Ch 1 Questions

What is the relationship between your experiences and ongoing artistic work to your curriculum and teaching.
I think I tend to focus a lot of the ideas and themes I'm making art about into my curriculum. I also use my own experience with art making; drawing for example- (hate representational, love experimenting.. and some people are opposite) to create lesson plans where everyone is challenged but is able to do things they enjoy. I also think it's important to let students create their own bodies of work, based on themes they are interested in. I was never really given that opportunity in any of my high school art classes. To allow students freedom to research, brainstorm, and develop themes and create art is a really important skill in being an artist. 
I want to be able to show students my past work and the things I'm currently working on and tell them what I am currently making my art about so they can get a glimpse into how an artist thinks and works.  




How do you describe what you do as an artist.
I feel like I'm all over the place. I really like experimenting with a concept and making art about it, especially building off of past pieces I've made. I also sometimes just create abstract art based off the style of another artist that I like, and over time it develops into its own thing. A lot of my themes deal with childhood, compromise, and nostalgia. I sometimes jump from style to style, but try to take time to develop styles that I find to be the most successful. I also try to make A LOT of stuff, the more stuff you make, the better. I also will leave my works in progress alone for a while, to make sure I don;t overwork them. 

Drawing

These are just some ideas for teaching observational/representational drawing:

I will make a more concrete lesson plan later


-Blind contour of each others faces
-Drawing detailed still life with sticks
-Allowing students to choose a private place around school or outside to draw still life: have them think like a child, explore their chosen space and draw things that interest them.

Experimenting with colors, "copying"

Abstract Art 5th Graders

Talked about the definition of abstract art vs. representational art

Watched this VIDEO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kdzGAjG26s starting at 3:27

Talked about why abstract art is unique and why most people CANT do it. 

Talked about famous artists like Rothko, Pollock, and Frankenthaler and asked students to try to figure out how they made their paintings. 

Talked about what makes an abstract painting successful.

Students silently looked at famous abstract paintings and then wrote down their thoughts. Short group discussion about whether or not it is successful and if students liked it or not.

Experiment time: I gave short demos on how to paint with stick and how to make prints with sandwich bags. Set expectations for how to handle paint. I showed a list of verbs on my powerpoint of things they could do in their art making:

Swirl

Blot

Shake

Drip

Slide

Warp

Scratch

Cut

Splatter

Scratch

Rub

Scrape

Rip

Tape

Mush

Mix

Spread

Then, I played classical music and had students get to work! 

First Day Intro

Presentation about myself

Experimenting with colors:

Give students black, white, red, yellow, and blue paint.

Have them create as many colors as they can without repeating the same color.

The last part of class students will create their own color and name it and share it with the class.