From Ordinary to Extraordinary Drawing

One of the things an art teacher tries to do is have students look at things from a different perspective. It may be a different viewpoint or just to put things together that they didn't think of. Students were handed a brand new #2 pencil to study and then were able to choose a bird that would be made out of pencils. These are the work of my Holy Family students from Whitefish Bay, WI. 

6th Grade Block Printing

6th grade classes have been working on block prints. Some of the students had to carve a fairly hard linoleum, but most got to work on the easy cut carving material. They had to draw either a bird, flower, fish, or butterfly from book resources. None of the drawings was traced because the books and the carving materials were not the same size. Students transferred their drawings by rubbing the graphite onto the carving material. They then used sharp gouges to carve away the negative spaces and leave behind the positive. Each carved plate was printed using a brayer to roll the ink onto the plate and then rubbing the paper covered inked plate with a barren. The best carving can be ruined by using too little or too much ink, so the students practiced a few test prints before using the marbleized papers.

Learning Form Through Clay

Many of our families do not have the means to have art supplies in the home and all kids need to have tactile experiences with art supplies. I try to provide at least two 30 min. classes where students just get a chance to interact with the clay with no objectives or expectation. This was done under the radar because although sound art education, I would have failed any formal observation because I didn't interrupt kids by asking questions or requiring a final product. The art room should be a social arena where kids learn to share and help each other with their personal explorations.  

Touring the Musical Instrument Museum

Ms. Pinuelas' 4th graders are doing a Dia De Los Muertos art project for the Musical Instrument Museum. The museum kindly gave us an excellent tour of the museum to get us excited about the project. Our "ofrendas" will be dedicated to deceased musicians. Part One of the project is to emulate the chrysanthemum blankets in the shapes of instruments or other symbols related to our deceased musicians. We are limited for time so we used a quick technique using tissue squares folded over the end of a pencil. The pencil is dipped in glue and held in place briefly before removing the pencil. (See Animoto below)

Rain Damage

Arizona schools are not built for rain and our roof is in very bad shape. My room is one that is a focal point for rain damage and parts of my ceiling have leaked and/or fallen several times in the past few years. This summer I purchased several new books that I planned on using as a way to integrate more literacy into my art classes. After this last rain, they turned into mush. I had to rearrange my syllabus till I can replace those specific books. After teaching for so many years, it was an inconvenience, but improv was my life for 5 years and I managed well enough. (See Animoto below)

Using the Crayola Site in the Primary Grades

On Wednesdays, special area teachers at Herrera cover two classes they may or may not normally have so that classroom teachers have the time to attend professional development sessions. This week I had Mrs. Diaz' first grade class and the students got a chance to share laptops to use the Crayola interactive painting and drawing website. The tools are exactly like you could purchase in real life but they do not dry out, break or wear down! In addition, students can have as many pieces of virtual paper as they want! This prepares them for using more sophisticated digital tools later on.

Getting to Know You Jr. High Wordles

As a getting to know you activity for my Jr. High Digital Art elective, I had the students make a list of their favorite things as a WORD document and then copy that into WORDLE. They were supposed to emphasize their name, use the snipping tool, and save to their folders. Additionally, they were to edit the color palette in WORDLE and place the design in their PowerPoint portfolio. (See Animoto below)

Monet-Like Tree Landscapes

First and Second Graders learned about Monet's use of brush strokes and placing colors next to each other in order to create a soft look to their skies and grass. They learned how to make sure their watercolor brushes were having a "good hair day," and how to clean up after painting.