Well, it's back to school time... you know what that means? It's time to start thinking about mARTch Madness. That might seem silly to think about March when we are not even in September yet, but it's the drive to my 'warm-up' lesson this year. In the past, I have done Monster Mediums, Process Pigs, and Bit-O-Bios. These have all been a little warm-up for all the students and in March, we have a big celebration where students get to vote for their favorites. This year, I'm starting Studio Stories!
I have spent the summer looking for books that support the efforts of my lessons, books that promote the Arts, books that talk about BIG ideas that can be a jumping off point for my curriculum. I enjoyed every minute and found so many books!! I'm continuing my quest throughout the year.
I am collecting all the books, but if they are in my library, I borrowed them and read them so I would have the books available to my students at all times. I recorded them, I also created many lessons inspired by the books I found. I plan to share the books and lessons throughout the school year. I will be posting here as well as adding to this playlist on Youtube.
I will be using these books for this years mARTch Madness. Each book will be presented to the students at the start or end of class. This way they will get a little flavor of the books that we are studying. No, they will not be making a project inspired by each book... sometimes it will just be a few minutes of a story for my kiddos to hear. In March, we will vote for our favorite. 2018/19... Here we come!
This 'Studio Story' lesson is inspired by Oliver Jeffers book, "It Wasn't Me". I feel in love with the illustrations the first time I picked it up. I love the simplicity. I love the story told without words. Take a look at both the story and some thoughts about the illustrations in the video below.
I have created a digital lesson inspired by this book. I think so often we teach students to 'use an app' when we should be teaching them to 'use a system'. In this case, I will use two apps to prove my point. One of the biggest systems and hardest concepts in digital Art is layers. Layers are used in some of the most advanced digital Art programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator. I used every chance I get to show students as young as 2nd grade how to use the idea of layers in drawing apps.
The first app I want to talk about is Brushes Redux... This app is not very highly rated, but it's one of my favorites for my younger Artist. I like it because it's free! Anything that students can go download at home as soon as they learn it, earns extra points in my book. I also like how simple the program is... but that also means that it's simple... don't expect a TON of options. One thing that Brushes has... LAYERS and that is the 'system' that I'm trying to teach in this lesson.
First, choose a canvas for your image.
Then I change the brush to be solid... I have shown how to do that above... One thing that you can't see is the 'Dynamic' has three settings... I put them all in the middle.
On the first layer, I drew two of the characters from the book. I'm using my finger to draw the simple black lines.
On a second layer, I play with the colors of the characters. I added the colors right over the top of the line drawings. At first is looks like I'm covering up the drawing I just created... but then I 'WOW' the kids with a switch of the layers. There are three lines by the layer and if you press your finger to them, you can move them up or down. This is magic for anyone playing with this app.
With the next step, students are playing with the transparency of the brush. Take a look in the second image where the blue color is being selected. You can see the bar below it allow you to make the brush more transparent or more opaque.
This too will be added onto a new layer.
The last layer bit is the 'discussion' in the bubble... I choose to make this an argument like the book... but I could see leaving this portion of the assignment open-ended so that the viewer must guess what the conversation is by looking at the clues in the bubble and the body language. As you can see, I used a new layer for every color in the 'conversation'. This way I can play with the layers, moving them up and down to create the best composition.
And there we have it.. a finished work of art. If you are using Brushes Redux, it also records your process so when you are completed, you can see the steps you took to make your Artwork... another big 'WOW' portion of this app.
The next app that I used to explore this lesson is Tayasui Sketches Pro... as well as Tayasui Sketches... the free version, and that is really good too... just fewer options. I happen to love this app so I bought the pro version. Also, in my research, I found a Tayasui Sketches School. Not sure what the deal is with this version of the app, perhaps you can get a class discount for your app purchase. Really, all of the apps by Tayasui are pretty amazing. I'm a huge fan! So here we go with this app.
I like on Sketches that you can choose the canvas. Here I have a watercolor paper behind my image. I'm also using an Apple Pencil in these examples, not something we could probably use in a classroom setting for too many Art programs.
As you can see, I'm using the layers as well on this app... It's easy to switch the layers on this app as well as change the 'medium' or brush. It's very intuitive.
My favorite tool on Sketches is the ability to fill a shape with any of these options. It comes in handy! I used it for the speech bubbles in this case.
Again, each layer has some 'conversation' on it. That way I can play with the placement of all the elements by moving the layers up or down. I also had fun with all the 'mediums' or brushes in the side for this portion of the Artwork.
Here is my final artwork above... can you tell what they are arguing about? Below I have several examples of kiddos in my life doing this lesson with me. These examples range from age 6 to 10 years old.
For this lesson, don't get stuck on the app. Think about the system. Use any app that you have available to you and your students.
I love to use books as the inspiration for my lessons so I thought I would share a couple books that I love to use in my Art Studio. I thought this would be some good timing because February is I Love To Read Month.
Escargot by Dashka Slater, Pictures by Sydney Hanson
I read the book Escargot to my students as we were learning about snails. It's not really an 'Art Book' per say but it was a lot of fun and my littlest Artist loved to listen to this book when we were creating and playing with snails. Click here to see the lesson I used this book with.
Windblown by Edward Manceau
This is an EXCELLENT book to teach composition. I used this as inspiration for lessons on stop-motion animation. As well as simply composition with shapes. For the stop-motion animation student had to use the same shapes to create several different compositions in their animation. The book was a perfect match for the lesson.
