Collage Sketch Book Cover

A new term starts tomorrow. 100+ new students. I've been fine tuning a collage project this year for the sketch book cover we will begin this week. I find that clearly defined parameters actually help students relax and create more freely. I present them with a problem to solve, commission them, if you will, to produce art within the context of a "big idea" or in this case a set of characteristics their sketch book cover art work must exhibit.

Sticks and Stones

"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.

Painting Like Pollock: Abstract Expressionism

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.

What Will They See in an Old Shoe?

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!

Dangerous Art

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!

Any Ideas?

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

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

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!

Going Green in the Art Room

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.
Look in your school cafeteria and you will find all kinds of treasures for art making. The lunch ladies now check with me first before they chuck out the trash. These small cardboard boxes came with some of the prepared foods they reheat that sadly count as 'nutrition' in a typical school kid's life. However, these boxes, along with fabric scraps and other items from the recycle bin made for a fun "food" sculpture project that didn't cost a dime and kept these materials out of the landfill!