Willowbrook Art Alumni Day

Quick post - Each year I am invited to the Art Alumni day at my old high school and each year I have attended with new and current work! I try to only bring the most recent things I have been working on, which demonstrates to students the reality of being an artist; it's a full-time job.

@willowbrookHS1 thanks for the invite to Art Alumni Day! I had a blast talking to students and teachers #artsed #Art pic.twitter.com/qE3CTgDnMw

— Breanne Kanak (@MsBreKArt) December 16, 2013

Ms. K

Thursday with Ghana! Art with Africa!

This semester has been INSANE but I have some really great professors who want nothing but positive experiences and opportunities for me, so I am really lucky :) 

About a month ago my Students with Special Needs teacher invited me to participate in a Skype classroom call with Ghana. OF COURSE I jumped at the chance! The call pertained to doing a traditional craft from Ghana and a 'walk-along' lesson to do with the students. We had a hook up with NMU and then a bridge caller on the East coast and then FINALLY we were connected with Ghana. 

I took detailed notes and typed up a transcript of sorts from our call :) Here goes:

Creating decorated Calabash containers

Calabash tree

Calabashes are used to store shea butter, water, and/or wine

The calabash is dried to remove the seeds and then sanded to smooth the surface and insides.

Supplies needed:

Calabash

Sand paper – rough and smooth

Paint brushes

Carving knife

3inch brush (for larger areas)

India Ink/Acrylic paint (paint would be more economical and vibrant)

Lacquer, shea butter, or olive oil (for sheen)

Beads

*Ghana representative offered to send us calabashes from their area – craft day rescheduled until after break

Process:

Sand with rough paper until off white in color

-       whole calabash should have even coloration

Each student chooses a symbol

Student creates a stencil for their stencil and draws it onto the calabash

Students decorate stencil using paints and create designs on the calabash

-       students should utilize the whole surface of the calabash for decoration

-       Colors: colors are traditionally not applied; the traditional process requires using a heated knife to make burn marks and create designs and symbols

-       Beads can also be used to decorate the calabashes

Assignment for students: choose 2 Adinkra symbols (or more) to use on calabash design

Q &A:

Is your education free or do you have to pay?:

            Public schools are free – private schools are paid for

Do you do a lot of arts in your schools?:

Yes! (The building we were seeing was their local community center where they go to do traditional crafts)

Do you have English language classes?:

English is the national language of Ghana. French is also prevalent because of the colonies and local languages are common as well.

What time is it there? What is the temperature?:

            6:05pm, 27degrees Celsius (89degrees Farenheit)

How big is your school?

            50 students

School hours/school day:

8:30am – 3:00pm. The students were staying after to talk with MAHS and gathered in the community center

What do you do for fun after school?:

Play outside and indoor games, help in the kitche, talk (and talk and talk and talk), listen to music, play volleyball, play soccer

And here is a slideshow of all the photos I took!

I was able to take some video, too.. They're youtube videos because I FINALLY bit the bullet and created an account. They're pretty quiet, but they show some great interactions between students.




I think the best thing about the whole experience was the reactions of the students. You could tell the conversations were the same on both ends, " WOW, I just talked to Africa/Michigan. Never thought I would do that!" The connection was made and students were running out into the hallway to tell their friends about the experience.
Students could sign up to do the craft in the future and the list was almost full by the end of the hour! I can't wait to paint a calabash with our new friends in Ghana :) Only time will tell what the results will be... in the mean time I am going to see if I can find any calabashes in Illinois while I'm on break. Being an art teacher means weird and random grocery shopping trips. ALL about that haha

Until next time -- Ms. K

Wow Wednesday

SO many things have been happening I will try to sum up... On Wednesday I was able to meet with a volunteer art teacher that is working at the alternative high school here in Marquette. She is currently teaching k-5 art classes (ONLY 7 a day?!) at a local school and she volunteers her time at MAHS to create a temporary art program. Currently the teacher allows the students to work with whatever media they like and sometimes creates structured projects. The students can only attend the art hour if their grades are where they should be and if their free period is not taken up by something else.
Here's some snapshots of the art room - THE COMPLETELY UNINHABITED ART ROOM. I really want to work here in the future.. but the art program is non-existent. Projects, projects, projects..

so much potential! storage, supplies.. ahhhh!

I helped a student create a slab 'plate'. 

