Japanese-Inspired Art

The first grade classes at my current school recently completed a gorgeous cherry blossom project. It had some similarities to one I'd done in the past, with both 8th graders and preschoolers. I came here to look up the pictures and realized I'd never posted them! When I dug them out, I came across a happier surprise - the last time I did the cherry blossom project, I displayed it with a printmaking project I came up with on my own - and really like, as it teaches students about three different types of printmaking, requires the students to take care in their craftsmanship, and can be done without a ton of special printmaking supplies. 

Back? Now with bulletin boards!

A two-year blogging gap is no big, right?

I've been working as an extended-day instructor for preschool students at a wonderful private school in Northern Virginia for the past two years. While I have loved the experience, I'm happy to say that - starting this month - I'm the new assistant art teacher for K-8th grade! One of my new duties was to fill the display space near the front office and since we don't have student work to show off yet, I decided to fall back on my illustration skills and love of art history.

Won't You Be My Neighbor?

This was a summer of change. I got back from a long trip and immediately found out my parents had sold their home of 30 years. I traveled down to Virginia to help them pack up, while meanwhile, I continued to search for a new apartment in New York. Long story short... I was not able to find one, after three months of searching, (literally) hundreds of e-mails, and phone calls and about a dozen in-person interviews. I managed to get a sublet for September, but at the end of the month, I was forced to make a tough decision - to resign from my job (it's harder to teach when you're homeless) and leave New York.

First Annual Art Show!

Saint Ann's first school-wide art show was a success! For a while, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to pull it off. I came in on my day off in order to organize and mat everything. But the issue was hanging all the artwork between the end of the school day and the show - a two hour window! Luckily, I had some great students helpers, who made hundreds of tape loops and helped everything come together just in time for the other students and parents to arrive.

First Grade van Goghs

 

First grade has been focusing on Vincent van Gogh during the month of February. Older kids tend to remember van Gogh as "That guy who cut his ear off!", so instead, I introduced the class to his art through the book The Starry Night by Neil Waldman. We discussed the concepts of fiction (fantasy) and nonfiction (reality) and I told the kids that while Vincent van Gogh was a real artist who lived and died many years ago, this fictional story imagines what might happen if van Gogh visited New York City today. This first grade class is particularly large and loud, so instead reading the book to them, I'd made a video of it to show on the SmartBoard. Yay, technology!

Fairy Tale Portraits

Water-Based Marker Prints

Happy Halloween!

This year, I've started creating and implementing six-week units that draw inspiration from the Common Core themes. Halloween falls right after the first unit, so some of my classes took the week off to work on special Halloween projects. In other classes, students managed to get in spooky themes even though their long-term assignments weren't Halloween-based! Here are a few of my favorites: 

Annabelle, Grade 4

Back to School!

I've survived the first week back at Saint Ann School.  I'd forgotten how nice it is to be a second-year teacher - you go in and already know the school, the faculty and staff, and most of the kids.  I failed in last year's goal of remembering every child's name, so we started with a name tag project that I hope will help get me off on the right foot this year.  I'm also looking forward to starting an Artsonia gallery for the school, taking a fall field trip to the Met, and possibly scheduling a school-wide art show.

But in the meanwhile, have some art from last year...

 

 Stained Glass Windows, Our Lady of Angels 5th Grade

Why I Teach Art

 

 This may be my favorite picture ever.

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The third grade at Saint Ann School went on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I'd gone in and done a dry run the day before to ensure it would go smoothly - and it did!  The rain even went away in time for us to eat lunch on the museum steps before our tour.

The Met is much more formal about their classroom visits than the National Gallery in DC, with good reason - the Met is much more crowded, so they need the extra organization.  They were great about greeting the class and explaining the rules of the museum.  The Met has an admission fee, but because we're a Title I school, the trip was free.  I was also given free family vouchers to hand out to the kids at the end of our visit, which was especially neat.

First, we visited paintings by two artists the kids had studied in class.  In the Modern wing, we looked at works by Georgia O'Keeffe, discussing why she painted her famous flowers so large and how her love for the landscape of New Mexico influenced her work.  The kids had fun walking around the adjoining rooms and looking at the other pictures as well.

Next, we headed up to the 19th Century galleries.  There, we saw 'Circus Sideshow' by Seurat.  The kids had studied pointillism, specifically 'A Sunday on La Grande Jatte'.  I had a copy to remind them - we compared and contrasted the two paintings, and got to see Seurat's unique technique up close.  The kids were also excited to see the several Van Gogh's in the room, especially his self-portrait.

Finally, we went down to the Egyptian wing.  The students hadn't studied Egyptian art this year (5th and 6th grade did), but I feel taking a kid to the Met for the first time and not taking them to see that amazing collection is criminal.  First we looked at a sarcophagus (and compared it to a Roman one we'd passed upstairs).  Next, we looked at mummies, learning a bit about heart scarabs.  Finally, we walked over to the Temple of Dendur - my favorite part. The kids got a chance to roam around for ten minutes, and learned a little bit about the temple and the female pharaoh Hatshepsut.

It ended up being a great field trip, thanks to Ms. Gagliardi, the small and well-behaved class, and our two parent chaperones.  Also, thanks to Lynn at Creative Classrooms and Ms. Flores at Saint Ann's for helping secure the museum date and bus!  

