Made in Heaven

2010-05-21T18:46:00.004-04:00

"Oh, ick...." was the general comment from my 7th and 8th grade students upon learning that the subject of this painting by Leonardo DaVinci, Ginevra De Benci, was, at age 16, betrothed to a middle aged man. They had a similar response to viewing Michelangelo's David in its... entirety.

Some aspects of our study of the high Italian Renaissance had my young teens squirming in their seats. However, the assignment to create a "match made in heaven" - or more accurately, on earth, by pairing the 17 year old David with 16 year old Ginevra, resulted in some fun art!

The drawing lessons included instruction on standard proportion as measured in head lengths, The Vetruvian Man, of course, as well as some gradual tone shading exercises. We also watched a few video clips from the fabulous BBC production, "Michelangelo the Divine." The students loved it - full of violence, blood and naked Renaissance cupids!

For the images pictured here I gave the students a photocopy of Ginevra and David's heads. They glued them on grey, buff or pink construction paper and proceeded to give them hair extensions, make up, glasses and so on. Then they decided on a contemporary activity and setting. The rest is history - love at first sight!

Accountability in Art: The Great Totem Spoon Test

2010-04-10T10:59:00.001-04:00

Because NO CHILD should be LEFT BEHIND and EVERY CHILD CAN LEARN and it is important to HOLD TEACHERS ACCOUNTABLE for STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT and because ASSESSING COMMON STANDARDS AND BENCHMARKS is key to good instruction and clearly will BOOST PERFORMANCE so that we educators reach our nationally mandated goal of 100% PROFICIENCY IN READING AND MATH BY 2014 I ended the last term with a RIGOROUS exam during which STUDENTS DEMONSTRATED MASTERY of KEY CONCEPTS AND SKILLS by successfully eating ice cream using their totem spoon. I will admit that one head did roll, luckily not mine, and it was quickly reattached with super glue. I used this dramatic, TEACHABLE MOMENT to reinforce the importance of SCORING WELL and using slip, sometimes referred to as "clay snot" in room 301, when attaching clay pieces.

Beanie Babies?

2010-03-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

Remember Beanie Babies? Once a collector's hopeful investment, their value has taken a nose dive right along with the value of the houses they clutter. I cleaned out a basement closet last week, filled a couple of bags and carted them off to school. (Don't tell my daughter, or teenage son, for that matter!) Don't have kids? Didn't join the beanie baby craze? No problem, pick them up at garage sales for about a quarter; fill a garbage bag with them at that price.

Why? Well, they are still incredibly cute, even my 8th grade boys loved this project, but more to the art point, they make great still-life material. They generally provide simple lines for the beginning artist to render and they display a variety of textures from their glossy eyes to their fuzzy fur. Teach contour line, form versus shape, shadow and highlights, and even color value. The drawings shown here were done with artist's dry pastel on plain old 11x18 construction paper.

Furthermore, the ability to pose these chubby critters, provides an excellent teaching opportunity to show students how to draw, for instance, the slumpy, little puppy, they SEE with their eyes, rather than the image of DOG which they hold in their mind.

Snow Gloves

2010-01-28T18:17:00.003-05:00

Sideways snow, I run from car to school blinded by stinging ice pellets. I'm greeted by the red blinking message alert: my student teacher sits awaiting rescue, car trapped in a ditch on her first day, poor thing. A rough start to a new term. It's January in Michigan. We burrow deeper into our parkas trying to avoid the pain of winter.

My family is gloveless this week Lesson plans trump comfort. Cold hands a small sacrifice for an art project. I'm teaching the basics. Line defines shape, shading reveals form....we're drawing gloves. Learning to see.

Outside it's a whiteout, cars crawl by in the snowy dark, red tail lights barely visible. Inside, my students, one eye closed against depth perception, are ants crawling along the contour of gloves, finding the mountains, valleys and cliffs of the outside line. It is a slow journey. We are trying to whiteout their mental picture of a glove: four fingers and a thumb. Although they can not actually 'see' all the fingers, they are smart. They know they're there. Not trusting my method, those extra fingers sometimes appear anyway. Amputation solves the problem.

As ants they forget about fingers. The landscape of a glove takes on a whole new geography. They begin to see the line, the line reveals the shape. The blob of a glove they've created seems disappointing at first. "I messed up" a common cry, looking at the odd shape on their paper, nothing like their idea of a glove.

But now, half blind, I urge them onto the inner continent adding detail lines, texture and shading. Across the room someone utters a hushed, "wow" in awe as a glove pops from the white surface.

The blizzard is forgotten as we all consider this new reality of an ant's view. Somewhere down a dark snowy road my student teacher breathes a sigh of relief watching the tow truck lights approach. Tomorrow will be a great first day.

Painting Like Pollock: Abstract Expressionism

2009-12-08T21:25:00.011-05:00

Parent conference days are quiet in the art room. By hour nine, after a mere ten visits, I was getting pretty antsy. On the up side, my room was cleaner than it had been in weeks and a solid month of lesson plans graced my desk. Three hours to go. I stood up and stretched.

I enjoy meeting parents. Earlier in the day I'd had a pleasant conversation with a parent who wondered if I'd had a chance, yet, to use the rolls of upholstery fabric remnants she'd donated from her work. Double whammy guilt! "Nope. Not yet," I shook my head and thanked her again for hauling all that stuff in. And, I reminded myself, I really needed to do something about all the 'donations' that were piling up, blocking a shared path to the computer printer.

Sighing, I headed for the printer room, determined to lug it all to my impossibly overstuffed storage space. As I grabbed the first long, cardboard tube from its place of honor atop the teetering pile near the printer, I was struck with inspiration, my upcoming unit was on abstract expressionism and the work of Jackson Pollock. Why not use all this fabric instead of poster board for the collaborative 'action paintings?' And why not use house paint instead of the expensive school acrylics?

Pushing thoughts of toxic fumes down into that rarely visited brain space housing theorems and postulates and other icky monsters, I flipped the 6 foot roll of fabric out along the top of a work table. Hiking up my ankle length, black dress I knelt down and dug around under the sink. I soon came up with a cracked, rubber spatula, a paint stirring stick and a few crusty brushes. An armload of old house paint cans, an apron for good measure and I was ready to try it out!

