We have just completed our Hundertwasser Illuminated Landscape project, in which students abstracted the forms of a landscape drawing to warp and twist it into something dream-like and surreal. They then applied their knowledge of color theory to working the drawing in oil pastels, finally using gold paint to add small areas of emphasis.
I love introducing Hundertwasser to students who have never seen his work before. Without fail there are awed “ooohs” and “ahhhhs” throughout the room. These oil pastels, however, give me the same emotion.
I love looking at these, the combination of saturated color, black background and gold highlights is so rich!
For full sized images, check out the flickr gallery.
I’ve been playing around with this simple, yet amazingly rich tool, voice thread. It’s like PowerPoint, but web-based, incredibly user friendly…. and awesome. Imagine sharing actual spoken comments about a book with a class across the world, or having an art critique using doodled lines to define exactly which part of the art piece you are discussing!
Currently, it is FREE for teachers to obtain a pro account, so grab one and start experimenting! I have also heard through the grapevine that voice thread is considering opening a site just for educators soon.
I whipped this example voice thread up in about 20 minutes to play with a few photos from a recent trip.
The possibilities seem endless for this tool.
Edit- I just received this message from VoiceThread:
Today we are launching a new service that’s intended to solve some of the difficult accessibility issues of using VoiceThread in the classroom, as well as to create a place for students to work independently and develop their own portfolio of work. This new community called Ed.VoiceThread, is designed to allow simple, safe, and rich collaboration around multimedia within a secure environment. Built upon a foundation of accountability, all of the community’s users are known users, responsible for their content and behavior. Access is restricted to K-12 educators, students and administrators, and all content is created or vetted exclusively by registered members of the community.
I am deeply into my second year at Kingsley, and loving every minute of it. It is especially nice to finally work with my co-teacher back from maternity leave!
I’ve neglected this blog for a few reasons, the main reason being that it’s tedious to record your progress and ideas to a seemingly empty audience. So, instead I focused myself on making a kick-ass curriculum and pushing our art students in ways they never expected. I am excited by the work we are creating together, and now I feel the urge to share with the world again, whether or not it is listening.
On January 31st our entire school community- students, parents, faculty and administration - are invited to challenge themselves to be creative for 15 minutes each day for a month. This can be keeping a sketchbook, writing in a journal, making a collage, or any other artistic endeavor that can be collected throughout the challenge. At the end of the month, anyone who chose to participate can show their work at an exhibition to celebrate.
I’ve chosen to keep a small sketchbook and do observational studies on my subway commute home from work, which has been an interesting project so far! A student has already approached me to mention she they will be making a crocheted rose each day, and at the end of the month piece them together to make an assembled garment. A colleague mentioned that he will be taking a photograph each day. It is energizing to get immediate and enthusiastic responses from so many here at my school.
(Here’s a link to a great list of prompts for those who need a little help acquiring inspiration.)
