Assignment: Keep Making Art!

For artists, there is never enough time to make art. 
Being stuck at home provides just what artists need:
Time, Space and Stuff for art-making. 
The only limit is one's own imagination - which is limitless! 

• Find a box or container from around the house - Start assembling things you can use to make art (pens, pencils, papers, glue, tape, stapler, scissors, junk-mail, magazines, cardboard, string, needles/thread, fabric, yarn, mirror, recycled objects, markers, ruler, sketchbook, etc)
• Set up a place for art making - table, desk, closet, floor in your room - someplace where you can put your stuff and think creatively
• Some ideas to get you started: Magazine face collage, Origami (videos), Stop motion animation, Altered books, Torn scrap-paper landscape, Overlapping traced objects, Texture rubbing, Lego building, Blanket fort, Pop-ups (videos), Cereal box sketchbook cover, Food color paint mixing, Flour and water papier mache, Sock doll, Sock puppet, Potato prints, Draw to music, Flip-book in margins of paperback book, Marble run, Soap carving, Family portrait, “One-Liners” drawing
  ..or, maybe a Rube Goldberg-inspired contraption? watch
  
  
• And now, for your listening pleasure...
• 
  

Middle School Potpourri

A quick look back at some highlights from last trimester:

INkTOBER!

October 18 Prompt: Misfit

Oh how I love this drawing! 
In the spirit of Inktober, this 5th grader has made an ink drawing each (school) day since October 1. I think this is my favorite.

During the month of October, artists from all around the world commit to making 31 drawings in 31 days. Or one drawing a week, or a drawing now and then. There really are no rules, except that the drawings are made in ink and posted. We post ours on the bulletin board. Others post at #Inktober. Prompts are offered, but not required. 
 Inktober is really just a nudge to “get drawing” and a fun way to encourage each other to practice and get better. It is also a celebration of drawing and sharing, artist to artist. 
Visit Inktober.com for more information and to get involved. 

Bill Ding

Remember these?

Fifth graders invent design-challenge games and compete for most creative arrangements while working with this classic building toy. The structures they create are marvels of balance, line, form, symmetry and asymmetry. I’m glad I’m not the judge! 

Working in Series

Sometimes artists get an idea that is "grabby" for them, one that sticks and is worth pursuing, sometimes over and over. Think Georgia O'Keefe's enlarged flowers, for example, or Monet's bridge.   When this happens, it is said that the artist is "working in series." A series is a group or continuum of artwork, each sharing something in common. The collection of work might share a theme, a subject, or a technique. 

Working in a studio-setting, learners are free to explore themes and interests, and build a related body of work. We recently hung a series of paintings that "M," grade 8, worked on over several weeks. 

"M" has been pursuing faces, large and small, for some time now. Many of his earlier faces were made with marker. 


Sometimes he paints faces on and in magazines, creating a variation on the idea of "altered books."



For this series, "M" mostly used acrylic paint on 18" X 24" paper, although the one below is mixed-media; permanent marker and white gel pen over acrylic paint. 

And the first one in this series, the one above with the yellow hair, is double-sided, with a marker-face on the reverse. Here is the reverse side of that painting: 

Finally, "M" wrote a simple artist statement to accompany his work. The statement give a little glimpse of this artist's process. 

Infinity and Beyond

The Infinity Gauntlet

My students keep trying to make it. 

“Do we have any gems? Do we have any jewels? Do we have any gems or any jewels?” 

They try making it out of clay, papier mâché and paper bags wrapped in masking tape. Some even tried casting their hand in plaster, first one side, then the other. But when assembled, the hand won't fit back into the thing. 

Individual, articulated fingers with Infinity Stones in place. Ready for assembly.

It seems that function is lagging somewhat, and the function (you know, to control the universe...) is key. 

Nothing works. 

Until now. 

5th grader “A” is engineering an articulated glove by manipulating paper “art straws.”  The Infinity Stones are made by arranging the right color pony beads into the correct shapes. This is the first glove created in our studio that can be worn, taken on and off, and has moving fingers. “A’s” one complaint is that he still can’t snap his fingers with it on. 
And, spoiler alert: snapping your fingers when wearing the Infinity Gauntlet, is pretty important.

Finished, articulated gauntlet. Fits like a ...glove!