The next few hours flew past as I splattered and dripped, brushed and scraped, stopping a few times to hold a few conferences. Parents didn't seem to mind that I had to wash my hands before we could get started reviewing grades. When the announcement came concluding the evening's meetings I was sorry to put down the paint bucket but excited to share this next project with my students.

As I grabbed my coat and keys I realized with diminished guilt, that I'd only managed to move one roll of fabric from the tottering pile threatening to block the Gym teachers' access to the printer.

Visit www.funartlessonsgallery.blogspot.com to see all the students "Painting Like Pollock" art work.

On the Move: Drawing with Pastels

2009-11-29T16:41:00.001-05:00

Tiny toys motivate. No matter how old the student, miniature, life-like objects fascinate. When my 7th and 8th graders enter the art room and see matchbox cars and planes, trucks and motorcycles set up at each table, they can't wait to get started.
We do a few color mixing exercises first, to get used to the pastels, to see how to mix and blend colors and to understand how to change color value by blending in white or black and decide on warm or cool colors for the vehicle. Then I have them use a neutral grey construction paper for their drawing to help emphasize the rich hues.
The only challenge with this lesson is keeping the kids from playing with the cars so that they don't disturb the still life set-ups between classes!

Fresh Air and Clay Leaf Bowls

2009-10-16T20:24:00.004-04:00

Some of my students are still putting paper in the trash can and garbage in the recycling bin. Arrrrg! During clean-up I had to lecture again, on the difference between garbage and recyclables as I picked the paper products out of the trash, not my favorite task.

So, after my clean-up harague I enjoyed directing my students to run as fast as they could to the trees across the playing field, grab a big leaf and run back. "You have three minutes," I added sternly, then laughed as the kids looked at each other, then at me, secretly hopeful that I really meant it! A few braves ones said something like, "You're kidding, right?" "Nope," I shook my head and stood back as they headed out the door amid whoops and hollers. Fresh air and freedom: three minutes of bliss for these middle school students.

I watched their progress from the doorway as I wrapped my bulky sweater more tightly about myself. Fall had arrived! The cold was motivation for my t-shirt clad students to run the several hundred yards there and back all the more quickly. They spilled back into the classroom excited by their finds and energized by the brisk autumn air. For the rest of the week they worked diligently creating beautiful ceramic bowls based on the leaves they collected. We completed the final steps today.

During clean-up this afternoon, I noticed that the floor was littered with dried leaves. "What'll we do with these?" a girl asked as she started to toss a few leaves into the garbage. "Here," I handed her a large box. On Monday we'll return our useful leaves to Mother Nature and start our week off with a little fresh air and freedom.

Art Prize Grand Rapids

2009-10-08T13:14:00.006-04:00

Sunday evening we took our teen children and their friends to downtown Grand Rapids which, over the course of a few weeks, has been transformed by ArtPrize, a city-wide art contest conceived of and funded by a wealthy member of one of Grand Rapids' philanthropic families.
We started our trek near the 'Blue Bridge' over the Grand River, where the teens were delighted by a top ten vote getter, "Nessie," a collaborative work in the 30's Art Moderne style, by a group of former classmates from Kendall College of Art and Design.

Teens lagging a block behind the grown ups, we wandered the central city blocks, like Sacajawea and her Crew, in search of art and artifacts. This event capitalized on the popularity of American Idol audience participation. Anyone over 18 was able to register to vote to select, in two rounds of voting, the ultimate winner of a quarter million dollar purse. There were no predetermined art categories or even much of a definition of what would qualify as ART. It was up to the public to decide. Art curators, historians, educators and critics would not be determining the value of what was on display here. One personal favorite? The maze of baled plastic recycleables set in a parking lot between glass fronted office buildings.

Following the first round of voting, each piece was labeled with thumbs up and down indicating the numbers of favorable and not so favorable votes. Surprisingly, on many pieces the vote count was in the tens of thousands. I found it difficult to believe such a large number of people had strolled past these sites in recent days. Downtown Grand Rapids is not Times Square, even on a Saturday Night.

Like bargain hunters at a flea market we left no alley unturned in our quest for art, despite a steadily increasing drizzle. Toward the end of the journey, rainy skies darkening the streets, we were cold, hungry and in need of the 'facilities.' We dove into the nearest open building, and found these 8 foot pencil drawings with acrylic painted backgrounds. What an impact. They weren't in the top ten, but they get my vote; looking at these hyper-real pieces it's impossible not to think about the real men and women who are serving as soldiers in Iraq and Afganistan. The teens? After coming full circle, back at the Blue Bridge, they went for "Nessie." The contest winner will be announced later today.

Art History through Games

2009-09-24T20:50:00.002-04:00

Most teens will tell you there's nothing more boring than history...except maybe ART history. So, I'm experimenting with a little subversive teaching in the form of games as a way to sweeten the deal and get students engaged in looking at art.

Kids always love BINGO, especially when the prize involves vitamin S in the form of Bubble gum. I've used BINGO as an informal post assessment to check their learning, (and my teaching!) but I'm also interested in creating games that will form a more significant part of the initial instruction.

Last Friday I introduced a new game, Snapshot Memory. Teams had 60 seconds to memorize the details in a painting by Vermeer and then another 60 seconds to list what they remembered from the painting, including artist, title and date. The competitive spirit in the room really motivated students to focus intently on artwork!

After 5 or 6 rounds the students were able to describe the artist's style, time period, subject matter, several titles of paintings - and I never lectured! Later, much to my surprise, they were able to select a (new to them) "Vermeer" from a line-up of paintings. Who says art history is boring!!!

Backward Portraits: A Fun Opening Lesson for Back-to-School

2009-09-12T09:08:00.011-04:00

First day of school - I stood at the door to the art room greeting each student as they entered. Lots of big smiles, a few too shy to meet my eyes, high-fives from last year's 7th graders back for another dose of messy fun. Under his breath, as he walked in, head down, a new student, voicing what a good handful of others were thinking, "I hate art. I can't draw."

Always my first challenge - overcoming the fear and dread of performing so visually for all to see the shortcomings, failings, lack of this or that. Possibly the worst position in which to place a budding, young adult and the quickest route to behavior issues in the classroom.

