Week 4 - Installations, Stained Glass, and Twisty boxes

Blank walls screaming for my art :P

 Art Prize install...

This week was peppered with lots of things – highs and lows – as per usual (on sometimes a daily basis). One big high point was being able to travel to Grand Rapids, Michigan with my dad and install my work at ArtPrize. 

That's juice. 

That was a HUGE deal – though, to be honest, I was feeling pretty worn out from school and starting to get a cold so it was a bit tiring… but luckily I have the best dad who put up with all my crabby sick whining and helped me set everything up. I am truly miserable company when I’m sick, so this is a shout-out to my dad and my friend Sarah who both helped with install for the many hours it took my cold-pill-addled brain to do math and hammer nails– you were the best people I could have asked for to help me make my artwork look fancy and level and nice. I am indebted to you for always. If I won.. I would have bought you nice things..

On that happy note, the week at school started off in the high school art room. I did not have any lessons planned for the elementary school on Monday so I stayed in the high school room allllll day. And worked. And blasted music. And ate snacks. And worked worked worked!

 

I threw my hat in the ring to work on a pinch pot bowl with the ceramics students and was pleasantly surprised to find I do not totally fail at clay! I like my little tea bowl… I’m excited to glaze it in the coming weeks.

The majority of my 7^th graders started gluing their tissue paper into their stencil designs and were hitting the whole project out of the park! Mr. Keller and I were hanging them on a clothesline across the room to dry – too funny. Art laundry, anyone? Truly the project was really starting to come together nicely by the end of the high school art day. And then it was time for me to hit the clay. Hard.

I was developing a lesson from one of my conference freebies – a lesson plan from Amaco glazes that utilized an extruder. Now… if you know anything about Ms. Kanak you know that she is a little.. tiny.. bit afraid of working with clay. This lesson looked really cool, though! Students could use the extruder with a square die in the middle to create a hollow box-type form. After installing the extruder one student pushes down on the lever to force the clay through and the other twists the clay as it comes out of the bottom. There were some difficulties… like Ms. Kanak used clay that was too wet so it just fell apart. Attempt two went better – after some SERIOUS wedging of the clay – but I should have had someone to help with the manipulation of the extruded clay cause uhh… I only have two hands and not a lot of patience with clay in the first place haha! But in the long run – the very long run. Like 5 extruded pieces later – I ended up with a workable couple of chunks and stored them for samples. I made sure to make a passable example along with a what probably should have been pitched example… I began to create surface treatments with my examples as they dried out more. 

 

My tiny teacher’s sample was mainly to demonstrate surface treatments and textures that could be incorporated into the final designs. I also had some time to work on the next project for 7^th grade, sugar candy skull portraits. More on that later...

Tuesday was back to work as per usual. For 7^th grade, it was a work day. The majority of the students moved on to their tar paper stencils, except for a select few who were either working very slowly because they were distracted (or distracting others) or they were absent and catching up. And still some other students just tend to create more complicated designs than others and are now seeing the consequences of complex art production! Not that I’m complaining – it’s great to see them so engaged in their project.

Students were really struggling with their volume levels so we repeatedly taught voice levels and expectations in the middle of their work time. I do not mind talking while they work, but some of them were basically yelling across the room for one reason or another. I think a big part of it was early finishers – they did not bring activities to work on. Some of them had books to read with them or their computers, but most of them were just sitting bored, waiting for something to do. 

I had the students who finished their project (or so they thought) glue the opposite side and do touch-ups. When they were done gluing I asked them to write about their piece. “Why did you choose to depict this? What is special about this place/object/idea?” There were several times where Mr. Keller and I were reminding the students of the classroom voice levels and they did not earn music. I spoke to all of them at the end of class, after they were cleaned up, and explained my expectations for their behavior and in turn their work ethic. They’re almost all hard at work; they just need to keep their voices quieter while they do so. There were also a couple of behavioral issues between students, which were remedied by proximity and redirecting. I am going to make some seating chart changes for this group, I think. There are a couple of students who seem to be making more problems than they are solving with their behaviors and talking.

After 7^th grade it was back to the elementary school to finish up one round of Dot Day projects! The students were able to add details with marker and were encouraged to use pattern, line, shapes, outlines, overlap – the whole pile of art terms. They did a great job! And they all made very handsome and beautiful dot people as well. I was very proud of their work and they were excited to take their dots home to show off.

Wednesday was a very productive work day for all classes! Everyone was making major headway with their projects and things were really starting to take shape. Sometimes a work day is the best thing for students- time to process and think about their art is invaluable, especially if they are working on personal themes or ideas. I tried to encourage all of my advanced students to incorporate their interests into their work as much as possible. Ceramics students should use favorite patterns or techniques, painting and drawing students should either work from memory or create their own source images – originality and sources are important. We should be encouraging students to make art about what they care about – not necessarily what we see as being ‘worthy’ of reproduction or product.

