Composition Game- Inspired by Lisa Congdon

I love following Lisa Congdon on Instagram (@lisacongdon). Her work is so bright and bold. Her work influences my own personal sketchbook, but with this post, she inspires a lesson for my students. 

I love how Congdon plays with composition using different objects. She is practicing her skills in such a public way when she posts images like the one above.  I see the influence of these exercises in her paintings and drawings. I thought this exercise would be a great one to bring into my classroom as well. 

First I started by introducing my students to Lisa's work and explaining what composition is. I only choose to concentrate on 3 ways to create a composition; Balance, Emphasis, and Pattern.  The following Google Slide shows the introduction to Lisa Congdon's work and a beginner lesson of composition.

Now it was time for students to practice. Here is a video introducing the Composition Game that I wanted them to play. One word that I needed to cover for this video was what substrate is. I gave the simple definition of the place we put the art. If I'm a painter, the substrate might be a canvas. If I draw, the substrate might be paper. 

Students worked in small groups to create 6 different compositions as a group.

I encouraged students to make sure that each hand had a part of this activity. They could either have a person 'in charge' for each composition and switch who that person was, or they could all be actively involved with every composition.

Students documented their work by taking a picture with an iPad.

Students then posted their images to a Media Album in their Schoology class. They were asked to label each image. This was a good formative assessment for me to see if I needed to cover the concept again, or if we were ready to use the concept of composition for their own design work.  

Careers in Art- Medical Illustrator

Here is another 'Career in Art', Medical Illustrator.  This video is the introduction to the career that my students explored for the last week.  It's been hard to keep them focused on the task at hand while entering the room.  There were so many amazing specimens displayed around my room this week. 

After the intro., I do a quick explanation of the stations.  I walk the room pointing out all the wonderful activities they have to choose from.  I also learn from the first class the expectation reminders that need to be made before the class starts to work. 

How did I get the bones?? Great question.  I put an all call out there for my staff and these are the amazing resources that came my way.  WOW!! I'm a lucky gal to have so many great Art supporters in my school. 

I provided some small magnifying glasses for the students.  They were able to examine the bones but not touch them. 

Students had the opportunity to sculpt tthe bones being observed.  They loved doing this.  I was shocked at how accurate some of their sculptures were. 

They also had the choice to draw from observation. Many of the students chose to use dark paper and a silver sharpie.  This ended up looking a little like an X-ray.  It was a cool effect. 

Some students looked at the artwork of Steven Jenkins from his book Bones.  It is a very beautiful book that I was happy I had to offer for this lesson.

In the video, you heard me talk about the rubbing plates.  I asked my husband at the middle school who has a laser printer in his classroom to burn me some plates.  You can do this for any subject matter you want.  I would love to do different bones so that students could put together their own skeleton with rubbing plates. I encouraged all students to both do the rubbing and a drawing to practice a different form of observational drawing. 

Another station was this 'throw away' item that I picked up in the staff lounge one time.  Students used an iPad to help them discover all the names of the bones in the human body.

My 3rd grade is LOVING this series!  I can't wait to continue sharing the other Careers in Art that we cover. 

Creative Play

Do you need to entertain kids for 30 or more minutes?  Here is the perfect solution.  I had some left over play dough from an art project earlier this year so I pulled that out for a recent creative staff.  Creative staff is when I invite my staff and their family to come in for an after hour art party.  Sometimes we create something specific, sometimes we just have a treat and play.  I had many stations set up, but this was by far the most popular.  I placed toothpicks and the primary color play dough at the table and told them they could play and build whatever they wanted.  They could even mix the play doughs.  I had kids from 3 years old to 5th grade playing at this station for no less than a half of an hour.  It allowed them to be creative and inventive.  It reminded me of a recent article I read about play from Ian Sands.  He explains, 

"Play is not an exercise. If the purpose of the lesson is for the student to discover a pre-determined result, the student is not truly playing."

I think that is something that is hard to give students time to do in class.  I'm starting to consider ways to do so, and starting with small groups such as my co workers kids.  I can see this idea developing into much more.

Do you, 'Want 2 Be' an artist?

Are you kidding me!!  Is this not the best picture you've ever seen?  I would like to introduce you to my new dramatic play area.  It's called 'Want 2 Be, Artist".  Here's what the kids are asked to do (at this point), They choose an artist image.  They find the props that make them look like that artist.  They have fun, laugh, play look in the mirror.  It's going to be a hit.

I invited my staff to bring their families to my classroom before Book Bingo last Friday.  Many of us were donating our time to help with the event so I thought we would have a little pizza party in my room.  These kids loved it.  I can't wait to introduce this to my classes.  I know we are going to have a great time with this and it's just the beginning of where I plan to take it.  I will share more!

This was totally inspired by Cassie Stephens.  She has a presented a 'dress like and artist' event going on.  I dressed like... well who else?  Matisse!  As I was teaching the kids how to 'draw with scissors', I kept thinking, I bet the kids would love to do this.  Why not have them dress like and artist too?  BAM!  Thanks again for all your great ideas Cassie!!  You inspire!