A truth about teens - they are hair obsessed! For our opening project, part of a two week unit on portraiture, we drew "backwards" portaits in oil pastel and watercolor wash. An easy, no-fail drawing lesson focusing on the art elements of SHAPE and LINE.

After the Demo - Talk and laughter filled the room as kids began their drawings. "My head's a square!" "I've got a grape head."...Or the line in their hair, "It goes straight out in every direction." "I've got a spiral from my crown!"

The boy who walked in hating art? Not sure he loves it...yet, but as he walked out he called, "see ya tomorrow, Ms. Wilson." I glanced toward the doorway to see the back of his head... held a bit higher going out.

You can find several back-of-the head portrait lessons in a variety of media at Artsonia.
On Monday we'll begin a self-portrait project involving digital photographs and drawing, and we'll learn about the photo portraits of the 19th century pictorialist, Julia Margaret Cameron: Fantastic Photos

Fall Trees: Drawing with Sticks?

2009-08-20T14:58:00.005-04:00

Sometimes going low-tech in this high-tech world produces beautiful results. Take a look at what Melissa Giglio's students at Nouth Carolina's Arapahoe Charter School can do with sticks and a little ink. Yes, sticks, plain ordinary, fallen from the tree, sticks. The original tool for scratching in the dirt, marking out territory or digging a hole. Melissa says, "In the pictures you'll see how 'gestural' they are...I LOVE THAT about stick drawing with ink. We also splattered and used a watered down ink with a paper towel as a 'wash' to create gray areas."

While I'm sorry to see summer come to an end, I can't wait for the trees to shed their leaves and drop a few sticks so that I, too, can take my students outside to draw with sticks! Visit Melissa at her new blog, The Art Room at ACS.

Adventure in the Hot Shop

2009-08-06T13:47:00.006-04:00

It's been a cool summer in Michigan, but the West Michigan Glass Blowers Society Hot Shop was the sizzling spot to be this week. I just returned from a couple of intense, exhilarating days in Kalamazoo learning to do amazing things with glass. Here, my friend Tina is showing the honey-thick, molten glass just who's boss as our instructor, Judy, looks on, ready to help out at the first sign of trouble.

After gathering and shaping a glob of hot glass, we blew through the pipe to begin expanding the glass, hoping eventually to form a tumbler or vase.

In my first attempt I blew so hard the glass popped as if it were a soap bubble. Fine threads of glass floated down to the concrete floor. Back at the "glory hole" I gathered more glass with the help of our instructor, Mike. Our classmate, Jenny, manages NOT to pop bubbles!

After almost five hours in the hot shop we were ready for a shower, a bite to eat and then on to our next workshop: Photo Screen Printing.

Back to School for Teachers

2009-07-27T09:13:00.006-04:00

In Michigan its back-to-school for many art teachers as we attend the Michigan Art Education Association's summer workshops at Western Michigan U in Kalamazoo next week. I'm looking forward to a few days of art making with friends. This year I'm trying two new media: photo silkscreen and glass blowing. I recently discovered all the equipment for silkscreen in my cavernous storage closet at school and hope to do some projects with my students this coming school year. Glass blowing is purely for myself - something I've always been interested in, but never had the opportunity to try. Its certainly not a middleschool activity!

For the silkscreen class I'll be combining the images shown here to make a two color print. These are pics I took last winter and photoshopped to get the effects shown here. We'll see how it turns out!

Shrieking Clown and Grilled Cheese at the Art Institute of Chicago

2009-07-10T21:13:00.009-04:00

My daughter and I took a trip on the train to Chicago this week. We each chose an activity. Mine was a visit to the Art Institute. My daughter, the whale lover, chose the Shedd Aquarium. We decided to do the art first and save the 'fun stuff' for the second day.

We started, while energy was high, with a tour of the new contemporary art wing. My daughter was a good sport, for awhile, until we got to the shrieking clown video piece. That sent her over the edge. Time for lunch!

Fortified with grilled cheese and french fries we made our way through the modern galleries. And here I watched my daughter, no art lover, come alive. She loved the landscapes and paintings that 'told stories.' She recognized Picasso's "The Old Guitarist" and told me all about his Blue Period - hurrah for her wonderful art teacher, Mrs. Lampen!

I was amazed at this landscape by Piet Mondrian from 1916. Clearly on a track to abstraction. I loved looking at the actual paint surface, something you can never see in reproductions. Because I grew up near Chicago, I had the opportunity to take many school trips to the museum. My own students have not had this experience. We do not have the funds or parental resources even to go to our local art museum.Our day at the museum over, we took our tired feet to the hotel where we rested up just long enough to gain the energy and appetite to head out for a great meal at an Italian restaurant. Tomorrow - Beluga whales at the Shedd.

Painted Digital Portraits

2009-06-28T21:05:00.007-04:00

Here's a fun, easy, summer art project you can do at home with children of all ages. Start by taking a digital photographic portrait and print it out in black and white, or enlarge on a photo copier a portait on 8 x 10 paper. You child's school picture might be just perfect to use for this project!

Use acrylic or tempera paint. Inexpensive acrylic paint is available in small bottles at your local craft store. Be sure to have a variety of brush sizes on hand for large areas and detail work. Choose a palette of complementary colors such as green and red, blue and orange or yellow and purple to create visual contrast. Vary the brush strokes from smooth to bumpy, or impasto, type styles to increase visual interest.

Use the photograph as a guide to begin painting a self-portrait. Interesting effects can be obtained by leaving some areas such as the eyes or mouth unpainted so that the photographic information shows through. Reassure your artists at home that the final portrait does not need to be 'realistic.' That's the fun of painting!

