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.