She used the fiber center and some of her own ties to create a tie skirt. (Most of which she worked on at home.)

• Title: “All Tied Together”
• Medium: Fabric, Sewing utensils
• I loved doing this project because I stuck with my challenging idea. My sewing skills got much better.

She used drawing center to draw many clothing ideas.

• Title: “Summer heat”
• Medium: Pencil, rubbing plates, colored pencil
• Using the rubbing plates was fun and I could come up with ideas off the top of my head with this drawing.

She used paint center to create some fabric print samples.

Finally she brought all these ideas together in a design poster for a line of clothes. She used fabric scraps she found in our fiber center and added designs and prints to them in the paint center, she used the printmaking/ stamp and collage centers to enhance the background for her poster and she used drawing center to create her illustrations.

• Title: “Bold Shimmer”
• Medium: Stamps, markers, pencil, fabric, glitter, beads, feathers, colored pencil
• This was the most fun project only because I had such great ideas and it turned out looking great.

“OH, you want to do origami, so-and-so made me a cool bird, I bet they would help you learn.”

Last year one of the teacher’s mom died and another teacher had surgery, the kids all wanted to make hope cranes for them. I provided the supplies and the permission, but the kids were on their own. Hundreds of cranes in G.O.O.S. (Good on one side) paper, painted splatter papers, collage papers and newspapers were created. Remember although easier, origami does not require fancy origami papers!

I think sometimes the kids find it odd that I am not an EXPERT in EVERYTHING. But I am just honest about my strengths. And Luckily there are lots of resources out there! Like this super awesome easy origami website!

This puppy instruction sheet came from a website  all about eye safety, eye science, and the prevention of blindness!

I have discovered that there are TONS Of amazing videos of people showing you how to fold origami everything! I am going to put together a CD of videos for the kids this year to add to my instruction book collection. Maybe when the G.O.O.S. Paper box gets full I will even show a few as a demo and get kids rolling.

Here’s one that includes some history about origami and some demonstration.

Our first day of school is an alternative schedule because we spend about 3 1/2 hours before lunch in our 1st period going over our school discpline system reviewing and setting the tone for citizenship. The rest of the 6 periods are about 20 minutes. Barely time to take attendance and learn new names.

So I have them do a scavenger hunt of the room. This allows kids that have been in the room before to review and noticed if I have moved things around, and allows new kids to explore the room. I just hand it to them as they walk in the door and allow them to start looking around. I encourage them to move around, work alone or with a friend and I have little rewards for the first three finishers with correct answers.

It askes them some basic things like “In which center will you find the glue?” but also asks them to look at my posters around the room or engage previous knowledge, “Name a warm color.” “List a style of art” (both can be found on posters if they haven’t learned that before.) Others ask things that vary from kid to kid, “name someone you know in this class” and “which center will be your favorite?”

Since I work in trimesters, I do this at the beginning of each trimester art class. It also counts for a little 5 point grade. Also since we tend to have a lot of kids coming IN and OUT of classes throughout the first couple weeks of school, I have them do the scavenger hunt first, with or without some help depending on if they are totally new to my room. It is the way I make sure all new kids get a tour.

Last year is the first time I did this and it really worked well. So I have revised the hunt for this year, to make it fresh for kids from last year. Plus I have moved a few things around.

Feel free to use or adapt for your classroom.  2010 scavenger hunt

• Title: Beauty is nature
• Medium: I used colored pencils because it’s easier to color in detail
• I learned that coloring detail takes a while and isn’t something you can rush through and make look good

Studio Thinking Framework Eight Habits of Mind

Today is the birthday of Frida Kahlo, this Mexican painter is one of my favorite female artists and continues to be popular beyond her death in 1954. Google has honored her in one of their Google arts on the search page. If you click on the picture at google it will take you to a web search about her with images, websites and news articles.

Since I am in middle school level (6-8) different things come up than elem. probably. AND I have an expectation for a higher level of skill. I have a “no-no” board that lists the things I do not want to see in thier artwork. It includes Stick figures, words and word bubbles, name posters, letter birds, blue clouds, bubble flowers, smile suns. I got the idea from this teacher http://artwithmre.blogspot.com/2009/08/art-room-bulletin-boards-no-no-board.html and pretty much kept it the same. But I have the board labelled “Artists go beyond what is… easy… expected… and ordinary.”

When they ask why they can’t do blue clouds. I tell them to go to the drawing photo reference box and look for picutres of clouds to find a blue cloud, if they can find one then they can draw it. I have some very lovely pictures of storm clouds (grey and black) sunset clouds (purple and red) sunrise clouds (orange and yellow) but nothing that is BLUE! I remind them that on a pretty day the sky is blue and the clouds are white and there are LOTS Of reference pictures showing that. (same with letter birds, smile suns and bubble flowers)

When they ask why they can’t make stick people. I say that is too easy! and they need to go beyond what is easy. If they are unsure of how to draw people, again off to the drawing center for some how-to books. I do tell them that they can use stick-figure animator on the computer if they really need to work with a stick figure.

