Understanding the Art World - Read and React: Context

Part of learning to be an Artist is to learn about Artists, from the past and present. In “Studio Learning” by Hetland the connections we make to the goals and ambitions of Artists, whether they were starting a new Art style or finding new ways to create with modern materials, will help us come up with our own unique ideas and style. All studying Artists have spent time studying great Artists from their past but often this has been limited to the schools accepted theories. Today we can use the internet to find a multitude of Artistic ideas that students could be inspired by, or at least for them to gain an understanding of the purpose behind Artists works. It no longer is enough for Art teachers to show students some slides of carefully chosen Artwork, we need to inspire exploration of the visual world in our students and researching on the Internet is a great way for them to find out about Artists and share what they find with the class. Everyone in the class will be learning.

Giving students parameters that gives their projects value or purpose teaches them problem solving skills along with an understanding of others. Working together on group projects provides them with important experience in people skills that they will need as adults. When planning group projects we can make it relevant to them if they imitate the real world. For instance: have them be in design teams competing for a new product design, this could be anything from Cars to Tennis Shoes, and could be changed to relate to the present class. Putting themselves in an Artists shoes is one way to help them understand context. Learning about a style of painting that Artists in the past worked in like Cubism is better understood when the students create their own Cubism painting. Going beyond just viewing and hearing about what Picasso and other artists were doing by creating one themselves it allows them to use all their senses and they will achieve a greater understanding and the knowledge will stay with them longer. I remember a piece my daughter did in elementary school that was in the Cubism style like Picasso and we kept that one and she never forgot what she learned about Picasso or Cubism.

Curriculum in Art Education has the chance to include soo much important learning. We are often lucky to have the freedom to come up with new ideas in lessons and we also need others to understand all the learning going on. For the students to see and understand the purpose in what they are doing in your class will help their parents and the rest of the school understand it also. One part of understanding what it’s like to be an Artist is to have a show of the students work. They can be in charge of everything involved again letting them see what it’s like. Having their work on display can be a frightening thing but when they work together as a class with a purpose – like a show of group projects or a show with a particular theme – they can share these feelings with the rest of the class and they won’t feel alone or so threatened. Studio learning can have purpose, purpose from play and experimentation.

Resources:

Hetland, L. (2007). “Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education”. New York, NY: Teachers Press.

Reflect ) ) ) ) An important part of Art Education

Reflection gives students a “construction of meaning” and is important in “Thinking Metacognitively”, as explained in chapter 10 of “Studio Thinking” by Hetland. There are two processes, pointed out by the Author, that Educators can use to bring about quality reflection from their students. First is to “Question and Explain” where the student is asked to “explain their process, decisions, and intentions”. (Hetland) Asking them to think about and explain an Art Project puts them in the position to reflect upon what they just accomplished and what they learned both about themselves and the processes of working with the medium or the difficulties they found in completing the task. The atmosphere in the class has to be one of openness which could be achieved by the Teacher modeling this with one of their own pieces. Talking about problems they may have had, or how they learned from past experience  would give students and idea of the type of reflective thinking they should do. No students would say they had no problems or didn’t learn any techniques while creating their piece so they should be able to think of some ideas. They also want to express why they did what they did to the class. This in a way can explain why something didn’t turn out the way they wanted or a way to explain the ideas behind their individual creation. Most students will like to do this but if they are reluctant a few open ended questions like “Why did you choose that color?”, or “is there a story behind the composition?” can get them started.

The other process detailed by Hetland is “to evaluate the work, whether their own or that of others”. This can sometimes be difficult for students but if they start out by evaluating their own work it may be less stressful for them. Also as Educators we need to let the students know they need to be respectful of others at all times and that all projects they work on are learning experiences and to learn we should be open to the view point of others. Some students may want to hear what other students think before they explain what they were trying to create. You could mix it up and have a critique from peers like they are being Art Critiques and then have them interview each artist with questions about their piece. This would give them a chance to see how knowing what the Artist was doing effects their response to the piece.

Resources:

Hetland, L. (2007). “Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education.” New York, NY: Teachers Press.

Read and React: Expression

Over 100 years ago many Artists rebelled against accepted realism in Art and wanted to create Art that was their own expression. Is any Art created by someone void of expression? I’m not sure because even sculptures of realistic animals seem to look back at you and even paintings convey an expression of a feeling or mood. So how do we teach our students to express themselves? Well, I don’t think that is really a problem, we just can awaken new ideas for expressing themselves through Art and we can help them.

Another way to get students engaged is to let them tell a story in their Art piece. In chapter 8 of “Studio Thinking” by Hetland he talks about “Drawing with meaning”. Expression in Art can refer to content or story. Curriculum that involves the student in developing a way to express an idea or feeling gives them a chance to try out ideas they wouldn’t have otherwise. Creating something that is an expression of themselves is important for self awareness.

Exploring how visual images, lines, colors, etc. can affect the expressive values of a piece of Art is a way for our students to understand the visual world around them. Advertising and graphic designs also use these to create expressive values and having students compare Fine Art with todays graphic rich Media world would be one way to discuss the expressive attributes that are used in both. A lesson could include designing an Ad for a product and finding the best way to express emotions that would help sell it. This could be a group project and the teacher can approve the project before work on a model is started, but think of all the learning objectives that the lesson would have.

Humans are expressive and as long as there is Art it will be an expression of the human hand and soul.

Resources:

Hetland, L. (2007). “Studio Thinking: The real benefits of visual arts education.” New York, NY: Teachers Press.

My Assignment - Abstracting faces!

