Portraits with Picasso

“I paint things as I think them…not as I see them.” Pablo Picasso

Teaching from Picasso is one of my favourite strategies. Students of all ages seem to appreciate the simple lines, abstract representations of reality and the bold colours. Not to mention the layers of meaning and interesting contexts that in which his paintings are established.

 Anyway, grade 4 is a fantastic year to introduce Pablo Picasso at greater detail. After a short presentation on cubism and a time with a few interactive websites dedicated to teaching about Picasso, we explored synthetic and analytical cubism. Students then converted their own portraits into cubist designs...

Grade 4 oil pastel portrait

 Grade 4 oil pastel portrait

We completed these picture with either watercolour or oil pastel. Kids loved learning 'secret techniques' with the materials. With oil pastels, I recommend:

1. Smudging and blending- using fingers or cloth to smudge the colours together
2. Scratching - using a toothpick to scratch our colour and create intricate designs

Drawing techniques

My grade 7 art class are learning drawing techniques, such as cross hatching and stippling.

After practicing the techniques they were required to magnify (through gridding) and copy an image....

 Grade 7 pencil drawing

 Grade 7 pencil drawing

 Grade 7 pencil drawing

I am really happy with the results however....next time I am going to do the unit differently. This took a long time and students were frustrated with the detail required. A less complicated image may serve the students just as well and teaching from established artists and student creativity (rather than purely technique base) is always my preference.

Magnification inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe

My grade 6 art class began the year with magnification. I started with the concept of still life drawings by displaying a single flower in a glass jar. Other than the fantastic opportunities to teach drawing techniques and perception (such as showing reflection, how the stem appears through the glass, recognising curved and straight lines, etc), it is great introduction into magnification.

Students then selected an area that they wanted to magnify...

Presenting Georgia O'Keeffe's beautiful paintings is good at this point. Students are fascinated with how her paintings can be interpreted in a variety of ways....we know that they are generally flowers but could they be an erupting volcano or a mysterious forest, etc.

 'Music - Pink and Blue II' Georgia O'Keeffe

Many students at this age level are started to beleive they can't do art, they are not good a painting or drawing, so I only give one simple instruction for their painting project.

1. Show gradients in your painting - a variety of hues of the same colour. Why? It gives depth and reminds the students about mixing and blending colours well.

 Grade 6 art work

 Grade 6 art work

Together the paintings were bright, cheerful and examples of simple abstractions. Very effective introduction into the year!!

More paintings...

Portraiture

I started the year by teaching portraiture. I think it's my favourite topic. I always have some many ideas and never actually do all of them.

In Australia I loved browsing the pages of 'Lets Face It'; a book that celebrates the Archibald prize winners (The Archibald Prize is an event where artists are invited to submit a portrait for national competition - highly pretigious).

Craig Ruddy with his portrait of David Gulpilil.

 

Cherry Hood

This year I have decided to start with small workshops that explore the features of the face. I will present a different material for each feature so that way students are exposed to materials and processes as well.

First worksop was the eye with acrylic paint. They all did a good job. It always surprises me that when you focus on one feature at a time, students are able to do work far above expectations.

The students seemed to enjoy the acylic eye workshop so we continued to explore different eyes in different materials; felt tip pen and ink wash.

More photos for final products to come....

Elements of Art

I have seen a few projects with learning and remembering the elements of art but this would have to be my favourite....

Work from grade 7 student.

The students were told to stand up, hold your pencil and shut your eyes. At this point, I love the atmosphere in the classroom. These kids live for something out of the ordinary.
They are allowed to feel the corner of the page with their fingers and hold the page in place with their other hand. That's all.
I put one minute on the stop watch.
'Okay when I say go I want you to draw big sweeping lines across your page. Don't try to make it look like anything just draw.'
For that one minute there was absolute freedom in the classroom. It was wonderful.
Anyway that is how we have come to our outline.

Each box represents a different element. This assignment was produced alongside art terminology and understanding the elements.


You can easily see colour, line, tone and texture. Space was supposed to show negative/positive space and 3 dinmenional space (bottom, second to right). Shape is bottom second to left.

Work from grade 7 student.

Teaching Evaluation

6 Thinking Hats

The following images are from grade 7 students. I am just starting to encourage them to evaluate each unit of work. They are still working through the process of evaluating but some students have presented the assignment in fun ways. I thought it was a great way of making a written art project more artistic.

Lino Printing

My grade 8 students are being introduced to lino printing. The concept of a teacher allowing students to use sharp instruments amused quite a few to the point of blood (literally) so I would suggest to begin with the following rules:
Allows cut away from yourself.
Do not cut too deep, cut in layers (deep cutting causes you to lose control of tools).