Finally the name and word poster… it always happens when the paint center first opens, when I get out the stencils or when they are just running out of ideas, feeling lazy or see a friend do it! I give them ONE. then they have to be more creative. I tell them to create their own font or graffiti lettering and make the whole alphabet. But we talk about what a font is and how each letter needs to be similar in some specific way. Then when they finish the alphabet they can make a name sign using it. (haven’t had anyone make a whole alphabet yet) I have a cool radial symmetry mandala project that I will show them how to do and let them do their name again with that project. I have a cool mirror symmetry bug assignment that they can do with thier name too. But they have to be different and unique each time they do their name again.

Splatter painting is another thing that they go through and can be annoying when they KEEP doing it. But I think I have a plan for that for next trimester. Doing a mini lesson on Jackson Pollack. then having a large group splatter and hand printing session pre-planned… like tell them ahead of time to wear messy clothes that they don’t mind getting paint on. Go outside with a HUGE sheet of butcher paper and just go crazy with it. Have those that don’t want to participate FILM it with my cameras for performance art. Others that want to sit aside could do contour live model quick sketches from those painting. It will have to be approved by my principal and be a sunny day. But it could really be a blast. Then I would be DONE with splatter and could say… nope we did that! But I do also have a splatter BOX that I get out occassionally too. somehow they always seem to splatter paint when I am out with a sub.

As far as the weapons go… I tell them CONTEXT! No one can be NAMED or obviously threatened in the art. It should not be too gory. But like Joyce said “If we’re studying medieval England, knights, and castles, your drawings/paintings/sculptures of swords and armor are appropriate.” We recently received a district document specifically referring to artwork for shows about what is OK and what is not. There were resrtictions on drugs, smoking etc. If in the context of a “don’t do it” PSA, then they are OK. Political/religious views= nothing that could be seen as harrassment or racism. Weapons= no direct threats or bullying. So I just go with these same ideas in the classroom. The pivot stickfigure animation program tends to lend itself to weapons and fighting for some reason, but I tell them they can go download the program at home and do that stuff. In class I want it to be more creative than that and again I give them one. But that can be hard to keep on top of sometimes.

There are a few things that seem to come in waves too that I just see as teachable moments. As soon as I add more popscicle sticks to the sculpture center suddenly everyone wants to make a log cabin. I remind them that the supplies are limited and it wouldn’t be fair for one person to use up all the sticks making one project. Similar things happen with beads and pipecleaners. So the limit on supply rules come into place.

~ number one use of cameras in my class is for documenting artwork. Since my kids do a digital portfolio in the last week of the trimester (power point slide show of all their work from the trimester) They have to take pictures of artwork throughout the trimester.

~video feature on most cameras are great for little artist statements. Have the kid talk about thier art while someone else films.

~portraits~ whenever a student wants to do a self-portrait I volunteer to take and print out a picture of them. We also have mirrors, but the student can pose in a particular way for the picture and not have to make that face over and over again in the mirror.

~Photo scavenger hunts (make a list of things they could find on your campus, I like to do this in spring to include new flowers and such on campus) See my blog entry on this assignment idea http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=237

~Animation! from easy to complex there are so many options here are a few that I have done.

“flipbooks” have kids draw a sequence of pictures on small pieces of paper or even postit notes. We use a lightbox (old re-purposed overhead projectors) to use the onionskin sniamtion technique to match one picture to another. Then the student takes pictures of each drawing, then puts them together in windows movie maker.

“paper animation” students cut out construction paper and magazines to create little animated scenes. The paper lays flat on a surface so the camera needs to be held above. This is difficult to do by hand or with a tripod. My old shop teacher had built a cool camera holder for me that works for this. He made it as an alternative to a document camera, which we didn’t have at the time. But you could do the exact same thing with a document camera. (if you have the kind that has a memory stick) See my blog post on this http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=488

“clay and object animation” I have a box of donated legos and mcdonalds toys, a lot of modeling clay that I got with my claymation grant. I have some boys just finish a boxing animation. They made the boxing ring out of items in the sculpture center. Some exapmles and resources here http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=6

“stop-motion animation” Make your kids FLY! Have one kids jump in the air and the filming student takes a picture at the highest point of the jump. They move forward and jump again. Again putting them together in windows movie maker turns it into an animtion. They can race chairs, skateboard on other people or objects, or other fun things that couldn’t be filmed in a standard way. They could also do stop motion progression of an artwork. Have them set a timer and take a new picture every 2 minutes as they work on a painting or drawing. Then when you put the pictures together the artwork comes alive and is created in time-lapse. fun stuff!

“movies!” We did a door movie assignment in my digital art class. The idea was to use only sound and music to set a mood. see them in this post http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=198 and the resources for this project http://www.blog2008.thevirtualclassroom.org/?p=458

What else do you use cameras for in your classrooms?