A Frame of Reference

2009-06-06T08:33:00.007-04:00

To display a digital photographic self-portrait as an end-of-year project students created these simple autobiographical frames with white colored pencil on black construction paper.
I came up with this extension to the self-portrait project as a kind of "down-time" activity to manage the many classroom interruptions we faced the last two weeks as different groups of students left intermittently for end-of-the year events, making direct teaching a challenge! I worried they might find it somewhat tedious.
So, I was quite surprised that students begged to work on this project even when we all were there. I think they enjoyed both the relaxing pace of the activity as well as the challenge of illustrating the 8 'loose' categories I gave them. These included: 1 name, 2 wishes, hopes or dreams, three characteristics about yourself, four places you'd like to visit, five important relationships, six activities you enjoy , seven foods you like to eat, and eight favorite books, movies, songs, bands, and/or plays or musicals. I was also surprised at how much discussion the activity fostered as students shared and compared their interests.
I suppose self-portrait activities in art classes as well as autobiography, memoir projects and journaling in language arts classes are so popular for this age group because, as many teachers know, middle school students are most comfortable with what they think they know best: themselves and their peers. I hope these autobiography projects help them gain self-understanding while also questioning assumptions about others.
For this project I pushed the desks together into large seating groups for 8, so that different social groups had to mix a bit. It was heartwarming to see kids from different groups comment positively on each others' interests and abilities. As a frame of reference understanding one's own skills and interests can help students value the interest and skills of others.

Fantastic Forest

2009-06-03T21:05:00.007-04:00

Just two days of class left, then a week of half day exam days, then summer. I will be sad, as I am each year, to say goodbye to students I've worked with for two years. I meet them as awkward 12 year olds, just kids, really, and two short years later, say goodbye to (mostly) confident young adults. An amazing, fascinating metamorphosis.
This morning I asked a group of 8th graders which projects they most enjoyed over the course of the two years. Their answers surprised me. Different students, of course, gave different answers. After all, some love the mucky mess of clay, some don't. Some love to draw, others find it stressful.
However, one project the group agreed was a favorite was a large, acrylic landscape painting they did after studying the work of Henri Rousseau. I was surprised that this was a favorite as it was quite a lot of work. I pushed the students to go beyond a 'coloring in' approach, to experiment with brush strokes and color mixing. And some grumbled at the requirements which included a sleeping figure ala Rousseau's "Gypsy" as well as a collaged magazine critter or two and a strange juxtaposition of objects such as Rousseau's monkey with a back scratcher.
But, in the end, "freedom is moving easy in harness." As my students explained to me this morning, it was a challenging project and sometimes frustrating, but when they were done they thought, "Wow, I didn't know I could do that!" I guess that's what I love about teaching Middle School, watching this transformation take place both because of and in spite of, the strictures and structures of school.
It's corney, I know, but each summer I get to set a new crop of butterflies free. What a job!

Self-Portraits

2009-05-27T22:10:00.008-04:00

Looking for a fun end of year art activity? Check out the National Gallery of Art classroom activities. I am fortunate to have a computer lab to take my classes to now and then. Yesterday I prepared my students for the NGA Self-Portrait lesson by playing a youtube slide show of Vincent Van Gogh paintings set to, of course, the Don McLean song, "Starry Night." Then students went to the NGA site and with a worksheet to guide them, learned about Van Gogh and the genre of self-portraiture.

Today students talked excitedly about the digital photographs we will take over the next few days - see the Self-portrait lesson on the NGA site. Because my teaching schedule is interrupted by lots of special end of year activities I needed an easy, self-directed art activity that the student could work on in between field trips, band performances, field days and waiting for access to the digital cameras. I came up with the idea of picture "frames" for the self-portraits.

Students used white colored pencil on black construction paper. They were given a list of 8 items to include in their frame, for instance: Two hopes, wishes or dreams, three personal characteristics, four activities they enjoy, five places they'd like to visit and so on. I told them they could use words, images, designs, symbols, fancy lettering and so on to complete their frames. So far, they're coming out great. Each frame is so different, and since it's basically doodling, the kids are having a great time, talking while they draw, sharing with each other the images and words they've chosen to represent themselves. I'll try to put a photo of some frames up on the blog in a few days, so check back!

Plein Air Painting: Take the Time!

2009-05-26T22:01:00.007-04:00

We had just 49 minutes after attendance was taken. Walking to the duck pond was 7 minutes each way at a brisk clip. Two minutes were sucked up by the pond water minus pond muck demonstration. Then a minute each was spent pointing out the park boundaries and reminding students to use all four techniques learned the previous day: ink with watercolor wash, tissue lift for clouds, wet on wet and dry brush for plants and details. Oh, and passing out paint boxes, paper, sharpies, tissue and water cups ate up at least three minutes.
But by 8:27 a.m. we were painting golden spring light, ducks on the pond and lacy new greenery. Laughter echoed across the pond as students dipped cups past green scum to the somewhat clear water beneath. Painting outdoors, as the impressionists knew, was time well spent really seeing the light. There were some muddy jeans and my feet were sore by the end of my fourth class trip, but a good time was had by all.

7th grader, Hannah, makes her initial line drawing with an ultra fine point sharpie (top). To the right is her finished painting.

Learning to Draw: Confidence Plus Effort Equals Success!

2009-05-17T13:33:00.008-04:00

On the first day of class, each term, I ask my students to raise their hand if they can draw a stick figure or a happy face. Usually most every hand goes up. I follow this easy question with a harder one: How'd you learn? "I don't know" or a shrug of the shoulders is the typical response. Probing deeper, kids will say they watched someone else, or copied or just figured it out. Great! I tell them, that's how you LEARN to draw anything.
Most middle school students (and lots of adults, too) think that being a good artist means you can just naturally draw well. To relieve the anxiety many middle school students feel about art class and their own assessment of their lack of drawing ability, I start class by insisting that being a good artist isn't about natural drawing skills, that drawing skills can be learned, just like learning to draw a stick figure or write alphabet letters.
During the past week my students learned contour line drawing and gradual tone shading. They learned how to use a valuable art tool, the index finger, to smudge graphite as they shaded, they learned to use an eraser to reveal highlights and most importantly they learned to see with their eyes, not with their mind, so that they could draw the shoe in front of them with all its creases, tears, and scuff marks, not the idea of a shoe in their mind's eye.
The results of these simple drawing lessons amaze the students. Last Friday my second hour class installed our SHOE exhibit in the cafeteria. They hung 72 shoe drawings - one from every student in three classes. Sure, some are "better" or more accurately drawn than others, but each drawing shows amazing growth in the way the individual artist learned to see shape and form, highlights and shadows, and depict this on the 2-D surface of the paper.
Several teachers and a lunch lady commented on what excellent drawing skills this particular group of students has. I nodded my head in agreement, but silently added, EVERY group of students can draw, when they combine a few simple skills with confidence and effort!