In my assignment to play this week I chose to play around with abstracting faces. I have found this particularly difficult in the past. To represent a face with as few lines as possible is not easy. I didn't want them to look like cartoons or caricatures so I didn't think about other versions I've seen but I looked at pictures of people in magazines. I would try one face and then have several ideas from that, and when I would run out of ideas I'd look for a different type of face and start over. Here are the first ones I did.

 I used a canvas board and acrylic paint so I had to keep going and couldn't make corrections. After saving this picture of my playing I thought about how I could use these for digital pieces. I could even make stamps of facial features on PhotoShop!

 I think noses are difficult too so I made some faces. Then I wanted to practice trying to paint me so I could do a self portrait. I looked at a Family Portrait picture and tried to paint me with as few lines as possible. I found the width, shape and tone of the line all make a difference. It's not easy trying to make it look like myself - and not funny!

 This was a great play assignment. I was able to learn from doing and better understand how to paint a face in an Abstract Expression type style.

Read and React: Play, Play, Play!

Play has always been an essential part of learning. It sounds like something you shouldn’t say too loud in a public school! But it’s true, children learn from birth by playing with the world around them. When we learn to play with a purpose, with a particular goal in mind, and become completely engaged in that act then we are getting the most out of what we are doing. This is true for students in today’s schools. Don’t call it play if that bothers you but when our students are using what they learn by synthesizing it, manipulating it, experimenting with it, and using it to find solutions there is a great deal of learning going on and engaged “play” or “experimentation and practice” is seating the learning. When we learn by doing and by trial and error we are using more of our senses and more of our minds are engaged.

In Art class this type of learning is achieved by letting the students try different approaches to materials used and learning from trial and error. Studio classes can provide instruction on technique but if all the students do is copy technique then they are not creating an individual piece. Exploring techniques and letting them use them to make pieces they create will engage the students in learning and aesthetic qualities and styles. The environment created in Art class should always be one of learning from every experience whether the outcome is what the student wanted at first but viewed as a learning experience. Our students will stretch their abilities with an Art medium when we let the students find their own solutions and we as teachers become guides available for questions when needed, or a coach that helps out when things don’t work as expected.

Another aspect of play is just plain having fun, enjoying what we’re doing. There are businesses today that incorporate some kind of play into their work days. I watched one on T.V. where they all took their dog to work with them. That seemed like a different way to try to make the employees day more enjoyable but they were on the right tract. Being engaged and enjoying what they do in the future are things we wish for all our young people so why not demonstrate how that can happen in school. When students are allowed to play with Art they will learn that they were able to do things they may not have tried. When we say play with purpose the “purpose” may make it sound contradictory but what it means is don’t just give them materials without some purpose to make of them. Students can play with shaping clay for a whole class period and not keep anything but they will become familiar with the material and how it handles and they will come up with ideas for what they would like to do. (Hetland) Then the next class period they can finish a sculpture to keep. Gaining skills working with medium takes time and unfortunately we don’t get as much time with students as we’d like. Art lessons need to incorporate playing with materials and playing with ideas along with all the other learning objectives we can give them.

Resources:

Hetland, L. (2007). “Studio Thinking: The real benefits of visual arts education.” New York, NY: Teachers Press

Read and React

 

Inspiring Passion in Art

Art Educators love to teach Art but first of all they love Art! For us being passionate about what we do is easy, because we already know what we are passionate about. But what about our students who are still looking for their passions? The Art classroom should give them an atmosphere of learning, experimenting, and trying new ways to express themselves. Lessons that evoke interest by being relevant to the students’ lives will make the creative process easier. Students may not always be able to come up with new ideas so we as teachers should guide them on “scratching” for ideas. (Tharp)

Students learn to be persistent in Art lessons that cannot be completed overnight. Learning to work towards completing an Art project requires discipline and desire to see the final outcome. Students guided to plan the project completely with sketches of what they “envision” the final project to look like can help them keep on tract. (Hetland) Many Art projects can be broke down into smaller parts and these should be timed out so projects are completed by the deadline. There needs to be help in solving unexpected problems so students are able to feel the accomplishment of finishing the creative idea they had started.

“Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education” by Hetland, discusses the important lessons sometimes not seen that are learned in a “rigorous visual arts class”. These attributes are “Motivating and Instilling Passion, Cultivating sustained Attention, Combating Frustration, Working hard to meet a deadline, and developing the ability to delay gratification or working without seeing the endpoint”. Developing lessons that engage students to work in a persistent manner let students guide their own learning by designing and completing a piece of Art. 

When students enjoy creating in the Art classroom they will be more creative in other areas of their lives. Inspiring them to not be afraid to come up with something new is important in learning problem solving skills. Many times the best ideas come out of other ideas so learning to let their creative ideas flow is an important skill for their future. Working on a personal piece of Art can be important to our students even if no one sees a final product. The act of self expression and what they learn about their selves and their creative minds is an important lesson. Often people say they are not creative, but they really can be they just need more confidence in their creativity. Students may worry about what others may think of them but being creative takes some courage so we need to keep an atmosphere in the Art classroom that fosters freedom of ideas.

Resources:

Hetland, L., Winner, E., Veenema, S., & Sheridan, K., (2007) “Studio Thinking: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education”, Teachers College Press, New York, NY

Thorp, Twyla, “Scratching”  https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B8629DSgjkxyM2RmNTcxMTUtOGY4YS00NDhkLWExNjgtNzVjNDdhZmU1OGUx&hl=en&authkey=CPDIgfgI