To Boldly Go

What your geeky teacher may have been working on during her lunch break.

Art Room Wishlist

As much as I've loved my various schools, being in many different classrooms has given me an appreciation for the things that make an art room work.  Here are a few basics that would appear in my dream classroom.

 

Egyptian Cat Mummies

 

lesson source

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

-Robert Frost

*Lesson by Joan Sterling, Feb. 2009 ed. of artsandactivities

Chagall's Valentine

For Valentine's Day, I like to challenge my older classes by introducing them to Marc Chagall.  In the past, when I was working with middle school students taking art as an elective, this led to soft, lovely, thoughtful pastel paintings that were clearly influenced by the themes and images used in Chagall's work.

My current middle school classes are not electives, but instead are classes every student is required to take.  This makes things more challenging (ever dealt with a seventh grader who has no interest in what you're teaching?), but also leads to the occasional moment of brilliance.

The first week, I introduced the students to Marc Chagall by giving them a quick rundown of his biography.  Classes usually get invested once World War II occurs.  I stopped to wait until one sixth grade class quieted down, right at the point where Chagall almost gets stuck in France as the Nazis are invading.  One kid blurted out to his classmates, "Shut up - it's getting interesting!"  Also, I'm pretty sure 90% of the students will have forgotten Chagall's name in the two weeks that have passed, but I'm pretty sure the same 90% will remember his wife's name was Bella.  Thanks, Twilight.

Next, we looked at Chagall's painting 'I and the Village' together.  (And here, may I say - the Smartboard is such an asset for art classes.)  Finally, I had them break up into groups.  Each group was given an image by Chagall.  They were to list figures, objects, the setting, and colors used.  Afterwards, each group presented their findings to the class.  I hadn't done any in-depth art history or analysis with these six classes before, and I was pretty pleased with most of them, both in terms of behavior and critical thinking.

Now that we had identified some themes in his work - from his childhood in a Russian village, to living in Paris as an adult, to couples getting married or in love, to the elements of fantasy included by blending these themes into a single picture -  the assignment was to create one's own image inspired by Chagall. 

As always, I see lots of marauding sheep, lots of green people, lots of human-faced cats, giant chickens, and Eiffel Towers.  We're still working on our pictures, but I wanted to share one in particular, which perhaps doesn't quite follow the assignment, but made me smile anyway...

Happy Valentine's.

Outer Space Watercolor Resists

This is a great two-class project that I'm doing with 3rd-5th grade at both my schools.  The artwork below is by the 5th grade class at Our Lady of Angels.

Monochromatic Self-Portraits

Click to see a larger image.

Spider Webs

I promise, I will post artwork done by students in other classes than Kindergarten this year!  But I love these spiders that the K kids did with craypas this past week, and wanted to share a few of them with you.

For this lesson, key words were vertical, horizontal, and diagonal.  We also talked about straight and curved lines.  While they were drawing, students listened to a story about Anansi, a very tricky spider.

Mona Lisa Smiles

So, first the good news...  as of the second week of this month, I'm teaching art again, this time at two Catholic schools up in the Bronx.  This post features artwork by a few of the Kindergarteners at Saint Ann School; expect to see more in the near future!

While I'm waiting on supplies, I'm trying to do lessons that don't rely on lots of materials.  This is an idea I found on Pinterest, and is originally from Artrageous Afternoon. Side note - Pinterest is an amazing tool for gathering art lesson ideas.  Since it's visually-based, you can gather a bunch of project images in one place, and the how-to is usually just two clicks away.

Back to the lesson... first, I introduced the class to Mona Lisa, by showing them her picture in the book 'Cave Paintings to Picasso', by Henry Sayre.*  Several of the kids raised their hands when I asked if they'd seen her before.  A few of them told me they'd seen the picture in a book, or on tv.  Next I walked around with the book, and asked each student to think about how they thought Mona Lisa was feeling.  (Thinking without verbalizing is a skill some Kinders are still working on - several told me "happy" or "sad" right away.)  Then, I polled them by asking them to raise their hands if they thought she was feeling happy, sad, upset, excited, worried, etc.

I told the kids that even though Mona Lisa's portrait (a word we learned last week) is perhaps the most famous painting in the world, people don't always agree on how they think she's feeling.  I had everyone smile wide, and we compared that to Mona Lisa's tiny smile.  Then I showed the students the paper they'd be working on - regular printer paper with a small copy of the Mona Lisa in the center - and asked them the question the lesson was built around.  Where would you take the Mona Lisa to make her smile?

I loved the answers I got as I walked around and watched the students draw and color.

 The Ocean 

  

An Apartment

  

The City

  

  

The Zoo

  

A Mountain

  

The Park (or as one kid said, "Grass") 

  

  

The Supermarket

  

 "The Rainbow"

 

 "To give her a puppy." 

 

I didn't get an explanation for this one, but I was completely delighted to see it, and want to hang it on a wall.

 

Something I hadn't anticipated before I started walking around - combining Kinders and Mona Lisa?  Instant pop art!  I love how this project turned out, and I really admire this class for taking the time to fill their page with color, and being happy to do so. 

*I finally got around to getting my Brooklyn Public Library card, as I use books with the younger grades often.  They're great teaching tools, inspiration, and time-fillers if the kids finish early!