7^th grade provided a complete turnaround on behavior! Students came in to the classroom quietly and picked up their materials to work. Students that were already finished with the assignment took their seats. I pulled up my presentation for the new lesson: Day of the Dead sugar candy skull self portraits – kind of a mouthful, but the students were excited about it. I reminded them of my behavior expectations before I started the presentation and they were all engaged and participated in the class discussions and questions I presented. The objective for the day was to find a minimum of 3 images of sugar candy skulls they could use for inspiration or reference. After they found images they needed to do an interest inventory – aka write down hobbies, foods, favorite things etc. that could be translated into visual symbols or shapes. When they completed those two tasks they would be given drawing paper. After the presentation I distributed xacto knives to the students who needed them and provided tar paper for students who were moving to the next step in the stained glass project. I told them if they could work quietly (voice level 1) for ten minutes that they would have music playing in the background as a reward. We had some disagreements on choice of station, but teacher says what goes through the loudspeakers! Students followed the direction and remained quiet for the 10 minutes, working diligently on cutting out stencils, researching, and gluing. A couple of students arrived late from taking a test so I caught them back up using the presentation and the teacher sample I started. I emphasized the use of symmetry in their skull designs and showed them how to transfer and trace their skull in sections. About 3 students started work on their skulls today.

Steps:

Step 1: find 3 images through research of Dia de los Muertos

Step 2: type or write up interest inventory

Step 3: raise hand for activity approval by Ms. Kanak

Step 4: begin drawing – think about symbols, logos, objects – how would you translate your interests and hobbies into visual language?

I have two students in this class who are reluctant learners. Student 1 keeps to herself and works quietly, but she is easily discouraged and tries to do ‘easy’ versions of the project. She kept presenting me with her drawings and ideas and I kept pointing out the white space on her paper – she didn’t like that. But she went back to her images and started drawing all the same – eventually filling up the white spaces with images and patterns.

Student 2 is a reluctant learner as per the dictionary definition. He looks for shortcuts, constantly becomes distracted from his work, becomes discouraged easily and threatens to give up, and bothers his classmates with talking and touching of their projects. Most of his classmates keep him in check or they physically remove themselves from where he is sitting so they can work without being bothered. Today Student 2 was, for lack of a better term, whining about the assignment and was repeatedly asking when we were leaving, when we had to clean up, if he could quit…. Quitting is not something I want to encourage or allow in my classroom so I stood firm. I told him he could take a five minute break and work on the other assignment. His response “but I am going to have to come back to this, aren’t I?” YEP. When he realized that he went back to work on cutting out his tar paper stencil and with 40 minutes left in the block he completed it! Not without some more moaning and groaning, of course. But he did finish the stencil and then moved on to gluing the tissue paper… which he struggled with. He was too busy bothering the girl sitting across from him. I redirected his behavior back into the project and looked up to notice we were nearly to the clean up time. I told him to clean up his area and prepare his stencil for storage, which he did, and then he returned to his seat and chatted with some classmates who really wanted nothing to do with him. Students were given an earlier clean up time because of the messes made from cutting and gluing. They put up their chairs and we had about three minutes of wait time at the end before the bell rang so I gave them time to talk and visit with each other. I thanked them for their good behavior and sent them to their next classes. 3 students started work on their skull designs, 2 students were gluing and cutting tissue paper today, and the remainder of students were working on finishing their tar paper stencils.

I assisted at the elementary school but did not teach on Wednesday. I used that time to prep for my other lessons and project ideas..

Thursday was a bit hectic.. we had our block schedule so we had double-time for drawing students and I took the opportunity to plan new lessons and projects.  First grade were finishing up their Dot Day projects, adding lines and details with markers. They did an awesome job – lots of mustaches. I dunno what it is about mustaches.. but elementary is all about them. 3^rd grade were starting Brain Machines, which is a lesson I developed recently. The challenge was not the lesson objectives themselves.. but the lead-up to work time. One of the steps was to have the students STAND STILL in front of a lamp so we could trace their silhouettes onto paper…. Lesson plans coming soon!

After brain machines were in storage for 4^th grade it was time to bring half the fifth grade back to finish up Life maps. I have a lesson plan coming for this soon!

Week 4 ended at NMU, where I was attending my student teaching seminar. We basically went over the syllabus and talked a little bit about how things were going in our individual classroom placements… if I am being completely honest I would have benefited more from teaching that day instead! And it would have been more fun and organized than dropping everything to travel. Anyway, couple of posts coming up with individual lesson plans (with pictures!)

Thanks for reading, come again!

Ms. Kanak