Category: Art Show

Optical illusions

3/10/2016

Every semester, I try to incorporate optical illusions. My 5th and 6th graders love to make optical illusions. I created a smore flyer that they can access via iPads to see lots of links to videos and idea sheets. I've also assembled a collection of videos that I will show at the end of art during clean up, or to introduce the unit. Here is a link to the good ones that are safe for kids, because many of the optical illusions videos on youtube are restricted.

Last spring, I had students use a 9X9 square, draw a heart or trace a cicle in the center with white chalk. Then they drew curved lines on the surface of their shape and an EVEN number of 'rays' coming out of the center. Then, they colored their shape so that the outside of the stripes were darker, and the center was brighter (using white) so it would look more rounded. They also added a little bit of willow charcoal towards the center of the rays and blended it in so it would look darker in the backgroud, like the shape was floating.

Sadly, when I went to collect this display from the mall, many of the images had been smeared by tiny fingers. This was th display the day that I hung it. Two weeks later, the ones on the bottom were all ruined by little kids touching them or brushing up against them. I will never take chalk art to be hung in public again.

Chalk is very messy. I always set up a couple of water tubs, cut some watercolor paper, and have students shake the extra dust into the water. Instead of blowing it into the air---this traps some of the dust and I can lay the water color paper on the surface and pull soem abstract looking marbled prints off the top.

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Star Wars 'Portraits'

4/6/2015

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On Thursday, my school is having a little writing fair. I was quick to jump on board with the planning so that we could display some artwork as part of the writing fair---to boost attendance, and show off my amazingly talented students.

Since we were studying Pop Art---I had my students create a 'portrait' in a colorful pop art style.

Star Wars is a huge element of pop culture so it is a perfect theme.

I told my students they could make 'baby' versions of some of the characters if they weren't too keen on the serious and boyish theme and that helped convince some of my 5th and 6th graders that they could personalize and customize the portrait of their choice. I also pointed out that if they liked animals, robots, humans, or creatures, there is a little something for everyone, but they have to do a little research if they aren't familiar with the movies in order to learn a little more.

Honestly, I got the idea from the fabulous Drip, Drip, Splatter Splash blog.

Day 1
I introduced the idea of Pop Art to my students.
I had them research characters in Star Wars and make a practice sketch in their sketch books. The research was mostly done via my smore flyer (they scanned a QR code to access it), but some characters needed to be googled---because I did not provide visuals for every single one. I also had some printed 'coloring sheet' versions of some of the characters.

Day 2
Since so many of my students knew nothing about Star Wars, I showed them this quick summary.
Make a background using 9X12 colored construction paper (don't use the same color as your character) using oil pastels. Could design with space, lasers, bright colors, patterns, etc.
Begin drawing character on a 2nd color of paper---for R2D2, use white, for C3P0, use yellow--for yoda, use green. Trace character in sharpie, add color with oil pastels.

Day 3
Finish drawing, outlining and coloring character. Cut, out and glue to background. Sign name on front since we are hanging everyone's in the hall.

My amazing parent volunteer helped hang over 300 of them today! YAY!!

There are so many awesome ones, I tried to take a few pictures to show off some of my favorites below, enjoy!!

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How do you involve the community in the learning?

9/23/2014

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Write about one way that you “meaningfully” involve the community in the learning in your classroom. If you don’t yet do so, discuss one way you could get started.

Our school district hosts an annual exhibit at the local mall. Each art teacher can student select artwork to be displayed on panels in the mall.

I'm not sure if this really IS what the prompt for the blog challenge is asking for, but I feel like it is a great idea for other art teachers. A mall is a great venue for student work, as it gets a whole lot more foot traffic than a gallery. Sometimes I select collaborative projects or smaller items so that many of my students get their work shown in public. Last year, we had just finished these awesome large-scale neon paintings so I chose a bunch of those for the mall show.

I know there are lots of other ways to involve the community in our learning...(and we do other 'public' shows including a show at a local university, and artwork at the State Capitol for Youth Art Month) but TIME is my main issue. Sure, I could set up at the monthly art walk, host after-school art events and invite parents....but all of it is volunteering on my part...and while I DO value the 'volunteer experience'.....sometimes I just have to say no, not right now, but maybe someday.

For now, I will post about student success on my blog, twitter and FB page and maybe someday I will have a little more time to incorporate the community into the classroom. And if I do get a hankering to include the community a little more HERE is a great post with 50 ideas. ;0)

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How do you curate student work?

9/20/2014

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Curating student work is a big job.

Between art shows and building displays, the act of setting up all of the displays is an incredible undertaking. Just the act of selecting a few pieces for a show can be really difficult.

Generally I don't really work on-on one with my students to determine what will be displayed. I usually just sit down and sort through pile after pile of artwork, taking in to consideration themes, color choices, paper orientation, size of my bulletin board, and how many pieces I have selected from that student in the past. I make selections methodically, with an idea in my mind for the final layout of the display.

Recently, I collaborated with a professor friend to organize some student work for a show at her university. The deadline sort of snuck up on me and I had to squeeze the project into the middle of a big unit. The lesson plan was ready-made, it was just a matter of cutting the paper and getting the supplies organized.

It worked out great because I had the chance to introduce my students to the artist of the month: Henri Matisse. (Students read and view the information on a S'more flyer that is accessed via QR code).

I was also able to try out Emaze. Instead of creating a Powerpoint, I created a slideshow on Emaze. I synced my apple tv to my computer with air parrot, so that I could use the cool flash-only template: gallery. I had the slideshow on repeat throughout the entire lesson so students could read and see about the artwork continuously.

I followed the lesson plan pretty closely, demonstrating how to cut out an organic shape, using that free 'painting with scissors' sort of style that Matisse is famous for. While students were working, I allowed them to 'jazz' up the adjoining hallway with organic shapes taped to the walls. They really enjoyed installing their piece to the collaboration. It was a fun experience. When I asked the teachers who work down that hallway if I could use the two walls for my installation, I'm not sure what they were expecting....but I think they are a little creeped out at the results...art people get it....others kind of don't.....but that is okay. It was especially cool that the music teacher down the hall had jazz music playing while we were installing the installation....again, only an art teacher would appreciate the perfection of that sound while we were taping paper scraps to a wall.

Here is the hallway 'before'. I chose this hallway because it doesn't get a ton of traffic, and students who use the busier hallway (with the creepy Cardinal eye peeping out), can get a peek at the installation.

From the collages that were created during class, I selected around 30, out of 330 to go to the exhibit at PSU. When I told students whose I had selected, some of them were bummed that theirs was not selected...so that always make it harder!

How do you curate student work?

This post is part of the Reflective Teaching Blog Challenge from TeachThought.

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Optical illusions

Star Wars 'Portraits'

How do you involve the community in the learning?

How do you curate student work?

Mrs. Mitchell

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