Students had to add feet to the bottom and they could use it as a candle holder or bowl - or pretty much anything else they wanted! It was fun to see the different designs students came up with to decorate the slabs - I couldn't snap the pictures before they were prepared for firing, unfortunately. Maybe next time :)

The volunteer had to leave to go teach her students and she asked me to organize the art room. She was given an amount of money for supplies - and she has definitely utilized it to the utmost! I had to unpack and organize a shipment of art supplies throughout the room. The art room is being utilized by other teachers right now so I had to make sure things were labeled and organization was obvious. Good thing I get some kind of sick satisfaction out of organizing things, eh?

Craft supplies, weaving, embroidery, yarn scraps and skeins... and sand art. Oh man.

calligraphy, ink pens and nibs, crayons, colored pencils,
fabric scraps (for wrapping ceramics), other basic art supplies

From this view.. it looks like I could be the teacher. Maybe, someday :)

I am hoping to work with the volunteer teacher and my Special Needs class teacher to develop more in-depth and structured lessons in the coming semester. I have already set aside chunks of time to visit the school and work with the kids! We'll see how it goes :) Currently there are 5 or six students attending at a time; I would hope to increase those numbers and maybe even establish a regular art program. It's a big dream to have, but I think it's doable with the right help and plans. Right now they have one hour of art each Wednesday and it's obvious the students want much more than that. Next semester is going to be very interesting...

The next post is about one of the coolest, if not the coolest, things I have done all semester. Skyping with students in Ghana!

Stay tuned

Ms. K

3D Printing, group presentations, and more!

So it's been awhile since I updated.. What can I say? Finals week us upon us and I have been relaxing because MINE ARE DONE. Almost. Almost completely...

I wanted to post some of the things we did for our 3D printing presentation a few weeks ago. Now we have a final project that includes Mozilla Popcorn, an online program which allows the use of open links, Google maps, and other resources online. I was comparing it to putting a news story together using the internet.

My professor in my Ed Technology class gave us the opportunity to use an iPad and explore the possibilities of teaching and learning through apps. My group found the app 123D Creature, by Autodesk, to be extremely - well - AWESOME!? As someone who just last year was introduced to 3D modeling I can say that this is a very student-friendly option on the iPad.

123D CREATURE

Directions

• Start by creating a skeleton – drag joints to create new limbs, or to adjust their position.


• Adjust the thickness of your creature’s skeleton by dragging the shaping rings.


• 123D Creature will keep your model symmetrical automatically.



• Once you’re done creating the basic skeletal structure of your creature bake it in the digital kiln before adding additional sculptural detail.


• In the sculpting room you can refine the surface shape using tools from the popular 123D Sculpt app. Sculpt out or in, smooth and sharpen and flatten, until your creature is complete.


• Use the airbrush to paint on color, or use Image Paint to rub areas of a photo from your image library onto your creature to add realistic details.


• Bring your creature into the Render room where you can adjust the lights, background, and filter effects to generate amazing scenes and images and share them on Facebook, Email, Twitter, or save to your image library.

In my classroom I would hope to 

a. Have access to an - or many - iPads 

b. Have access to a 3Dprinter

BECAUSE I WANT TO DO THIS WITH KIDS. SO BAD. Okay. All caps lock aside, here are some reasons I came up with for 3D printing in the classroom (not just the art room):

What is so great about 3D printing anyway?!

3D printing in the classroom setting… and communicating relevance

„ Students experience real-world design problems

„  “Fab Labs”

„ Design objects for specific uses

„ Design improvements on existing objects

„ Why didn’t my design work/print properly?

„ INQUIRY, FAILURE, SUCCESS = LEARNING

„ Components for more complex machinery

„ Replace parts of larger machines

„ Engineer newer and better components

„ Many parts make up the whole

„ Working models and artistic renderings

„ 3D modeling

„ Game design

„ Fashion design

„ Character design

„ Architecture

„ Product design etc.

**3D printing is a hugely resourceful and modern Maker technology with many applications in classrooms, workshops, laboratories, and even the home.**

Long story short.. I am OBSESSED with 3D Printing. My Maker group had to present 3DPrinting as a learning technology to a local superintendent... I think we overwhelmed him a bit! But that's the difficulty in presenting such an advanced machine to schools; there is not a great deal of information out there that is in layman's terms... I spent a lot of time working with my group to translate information. The main uses we focused on were problem solving, applications used with 3D printers (Rhino, Autodesk software) and of course LEARNING possibilities. I think that our findings are best summed up in the video we had to put together for class. 

On that note I am going to go back to... RELAXING. I only have two finals this semester so finally I get a break!

Back to the hot cocoa

Ms. K