Contour Line Drawing with a Twist

2009-05-07T21:22:00.014-04:00

It all started with a basic contour line drawing of a shoe followed by a simple challenge: You've drawn it while looking, now close your eyes and try it blind. The results were funny, we laughed and I was ready to move on to the SERIOUS drawing lessons.

But the 7th graders in this class are never predictable and rarely serious. Someone suggested trying it backwards and before I knew it the kids were all up out of their seats practically dislocating their shoulders to draw on the desk behind them. The results were almost as hilarious as watching this room full of contortionists trying to draw a shoe.

Then, Travis, known as DaTravio in the art room, drew a pretty decent shoe with his elbow, so everyone had to try that!
Clearly, when roucous laughter broke out in the corner of the room and shoes were flying off feet instead of being carefully drawn by studious art students, all hope was lost for completing that day's carefully planned lesson. Soon everyone had their shoes off, pencils gripped between toes, drawing shoes on the floor. It was an unpredictably wonderful place for my simple contour line drawing lesson to end up!

Fun Art Lessons

2009-05-06T13:10:00.006-04:00

My new website, FunArtLessons.com is up and running! Check it out!

What Will They See in an Old Shoe?

2009-04-27T12:47:00.012-04:00

My thirteen year old son has enormous feet. They rip through sports shoes in a matter of months. Tripping over one of his castoff, man's size 12 shoes last week gave me an idea for an end of the year art project. At first I thought I'd stumbled over one of the two cats in our house. The shoes are that big and our cats are that fat! It was dark, 5am, I was barely awake. I looked at that shadowy shoe, at its creased and molded shape, it stared back at me, daring me to challenge its right to front stage center on the stair landing: a 3D Rorschach test that NEVER gets put away.
Old shoes do have character which is why the "Draw an Old Shoe" pencil project is a classic that's been around for decades. A nice, quiet, clean end of year project! At first I thought I'd just bring in a few shoes, set up a still life at each table and assign the pencil drawing, but one of the issues I have in teaching drawing and gradual tone shading is that a lot of kids can't get past the colors, logos and details of an object to see the form. They just don't "read" highlights and shadows very well at first.
So, on Wednesday, while students were wrapping up a printmaking project, I got out some old yellow house paint and proceeded to paint a shoe to see if making it monochrome would help reveal highlights and shadows. As expected, it did, but unexpectedly the painted shoe, or rather the act of painting the shoe, was what really caught the students' interest. "Can I do one?" they asked hour after hour as they caught sight of my mustard yellow transformation.
Out the window, like a birthday balloon, went my idea of a quiet end of the year drawing project and in the art room door came boxes and bags of old shoes. The pile grows daily as teachers and parents respond to my email request. Gallons of leftover house paint have joined the swelling, smelly pile of worn out shoes. Eager art students ask me daily, "When're we gonna paint the shoes?"
What will my students see in these shoes? Not the house cat, I'm sure. We're stepping into new territory and we're going to figure this project out together. What I do know is that the pile of shoes has captured their imagination and THAT is one giant step toward a successful end of the year project.
p.s. After we paint the shoes (all 50 or 60, rather than the 5 or 6 I had intended!) I will have them do that ol' stand-by: the pencil drawing. What happens with the shoes after that?...check back and I'll let you know!

"All Thumbs" and a Few Toes Too

2009-04-20T21:32:00.006-04:00

Last spring I decided it was time to tackle the large walk-in storage closet adjacent to my art room. The walls are lined with boxes, some of which, judging from the contents, date back at least thirty years- well before my time! Some of the labels match the contents: cat food cans, door knobs, paper towel rolls. Some are mystery boxes.
One such box held a few rolls of plaster cloth of the sort for casting broken bones. Not enough material for all four of my art classes, unless we did something really small.
The idea for this project sprouted along with the seedlings I set under grow lights awaiting the memorial day weekend outdoor planting date. I was thinking about green thumbs and my mind went on from there: all thumbs, thumbs up, thumbing a ride, Thumbelina, thumbs and toes, tip toe, toe to toe, ten little piggies, hang ten, well, you get the idea. It was silly, but that was our theme.
I dragged out the boxes of wood scraps, invited students to plaster a thumb, a toe or in this case two sets of toes and build a sculpture. Some were 'figurative', some were abstract, all were radically different from each other and lots of fun to do!

Picture Books with 14 Year Olds? REALLY?

2009-04-16T16:31:00.004-04:00

In the late 80's, much to my surprise, I found myself teaching 2nd grade in Los Angeles. I never planned on becoming a school teacher but after art graduate school, in the middle of the last great Recession, there weren't many options for those of us with MA's in studio art. (Are there ever?) LA needed warm bodies- no degree required- so we signed up. Little did I know that it was the beginning of an odyssey in education- no destination in site- now almost three decades in.
I didn't know much about teaching at first. I went to school at night for the piece of paper that certified that I knew what I was doing, but really, I learned on the job and it was my students who were the teachers. The first day of school the students taught me the pledge of allegiance in Spanish. The second day of school they taught me some cool clapping games. On the third day of school they taught me the power of a story shared.
Admittedly, I was a bit at a loss as to how to productively fill six hours with these active and eager eight year olds. At home, after the exhausting but exhilarating second day of school, I dug through my childhood boxes and found the book, Frederick, by Leo Leoni, about a mouse who, rather than help the mouse clan gather nuts and seeds for the winter gathers words and colors: an artist making his contribution.
The next morning as I gathered the children around me I hoped "Read Aloud Time" would help pass a quiet ten minutes or so. Half an hour later the children were still debating the fairness of Frederick's actions. There were those who felt Frederick should have helped gather some food, and there were those who believed that Frederick contributed what he could. And finally, there were the children who felt Frederick should have gathered some food along with his words and colors. Eight year olds it turns out are very passionate about fairness.
Although I've moved on to colder climes and older students I still read picture books aloud now and then. I have many favorites, such as Ruth Vanderzee's Mississippi Morning which I use with my mask making unit, but I hadn't shared Frederick with a class since teaching little ones. I came across it recently and decided to read it just prior to my artist biography unit, and guess what? Fourteen year olds gather around just as eagerly for a story and are just as passionate about fairness as eight year olds.