Closing Centers

It’s mid-May.
I stood in the empty studio this morning and started thinking that maybe it’s time to close the sculpture center. 

But then I had another think coming. 

Tom Sawyer Moment

This chair. 

I saved it in case someone needed something to paint. 

And saved it, and saved it, and saved it...

and tripped over it, and stacked things on top of it, and started to regret saving it. 

FINALLY, there are several student who keep pleading for “something else to paint.” 

So I gifted the chair to an artist in need. 

And then that Tom Sawyer thing happened. So fun to watch friends come by to see what going on only to end up with a paintbrush in their hands. 
Aunt Polly would be amused. 

Mondays!

Monday can be the hardest day of the week around here. I think it is a combination of my impulse to roll out something new to start off the week, and the kids getting readjusted to how to do school after two days off. 

Once plastering is complete, our custom is to read a story while the plaster sets up. We prefer Edward Gorey and Maurice Sendak for this purpose. 

But today, during my very large combination 7th & 8th grade class, I looked around and was absolutely overcome (read: horrified) with the variety of goings-on. Ready for a list? We had:

• Face plastering (plaster gauze on live face)
• Paper making (day one) (see what I mean?)
• Mural making (with some sort of complex math calculations going on involving a tape measure, a circle and a circumference?)
• Mono-printing on gelli plates
• Glazing clay
• Valentine making
• and the usual drawing, painting, needle felting, sewing and cardboard sculpture

Papermaking station ready for business

The thing is, while there was an impossible number of specialized processes out that usually only appear one at a time, it was all working. 
Huh. 

heART Trap

I just set an art trap in the spirit of the season. 

Who will fall in?

The Story of the Two Damiens

Ok. So here's the story:
The class started like this: "Class, please get out your recent work and photograph it for your digital portfolios. Remember that I will be asking you to let us know which of the 100 Artistic Behaviors you used while making, planning or reflecting on this piece."

Damien realized he didn't have a piece to photograph. But he did see a half-eaten bagel sitting there on the sculpture table...
The rest, as they say, is history. 
Art history that is. 
Because when Damien presented his piece, it reminded me of how artists sometimes employ ephemeral, real-world objects, and "elevate" them to capital-A Art. I asked Damien if he planned to display his work. He seemed surprised but jumped at the proposition. "It will mold!" someone warned. "Gross" offered another. 

Damien Hirst, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991)© Damien Hirst and Science Ltd. All rights reserved. DACS 2011. . Photo: Photographed by Prudence Cuming Associates Retrieved 1-8-19 from: art382001 https://www.culture24.org.uk/art/art382001 

I pulled up some of Damien Hirst's work to show Damien, and the crowd starting to form around the bagel sculpture. "Weird that his name is Damien too," observed Damien, something I am embarrassed to admit that I hadn't put together yet). Yes, weird. 

(Update: I just checked the display case, and Damien's Bagel Boi is currently mold-free. But some of Hirst's work is starting to decompose, I hear.)

FAQ about TAB

By "E", Grade 7 Colored Pencil and Watercolor wash. 

I am excited to report that my article: FAQ for TAB appears in Arts and Activities magazine this month. Which reminds me, there is a wealth of articles and essays about Teaching for Artistic Behavior (TAB), Choice-Based practice and learner-directed art education available on the TAB website. 
Art teachers contribute to the Choice-Based Art column in Arts and Activities every other month, and the collected resources there are invaluable. Go take a look!

Controlling Materials

Due to considerable angst (on my part) surrounding the use (and abuse) of craft sticks in the studio, I have decided to eliminate them as staple in the Sculpture Center. In their place: Cardboard Sticks!

I wish I had taken some photos yesterday, to prove my case. Not only did I sweep up a heaping handful of perfectly good craft sticks at the end of the day, but I found many in the recycle bin (not recyclable), and more in the trash. This bothers me, but not as much at what was being made with them. Sticks were being sharpened to dangerous points, contraptions like crossbows, slingshots and other shooting mechanisms abounded. These are hard to justify as art. Even as "art," although students try to make a case for them (they can be very convincing). 
So - as art teacher and supreme commander, I have decreed the end of craft sticks in our studio. I eagerly await "what's next" in the sculpture center, as students integrate their new construction medium. 

Calling Bob Ross!