For the teacher: I have found that heating lino blocks are good whereever possible. It softens the rubber.

 

Students began their project by finding an image online of a person they admire or an object that they appreciate (flower, basketball, etc). Students were required to sketch the outline of the image and then paint or colour (with markers) blocks of black. It was difficult to convey to them that they are not sketching with shading (espeically those wanting good marks).

A portrait inspired by Bob Marley.

 Yes, it does get messy. I admire all the talented art teachers out there that can seem to teach art and keep a tidy art room. Though it is my personal mantra to say, 'Íf you're not a little bit messy, you're not really doing art.'

I think this might have been one of the highlights of art this year (for the students anyway); using the printing press for the first time. Of course you don't need a press for lino printing but it gives a beautiful finish and the students are entertained pretending to by captains at a ship's wheel as the feed the lino block through.

More finished projects to come...



Collage Mosaics with Paper

It's hard not to be inspired by the artists that have conjured artworks that have lasted an age...

But when you are looking at the art peice in real life (St Peter's Basilica) and happen to wonder close to the candles, you realise, THIS IS A MOSIAC. Your husband casually says, 'Well that makes sense Taryn, mosaics would last longer than oil.' I'm sure I am not the only one that was awed by the shear talent to piece together such a large and detailed artwork with tiles.

And while I don't have the resources (yet) to do mosics with my students, I still want them to be inspired by the concept.

So....as a part of my mixed media unit, my grade 9 and 10 students have been experimenting with mosaic collage. The idea to to 'remind' and 'çhallenge' senior students to consider different ways of presenting artistic ideas. The workshop has only taken 3 lessons and the results are quite effective.

I didn't want students to get stuck on 'what' to create, my idea for this unit is to teach them technique to that ideas will come more fluently to them in later units/years. So...I printed several photos of random images with varying difficulty. Students selected photos like a lucky dip.

Obviously this student is not finished but I really liked her sensitivity to colour.

I heard recently that collage is for people who can't draw. I have to say that I am disgusted by that comment. Students need to have a keen eye for form not to mention into intricated gradients of colour to make a collage work.

Grade 6 Garbage Sculpting

I love how many times I slip CRAZY into my art lessons. Go just a little bit CRAZY, make a CRAZY idea, create something that everyone else would think is CRAZY. Don't be hesitant with your paint, go CRAZY. Of course this works for me because of the demongraphic of my normal reserved, well educated cohort. Their young eyes show hesitancy as though saying, 'Are you sure we're allowed to be a little bit crazy?'

Anyway, in an attempt to bring a little craziness (and a dash of creativity) into the classroom. I sported my very own jacket, created from newspaper to the amusement of my grade 6 art class.

I have done a similar project to this back in Australia. The students really flourished under using garbage as fashion items. We even organised a catwalk; lots of fun, lots of creativity.

Anyway, the task today is to create one fashion item (must be a clothing item, not an accessory) in 40 minutes using only newspaper and their choice of sticky tape or glue.

I have one student that in every other class he is running off the wall but sweet all the same. He rose to the challenge and used his pent up energy to create, create, create. He completed a breastplate with straps by the end of the lesson but I was more impressed when he promptly informed me the next day that he had completed his entire suit of armour for homework. I don't know what his parents thought he was doing with all their newspapers but I was pretty excited that this young man was using his considerable energy for artistic expression.

More projects to come....

Mixed Media

I realised recently that my grade 9-10 students have very little skills and knowledge in mixed media (generally because they haven't had many years of art training and development). So I have devised a unit that develops techniques more than idea development.

The unit incorporates 4 workshops each on a different mixed media technique:

1. Gel image transfers
2. Foil art
3. Marbling and acrylic pours with collaging
4. Using tissue paper for texture and stencils

1. Gel image transfers
I know that there are many ways of doing transfers. And to be honest, I don't think that I chose the best way for the most effective result.

Process for workshop was as such:
Showed students video clip from youtube an example of how to do a gel image transfer.
Showed several completed art peices that use the technique.
Student note-take process and materials for the workshop.
Students completed the gel image transfer:

• Students were required to cut an image from a magazine.
• They painted an interesting backgroup.
• Pasted heavy medium gel over the background (or just the area they want to paste the image).
• Students lay the image on the background - image facing toward the canvas.
• Leave to dry for a day.
• Spray with water and scratch back of image.
• Using a sponge the image should be exposed.

Students wrote a short evaluation of the workshop in their workbooks:

1. Do you think this mixed media technique is used effectively in the art peices shown to you? Use art piece as evidence.
2. What have you learned from the technique and process?
3. How could you use this technique in future projects? Design 3 thumbnail sketches of potential art peices if you used this technique again.