Dangerous Art

2009-04-14T14:54:00.011-04:00

Next year's seventh graders came to visit today from our 5/6 middle school. They looked so small! The first group entered the art room just as I was demonstrating how not to gouge a finger with a linocut tool. I was being rather dramatic, explaining that they could cut their finger to the bone if they don't follow the safety procedures and use the bench hook properly. The little 6th graders looked so scared! Art can be dangerous...but also fun, I assured them.
I asked the visitors to look around the room and pick something they'd like to do next year. I have a lot of abandoned art everywhere and one of the favorites today turned out to be the life sized rocker in gold glitter boots pictured here. Not only was this a favorite pick of the 6th grade visitors today, it was a hands-down favorite of art students last year.
To create these figures students worked in groups of 2-3. This project followed a figure drawing unit where we learned proportion. Students drew an action figure on a large piece of corrugated cardboard from various boxes that I scavenged.
Finally, they created a palette of colors by tearing up magazine pictures into inch sized random shaped pieces sorted by color in small resealable baggies. The action figures were then "painted" with these small mosaic pieces and white glue. Shadows were created with darker values of colors. Skin tones were built up with a wide range of colors. Features were both 'built' mosaic style and cut out whole from magazine pictures.
This was a particularly successful end of year project with my 8th graders who were ready to move on and move up to high school. They loved working in groups, socializing while they worked. The only dangerous part was cutting the cardboard figure out with craft knives, but no blood was shed with this one!

Dreamweaver Nightmare Almost Over!

2009-04-08T20:52:00.004-04:00

"Thumbnails" what a cute name for little pictures. I learned a cool thing today on my path to website development. I knew about thumbnails, of course, but other than making a little picture in photoshop I really wasn't sure what to do and I had the complication of trying to turn a large Powerpoint document into thumbnails.
Turns out (Thanks Mom!) that it's pretty easy to do in Photoshop. Theres a nifty feature called Automation that enables you do some fun things. First, I saved the Powerpoint as a pdf, then I converted the pdf to psd files via Photoshop Automations, then I used the Web Gallery feature in Photoshop to convert the psd files into instant jpegs all set up for the web complete with links to the larger images in a folder. It was a snap to insert these jpegs into my Dreamweaver pages!

Changes

2009-04-06T20:39:00.004-04:00

If you've visited my blog before you may notice that the page header has changed. I've been working like a mad woman to design and build a new website using the maddeningly powerful software, Dreamweaver.
Working with Dreamweaver has its nightmare moments- running down halls with lots of mystery doors, and just as in dreams, behaviors are not always predictable, either the software or my own. My family is keeping their distance!
Anyway, I wanted the website, FunArtLessons.com to work with this blog, FunArt, so I needed to tie the two together with my header graphic. FunArtLessons.com will have complete art units for some of the art projects I've written about on this blog, so check back soon and I'll let you know how it's going!

From Durer to Die Brucke to Crazy Critters

2009-04-04T06:24:00.009-04:00

The talk in the teacher's lounge last Thursday was all about how nuts the kids were. It was the last of day of class before spring break. I had agonized the night before about my lessonplans. If I followed my carefully planned sequence we were set to make Cornell Notes on a slide lecture about the role of the German Expressionist group, Die Brucke, in updating the woodcut process by using linoleum.
The students had completed an internet visit to the Brucke Museum the day before, following a lecture on Albrecht Durer and woodcut printmaking earlier in the week. I didn't want to lose this learning, but more importantly I didn't want to lose my students' interest.
Thinking about Durer's wonderfully imaginative woodcut print of a rhinoceros, which we had examined for his use of line to show texture in the rhino hide, gave me an idea for a fun and silly project that had the potential to hold the student's interest. It also had the potential to bomb! Would they think it was dumb? Well, it was dumb, so I told them that right up front.
After a quick review of the previous day's learning we started our silly project. The students folded their paper in fourths, and were told, without explanation, to draw the rear end of a four legged animal in the first box. This was good for a chuckle, at least.
Next, they folded this portion in to hide the first drawing and handed their paper on to another student who was to draw the mid-rear section with two hind legs. By now I thought most of the kids would catch on to what we were doing, but it turns out that what I thought was a classic elementary school activity was unfamiliar to the vast majority of my students. My lucky day!
We continued folding, passing and drawing, with admonishments not to peek. By the last section they'd caught on and were buzzing with anticipation. And, of course, when they finally unfolded the drawing it was great fun to watch their reactions.
Turns out the activity was a bomb, with laughter exploding all over the classroom!
(The project we're leading up to, after the break, is "Fins, Feather and Fur: Animal Textures in Linocut prints." Look for complete lessonplans this spring on my website, FunArtLessons.com)

Touching Terra Firma

2009-03-31T19:05:00.008-04:00

Two girls stood together in front of the tile mural in the main hall after school today. They were much too old to be middle school students, but they looked vaguely familiar. As I walked by, one of the girls reached out and gently traced the line of the horse's mane, "Here's mine!"
"Mine's down here," answered her friend.
"Do you remember your class symbol?"
"Hmmm, this, what is it? Ying Yang, or something like that?"
"Yeah, we did this one." The second girl reached out and traced the circle of a peace sign tile.
The mural, entitled "Terra Firma" was completed and installed four or five years ago. It was a collaborative project integrating social studies and art. Every 7th grade student designed a tile representing an animal from one of the continents. Tiles representing world symbols were added, as well.
Geography lessons covered the ways in which the physical environment effects culture. Art lessons covered tile designs from around the world as well as ways to show animal textures in clay.
I don't know if these two former students remember the lessons, but they certainly remembered the experience and were clearly proud of the mark they'd left behind in their middle school.

Any Ideas?

2009-03-30T18:24:00.004-04:00

A student arrived at my classroom door this morning with the box of dense foam goodies pictured here- leftovers from a factory where his mother works which usually end up in the dumpster. Some have paper backing on a sticky side. Printmaking possibilies? The 'flower' shapes are about 6 inches across. She called to ask if I'd like more. Absolutely! Now, I just need to figure out what to do with these cool objects!
Ideas anyone?