In the Style of Bob Ross, By 8th Graders "L" & "A"

Look what happened in the studio yesterday. I didn't know our acrylic paints (or these two artists) could do that!

INKTOBER!

Grades 5-8 contribute if they choose

Every October, artists around the world are challenged to make a drawing a day for the month. 

Straw-blowing idea-starter, grade 7

A few years ago prompts were added, but only as suggestions (today's prompt is "stretch.")

Sumi-e, grade 5

CMBS students have taken up the challenge with gusto, so we started a display and add to it each day. It has already outgrown the first bulletin board, and reaches around the corner to an adjacent space!

Pen & Ink

INKTOBER makes now the perfect time to introduce ink drawing with feather quills and steel nibs, calligraphy, ink-straw-blowing a la Stefan Bucher's "Daily Monster," Sumi-e (Japanese brush painting), and all kinds of printmaking. 

1st try styrofoam print, grade 5

Sumi-e Grade 6

Second Day of School

"Can we do printmaking?"
I'm not sure I ever had this question so early in the school year before. But after making portfolios yesterday, this 6th grade class was ready to return to their studio, and their important work as artists. 
So, "Yes! Do you remember how to set it up?"

Five printmakers

2 color print by "N"

Some in this group ended the year last year with printmaking, a center that was late to be introduced. It was so rewarding for me to observe the knowledge, enthusiasm and peer-teaching exhibited at this center today! Students set up a printmaking space, demonstrated good technique and correct use of tools and materials, remembered how to store and sign prints, helped teach new-comers and cleaned up with vigor. I guess this would be called a pre-assessment? Or is it a summative assessment, demonstrating what "stuck" from last years' instruction and experience? Teachers in learner-directed classrooms observe what students "know and are able to do" daily.  

Eight 3D artists

 Meanwhile, one step over, the Sculpture/Construction Center was up and running (one learner brought me a hot glue gun with a big grin on his face and announced: "I found them!") It was crowded at this spot, but artists here made it work amicably, and only needed one reminder to clean it up "all the way" before class was over. 

Two painters, and one finishing up his (complex) portfolio design

This is a big class at the very end of the day. We are under a heat advisement, and the studio is on the second floor - so I was even more amazed to see the focus and independence exhibited by this capable group of artists. 

Three for drawing (see later photo for #3)

Four for Fiber Arts (see next photo also): Two needle-felting, two embroidering

This one, inspired by finding an embroidery hoop, and then a Book of Stitches is learning to embroider a "chain stitch."

Welcome back to your studio artists!

Summer

Last day of school. Walk to the town pool (filled two days ago, to be ready for us), stop for a creamee, line up with all the teachers to wave the busses good-bye. Have a good summer!

The 6th-grader who said "I walked in with nothing planned, and I'm going to walk out with something creative," graduated from 8th grade last night.  His words inspire me each day, as I pass through that door. 

Time now to clean-up, weed-out, look back, plan ahead, and recharge. 

 6th grade has "won" clay this term. It's not a competition, of course, but on kiln-unloading-days, the 6th graders' box is always the most full, and usually the most unique and exciting. But that is another story.

Test tiles to find the right antler color

This story is about the moose mug, pictured above. We, apparently, do not have the right color for moose antlers, and the student who made this mug needed a solution for this. 

Me: "Well, what a potter would do is make some test tiles, mixing various combinations. It would mean making the test tiles today, and waiting for them to be fired, before choosing one to use. I doubt you want to wait for that..."

Student: "Yes, that is what I want to do."

Me: "Oh!"

I provided several small bisqued tiles that we use on the top of glaze jars to show the color. I started marking the glaze colors on the back of the test tiles for the student, using a glaze pencil ("amber/yellow," yellow,/brown/white", etc). We tucked them into the kiln, and when I pulled them out, I noted that my student had added ratio numbers to my notes ("1 yellow/ 2 brown", "1 white/2 amber"). Oh my goodness! A potter!

Today a color was chosen and we found just enough space to sneak this moose into the kiln before the next firing. But wait! There's more! Another student approached me to describe a color needed for the pond that was ready for glaze - and it sounded just like the range of colors my student just made those tests for! So, Student 1 taught student 2 about how to mix the color chosen by following the noted ratios. 

A very good day in the clay center, and a big win for authentic studio-learning, where learners can go deep in areas of interest to become experts in their craft.