2. Foil art

This was a pretty cool workshop. I have never completed any artwork with foil before which after having used it, I wonder why.

Process of workshop:
Showed a youtube clip of an artist using the technique.
Showed artworks that use foil art. Students particularly enjoyed viewing Dominic Wilcox' portrait of his own face using foil...
Students completed their own foil creations using brayers and glue. Some studetns even used cardboard to give texture and wire netting under the foil too provide a frame. The wire netting was unnecessary but I loved that they were experimenting with different materials without my imput.
Students completed a short evaluation.

3. Marbling and Acrylic pours with collaging

Okay marbling...it's something you probably do with junior primary school students but seriously...you can do it at any age. I found some awesome art works to show how the technique can be used and I was inspired all over again.

There are many ways to marble. The main three ways are with:
paint both acrylic and oil paints - but the method and result are different for both
crayon - I am yet to try this but it sounds fun
shaving cream - I have not heard of this method before researching for this workshop...but it sounds like fun.
The following is a great link for a marbling workshop with kids:
http://unplugyourkids.com/tag/marbling/

This is how I did mine:

• Put water into a baking dish or stationery tray in our case.
• Oil paint mixed with paint thinner. Mix until it is a thickish watery mixture.
• Pour colours in the tray.
• Mix (not too much) with a toothpick, brush or feather.
• Place paper on top of paint.
• Pull up corner and be surprised by the results.

The final workshop with tissue paper, I didn't actually teach (with the exception of one student who took the iniative to imitate my example). But I created one anyway to show how materials can be manipulated for different effects.



Grade 9/10 Scupture Unit

I just finished a scuptural unit with my grade 9 and 10 art class. These students have had no experience with any form of sculpture before so they were pretty pround of their achievements.

First students learned some basic clay modelling skills by making an ocarina (a musical instrument/whistle). Students were pretty excited about making an object that was functional as well as aesthetically pleasing. WARNING: some whistles didn't work and that was a little discouraging for studetns. I still haven't worked out the problem.

I don't really understand my student's fascination with angry birds but this one is a cross-eyed angry chicken.

The ideas of an ocarina is you blow through the nose and a single note passes through the hole at the top of the creature.

I have complete this project with grade 8 students as well. It's a great introduction to some basic clay modelling skills.

Skills we focused on were:

• Using and creating slip
• Cross-hatching and adding clay (plus slip) to joins
• Using modelling tools for smoothing, shaping and creating texture.

Okay next step. Students were exposed to the concept of hybrid creatures, surrealism vs hyperrealism through Patricia Piccinin's amazing creations.

http://www.patriciapiccinini.net/

I love that Piccinini tackles the issues of  industrialism, technology and the effect on nature in a creative and expressive way. I find her works moving and thought provoking. And I LOVE the reaction I get from the students. Every time I show 'The Loft' respond like:

Student: What's that?

Teacher: Come and have a close look?

Student studies the smartboard intently. 3 seconds later.

Student: That's gross (expressed emphatically).

Teacher: Do you know he nest is made of human and horse hair?

Student: Ahhhh (sounds of morbid fascination)

Student: Why did you so us this Miss, it's gross?

Teacher: Is it gross? Look at it carefully.

Pause for affect.

Teacher: Does the little boy look scared or 'grossed out'?

Student: No.

Teacher: Why are you?

Student pauses to think and this is the perfect leap into what Patricia Piccinini's work is about. Challenging our perceptions of reality; fearing what we don't know.

 

Thanks Patricia Piccinini for your wonderful creations. My students have been continually inspired by your artwork.

Okay next...

I selected some common animals to showed the students the images on the smartboard. Students were required to sketch each animal (bird, fish and snake) in 10 minute intervals.

After the student completed the sketches, we discussed how we could create hybrids.

Preliminary sketches....

Working out how to translate a sketch to a sculpture...

 

This is a good time to relfect on the principles and elements of art:

• Shape/form - Will the new form be pleasing to the eye? Will the shape be proportional or deliberating imbalanced? Will the form include geometric or organic shapes and why? Are angles or fluent lines more in keeping with my ideas?  
• Harmony - Will the two animals work in harmony? Will the be contrasted? Will I deliberately contrast one aspect of the animal against the other? Cuddly vs venemous, etc. Will my colour and form choses harmonise?
• Texture - What texture is significant to the meaning of my creature? Smooth, scales, feather, fur, rough, cracked, slimy, etc.

Students created sketches of 3 hybrid animals but only chose one for creation. They had to justify why?

The student who created the second sculpture names it 'Blood and Tears' mainly because of how many times he stabbed himself while make the wire frame.

Note to self: go over safety procedures....