Pizza Box Biographies

2009-03-29T10:31:00.013-04:00

This Lesson is available at FunArtLessons.com
Late Thursday afternoon, last week, I sat at my desk, stumped, as always, by how to make the last day of class meaningful and fun. Friday was the end of the term and I would have to say goodbye to a fabulous group of 7th and 8th graders. Our pizza box biographies were finished, students had completed their presentations, and other than hand back work there wasn't much else to do.
As with many of my better ideas, it wasn't until I was almost out the school door Thursday, that it came to me: Famous Artist BINGO! I rushed back to the classroom, added BINGO to my white board schedule and quickly ran off some bingo cards.
The first question students asked on Friday as they filled their bingo cards with the names of artists we had studied was "what do we win?" A stick of gum- my standard student motivator - was all they needed for the competitive spirit to spread!
To earn the coveted sticky stuff winners had to read back names with correct pronunciation, that in itself led to some good laughs! Then they had to select one artist from the winning row and share with the class a fact or two about art style, life or art work. When students weren't sure, they could "consult a pizza box," a last minute innovation that made the game.
Students were amazingly proud when their box about Wayne Thiebaud or Helen Frankenthaler became the expert source of information that led to another stick of gum flying through the air to a happy winner!
I'm always trying to think of ways that student's art work can have a meaningful purpose once it's finished. This activity turned out to be a really fun way to spend our last class together, revisit the content of the art history unit and take one last look at the incredible art projects students created before they go on display.
I've almost finished adding student photos to the Power Point lessonplan that will be available in May on my website, FunArtLessons.com, so check back and I'll let you know when you can get all the details for the Pizza Box Biography project that resulted in such a fun culminating lesson!
To see more pictures of the pizza boxes go to my Fun Art Gallery.

More Green Art: This Time Recycled Pizza Boxes

2009-03-25T11:52:00.006-04:00

This lesson is available at FunArtLessons.com
I don't know about your teaching situation but in my middle school we consume a lot of pizza. There are pizza party rewards for fund raisers, team pizza parties, staff pizza lunches and occasionally the lunch room serves pizza - ordered from a local pizza joint.
I started thinking about the possibilities of using recycled pizza boxes in art projects last year when I walked past a mountain of boxes waiting to be hauled out to the dumpster.
It took me a year, but my 7th and 8th grade students are just finishing up one of the most successful projects I've ever done! They loved it and learned so much about painting and art history! Check back soon for pics and a project description!

Collisions

2009-03-22T07:17:00.007-04:00

I began to notice a pattern of tardies and absences a few weeks ago. Finally, a quiet moment to ask my student about it. Turns out his family moved in with friends on their street months ago after dad lost his job, the savings ran out, and the house was "taken." Once their welcome had worn out with friends, they moved on to an uncle's house which is a considerable distance from school.
Recession? Depression? With unemployment at 11% and climbing in Michigan the definition is pretty clear: it's depressing. The Titanic that is Michigan has hit the ice, yet the band plays on, for the moment.
At a party last night, shouting over the strains of Caribbean music, I answered the "what do you do" question with "I teach middle school art." The reply was unsettling: "Really, I thought with all the cuts...."
What good is art in this time? Could the pleasure of spreading paint with a brush help my student reconcile the pain of his family in crisis? Maybe, for a brief moment, school can be a respite.
Back to the party. My aquaintance is no longer making large commissions in her sales position and her husband lost his successful business last year. They are now looking for opportunities outside Michigan. I wonder, are the waters any warmer elsewhere?

Going Green in the Art Room

2009-03-19T15:05:00.007-04:00

This lesson is available at FunArtLessons.com
This year I've been trying to use as many recycled materials as possible in the projects I plan. There is an amazing amount of useable trash produced by a typical school in one day. While some projects benefit from nice quality watercolor or drawing paper, other projects can be just as good or better when done on recycled paper surfaces.

For the project pictured here I had students bring in empty cereal boxes. The lightweight cardboard and smooth surface were ideal for using as book covers. We cut the boxes open and used the inside of the box as a surface for botanical illustrations in watercolor and sharpie marker. The assignment was to invent a plant that could help solve a global issue. The light brown of the cardboard added to the 'green' theme of these paintings

Simply Complex

2009-03-13T22:04:00.007-04:00

It's all too easy to cause students to shut down in the face of processes or projects that are too difficult and complex. Likewise, projects and processes that are too easy or predictable will quickly bore your students. Tissue and white glue thinned with water: simple materials, complex possibilities, simply beautiful!
Present your students with a Big Idea or Guiding Question. Here we explored a very open ended theme of Outside/Inside and talked about foreground and background. The process of brushing white glue over colorful tissue, allowing wrinkles and folds to occur can be mastered by very young artists. Older students can build up surprisingly complex compositions. Artists of any age enjoy the simplicity of the process and the beautiful results.

Reality and Fantasy with Digital Photos and Drawing

2009-03-10T12:42:00.004-04:00

Photo retouch self-portraits are a great way to introduce middle school students to digital photography and mixed-media. I am also able fit a little art history into my curriculum by bringing in an old turn-of-the century hand colored photograph. Finally, it is a stress-free introduction to self portraiture. Rather than worrying about not having the drawing skills to render an exact likeness of themselves, the use of photographs frees the students to be imaginative in creating their backgrounds.
Students work with a partner to pose with a fantastic environment in mind. Then they print their photographs on the lightest setting so that the image is barely there. This gives the realistic feeling of photography but provides a clean 'canvas' for working back into the image to create a fantasy environment.
This lesson provides an excellent opportunity to teach some drawing basics. We talk about how to hold the pencil at an oblique angle to create smooth surfaces. We talk about shadows and how to build them up with layers of colored pencil, and how to build the color up by using a variety of hues.
In case you're worried about equipment, I am able to do this lesson with classes of almost 30 students, using just one digital camera, one computer and a very basic black ink printer.

