Student Teaching: Week 2

Week 2 was another shortened week for Labor Day. I returned from 'vacation' ready to work and learn and teach. One of my advanced students decided to work on O'Keefe 'big flowers' for her painting. My aunt graciously filled two huge mason jars with flowers and thus this picture happened....

can we talk about teacher's cars? Because oh man

Mr. Keller had the 7th graders working on their kaleidoscope projects. It was pretty amazing how they were progressing in complexity as the students colored in shapes and darkened their outlines! Some of the kids worked on these for a really long time...

The nice thing about this project is that students of all abilities can accomplish it. AND all the designs are vastly different because they are based on the students' names. I liked seeing the variety of designs, color schemes, and line styles. I took lots of pictures :)

One of my other advanced students is working on a large painting. He decided to focus on an abandoned structure for his subject - I am requiring drawings for every large piece, which they are not used to, but they are really talented! It's good to see their confidence in their abilities increase when they create a successful thumbnail or sketch.

The first half of the day is always MS/HS and then we travel down to the k-6. 6th grade was working on "Imaginary plants". I believe in an earlier post I mentioned each grade draws a different imaginary creature, plant, or item as they move through elementary school. This is the first project of the semester for every class.

pigweed

rattlesnake fern

this kid was really proud of his - walking fern.. those little football-shaped things are EYES

marshmallow flower

3rd grade was working on "imaginary birds" - one of the fun things about this assignment is seeing how the students solve the problem of combining two dissimilar ideas into a visual format. AND how they translate the way the words interact - some students are very literal, some of them are more imaginative.

mud hen

shoe bird

1st grade and 2nd grade worked on "Types of lines: trees" - pretty self-explanatory. We emphasized variety in the drawings as well as different ways to create lines with the markers.

Nearly every day at the elementary school I also have two advanced students come down from the high school building to work. I wanted to assess their existing skills and... what better way to do that than to work on a still life?! I never thought I would hear or read myself saying those words, but there they are... Mr. Keller has taught them a great deal about brightness changes, shading techniques, sighting, and creating compositions. Their skills were higher than I anticipated, which was good because... uh.. still life is not all that fun to teach.

One of my advanced students... she has a bit of a need for control.She found Francois Neilly - a painter who utilizes palette knives to paint instead of her first choice - super tiny detail brushes. It's been fun watching her slowly surrender control of her work to the media. This was a process picture of her grid structure drawing...

By the end of the week ALL of the easels were full :) It was good to see that so soon into the semester. Work from left: portrait of student's sister, life preserver painting, portrait painting, board being gessoed, abandoned structure painting. This is just a small selection of the advanced students' work - I am working on photographing others!

one of the advanced potters - she is working on surface treatments and pattern work

Hope has big dreams of making a tea set.. she's well on her way :)

Mr. Keller has been working directly with the advanced wheel throwing students because I have less than a sliver of an idea what I am doing with a potter's wheel. BUT I am serving as their design adviser - Mr, Keller is their technical adviser and go-to, I am a resource for inspiration, artists, and design ideas. It's working out well so far!

The next post will be about..sigh.. the first time I taught 1st grade. Prepare yourself - it gets ugly.