They All Saw a Cat, by Brendan Wenzel
I talked about this book in an early post because I used the book an inspiration for my Art To Remember lesson earlier this year. This book is all about perception, how the same object/person can be seen so many different ways because of the perception of the viewer. I think you could use this book in 100 different ways.
You Belong Here, By M. H. Clark, and illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
Again, another book celebrated in an earlier post. I adore this book!! It's beautiful in word and in images. It was also some great inspiration for a graphite collagraph.
All the books mentioned above are available to you in the playlist below. Please feel free to use them, however, I could never stress enough how wonderful it is to sit down with kids and read a story with a book in your hand. They love it, and I think they feel loved when you are giving them your time, your voice and your attention.
The Art Ed Now is a week away and I'm excited once again be part of this amazing event. This year I'm presenting on how to create and teach a Graphite Collagraph. Art Ed Now is always one of my favorite ways to get Professional Development. It's quick, easy, and high quality. There is no travel needed. The best part of this conference is that you have access to the sessions after the day... in something they call an 'after pass'. This allows you to revisit the sessions as many times as you need or more importantly WHEN you need the information. Let me tell you, it's a ton of information so having access after is important. Hope to 'see' many of my Art Education friends at the conference.
Many things came together for me at the same time to inspire the Graphite Collagraph. First, my music teacher coworker asked if I could work with her on the 4th-grade upcoming performance. I was excited to say yes when she showed me what book she was using for her inspiration. You Belong Here, by M. H. Clark, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault was the book selected. The book is lovely, such beautiful poetry. The thing that got me so excited however was Isabelle Arsenault illustrations. WOW!! Her work speaks to me. I wanted to create something in her style and I felt that graphite is the perfect medium.
If you were one of the first 1500 people signed up for the AOE conference you received a graphite kits from Derwent. This kit was perfect because it has both the graphite sticks as well as pencils. I used both in this collagraph.
For the collagraph, I used a heavyweight drawing paper. I drew my design and cut with both scissors and an Exacto knife. I did some negative and some positive shapes in my composition as shown below.
I taped the collagraph to the table and then taped a lightweight paper over the collagraph. I used the side of the graphite sticks by rubbing across the paper adjusting the pressure to the area I was working on. This gave me an outline of the images created.
After the outline of the collagraph rubbing is complete, I remove the lightweight paper. I placed the paper with the outlined rubbing on top of a variety of rubbing plates. I tried a bunch, all pictured below. I used some heavy duty clay texture plates from Fiskars, some lightweight plastic stencils from WalMart, and a cardboard stencil pack from Target. I have linked all of these options but I don't know how long the links will be good. Any texture plates could be used I would imagine. This might be a fun place to experiment.
The final result was so interesting. I think I could use this same collagraph again and again and have a somewhat different result every time. This whole lesson and more explanation will be explained at the Art Ed Now conference on the 3rd. I also show some different ways to approach this lesson using watercolor colored pencils and exploring some different materials when creating the collagraph.
I'm catching up with a couple of things from this school year that I just haven't had the opportunity to celebrate. These cats were created earlier this year by the 2nd and 3rd graders. We did them for our Art to Remember Fundraiser. They turned out wonderful and was a hit with our parents who purchased the products.
I created this lesson last year and shared it with Art to Remember who has the entire lesson and all the downloads on their website (click here).
I started by reading a book called, They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel. It's a great book about perception. If you don't have this one, you should think about getting it. It's beautiful, both in concept and in imagery.
I have taught this lesson many different ways. I have done a very structured version the Art to Remember lesson plan because I wanted the final project to be universally successful. In the past, however, I have taught my students in a more choice based way. This plays into the book a bit better because we can talk about perception a bit more. Both ways were successful and fun for the students.
For the Art to Remember projects, I used tempera cakes and construction paper crayons. These mediums made for a bold image on the ordered products.
These cats were wonderful and I have heard the excitement from parents over and over. I heard student exclaim, "This is my favorite Art Project I have ever made." Yes!! That is music to this Art Teachers ears!
We are starting off the year doing Art to Remember projects. Art to Remember is a school fundraiser that allows families to purchase products with their student's artwork on it. I don't consider this a fundraiser for our school, but rather an opportunity for arts advocacy as well as a service. I have this scheduled out to have products returned by the holidays.
I have done this little snail lesson before with K/1 and it was time to bring it back. It's such a fun lesson. (click here to see the lesson the last time I posted) I have been running the project the same in many ways; Painting on day one, drawing on day two, and coloring on day three. I also have stations set up around the room to allow for some play and discovery around the idea of the snail. At each of the stations, I have created some clay snails for the littles to play with.
Here is how I used the little snails in the classroom. I also added a station with Snail books from the public library. They were able to 'read to a snail' if they wanted.
Here is the class in action! Early learners do such a great job with SHORT little lessons. That is why I show them how to draw in tiny groups for about 5-8 minutes. Then I believe learning through play and discovery is the best. So setting up these stations is a blast for the kids. Adding the snails increased the interest. What a fun way to learn.
If there was extra time I showed the book Escargot. I am really bad at a French accent it turns out but The kids have enjoyed the book so far. As I went to post this book here, I noticed there is another version by Sophia. She does a really nice job reading as well so I wanted to share both options here in this post.