Ceramic Lighthouse Fundraiser

2009-03-09T11:17:00.007-04:00

This lesson is available at FunArtLessons.com
During my first year of teaching art I was dismayed to see many students pitch their artwork into the trash can at the end of the term. No matter how much praise I laid on, students still didn't see the value in their artwork. I would beg them to take it home and let their parents decide, knowing that as a mother I would have treasured it. The answer often was, "my mom'll just throw it out." I didn't believe them, but I decided they needed a purpose for creating their art.
That year I began an annual art auction in December. Students made ceramic lighthouse candle lanterns and researched the plight of the homeless. Some students wanted to keep their lighthouses (mission accomplished!) and, of course, I didn't force anyone to donate their item. I also allowed students to make two, one to keep and one to donate. We put the lighthouses on exhibit in our media center and called it "Light the Way."
The students were proud of raising funds for a local food pantry and not a single ceramic piece ended up in the trashcan.

Fingerpaint in Middle School? Or, How to Get Beyond "I Hate Art!"

2009-03-08T19:05:00.010-04:00

By middle school, it's sad to say, a lot of students hate art. They also hate math, but that's another story. Or, maybe it isn't. I hated math. It was hard for me. I didn't get it. It made me feel lonely. Alienated. I loved art. I got it. I wasn't necessarily great at it, but it was a language I understood. It made me feel part of something.
Middle school kids just want to belong. (Don't we all, really?) They want to be in a place where they speak the language. Math does it for some kids. Art does it for others. But any teacher can create a place where kids feel like they belong and the first step is to remove FEAR.
At the beginning of each term a kid or two announces, "I hate art." They speak for a silent group who enter the art room with the kind of dread I felt walking into math class. Art, they've learned, is all about those who can draw and those who can't.
But how did they come to this misunderstanding? Visit a preschool during art time and you will find the children happily up to their elbows in glue or paint or messy mounds of clay, confidently pursuing their vision. But as they progress through school students learn not only what they can do, but what they can not do, easily or as well as they'd like, and fear soon replaces self-assurance.
So I spend the first week of the term helping students unlearn fear. I help them learn to go back to the confidence of preschool. I assign my students a color theory activity that involves tempera paint and four pairs of hands. The only rule: no face painting.
Working together removes the pressure to perform 'artistically' and painting without brushes? Well, finger painting is just plain fun at any age. Occasionally, I'll have a student who really can't stand to have messy hands. Rubber gloves usually solves that problem.
Soon students learn what they can do, and learn, in an environment of trust, to tackle what they think they can not do. When those same students who entered my class proclaiming, "I hate art." leave saying, "I'll be back" then I know I've done a good job sharing the language I love and creating a place where students feel like they belong.

Posing to Learn and Laugh

2009-03-07T08:27:00.015-05:00

This lesson is available at FunArtLessons.com
I was amazed to see that all 28 eighth graders, even rough and tumble Alex, a star lacrosse player, were holding the ballerina pose. Edgar Degas' lovely sculpture, "Little Ballerina," was projected on the wall. I'd challenged students to see if they could hold the pose, third position in ballet, I think, for three minutes. Most of the boys did not immediately leap at the chance, but after some gentle goading they rose to the challenge.
The day before, I'd had the class pose as Rodin's " The Thinker" prior to making a copy sketch to help them study the lines in this sculpture. When I showed them the original in an exhibition photo they were shocked at its tiny size. They found the contrast between the power of the figure and its small stature really interesting. Steven, one of the smaller students in class gave us all a good belly laugh when he said, "He's fun-sized, like me."
The simple act of inviting students to 'strike a pose' engaged everyone but gave the kinesthetic learners in class a chance to receive the art history content with their whole body rather than just their eyes and ears. As athletes know, this also taps into a different kind of memory, muscle memory.
Will having posed as great sculptures help them remember or more deeply understand "The Discobolus," Michelangelo's "David," or as pictured here, "The Winged Nike of Samothrace?" Who knows, but this sculpture unit sure led to lots of laughs!

Words and Pictures

2009-03-06T17:06:00.004-05:00

When I was in college I had a large, black, clothbound sketchbook. Since photography was my main medium, I really didn't do much sketching in it. Mostly I wrote down thoughts about artists and art making. I also wrote bad poetry about my future husband, a fellow art student, but that's another story! I never thought of it as a diary or journal, but really that's what it was.

As in many art classrooms, the first project I give students each term is to assemble a sketchbook. Students use these sketchbooks for completing a variety of art exercises including drawing, but I also (gasp!) ask them to do some writing. Occassionally, a student will ask (and not always in a pleasant voice) why they have to write in an art class. Since writing is a district-wide goal I could always pass the blame on to 'the administration,' but I'd rather have my students know that I value using words to understand art and the art making process and that I care what they think.
I explain to my students that writing helps them think and thinking is part of creating. So, a few days a week, I display an open-ended question related to our current unit and ask the students to respond in writing. And, yes, I do insist on complete sentences and proper punctuation!
At our recent student-led conference night I was thrilled to observe students proudly opening their sketchbook/ journals and sharing their thoughtful writings on a variety of topics from personal symbols to the important role artists play in society.
While circulating during a recent journal response session I noticed some unrelated personal writing accompanied by hearts and a boy's name (I teach middle school.) The student quickly covered the page giving me a worried look. I just smiled and said, "I'm so glad you're filling your sketchbook with what's important to you," and I meant it. Writing does have a place in the art classroom, whether or not it's mandated from the central office.

Plaster Masks

2009-03-05T09:41:00.007-05:00

A complete lessonplan for this activity is available at FunArtLessons.com
Garrison wasn't comfortable with the idea of wet plaster cloth on his face, and who can blame him? I gave students the option of building their masks on a ball of newspaper. While most students chose to make the life mask, one or two students in each class opted for the newspaper mask. Garret's mask with it's rectangular eye openings and dried palm fronds (from a sadly neglected house plant in my classroom) shows a strong influence from the many African masks we studied prior to the project.

Most students chose to cast just the upper half of their face in plaster. Kenna was brave and trusting. She allowed her partner to cast her entire face. This required her to lie patiently for about half an hour as the wet cloth was applied to her face. Her partner saved the mouth area for last. When it came time to paint and add details, Kenna chose to emphasize just two features, the long eye lashes and bright red lips. The simple use of pure yellow and red highlight these features. Kenna's bright and beautiful mask matches her personality.