Javan Ivey, a student at Pratt Institute, created this video using the “Stratastencil” technique, which seems like a great, yet challenging, project to do with a high school group. Unfortunately, difficult is an understatement for elementary students; a ton of X-Acto knife blades in the hands of reckless 12 year-olds, strict attention to detail, and the patience to continue without instant gratification. Who am I kidding? These are problems that I’d have doing this, too.
Ivey explains the process in great detail on his website, amongst many other projects to get inspiration from. (BTW-The audio track on that particular video is not kid-safe due to language)
There is no end to my longing for a computer lab in my school. Oh, the magnificent things we could create! I should research the grants available for this…
PITT Artist Pens are my new little pet. I love the ease of shading with these gray-toned brush markers, with two nice fine tipped black felt pens in the mix. I’ve been carrying these around in my purse for the last month or so and have used them fairly exclusively for the One-Drawing-A-Day challenge. The changes in gray tones from marker to marker are subtle, so it’s easy to get a smooth gradation using only a few strokes. They’re like watercolors without the mess.
Because I enjoy them so much, I will conveniently disregard that they are marketed towards Manga artists… which is too tricky a subject to get into here… fellow art teachers may already guess my views on that kettle of fish.
Their description on DickBlick:
Manga Marker Set of 8 — Faber-Castell Manga markers are recommended by leading Manga artists for their performance and range of colors. Waterproof, smudgeproof, lightfast, archival-quality ink contains a high proportion of pigment. Set of 8 includes five markers in five shades of gray with brush tip, one black brush tip, one black medium brush tip, and one black superfine brush tip in a durable plastic wallet. A leaflet provides helpful hints and advice on getting started.
I need to get a set of these in a multi-color pack, perhaps their sepia set as well. I’m a confirmed addict. For me, markers are fun again. Whoopee!
On Friday, February 29th, I’ll be hosting the One-Drawing-A-Day Challenge Exhibition, hopefully with a packed house! My students get to see their artwork on the walls of our school twice a year, but I like the idea of this show including parents and teachers too. It’s important to me that they see art as an activity that will continue after “art class” ends. I’m curious about the work that has been made, and I hope everyone will decide to display what they’ve been making!
This video has some great ideas for using non-art materials to create something unexpected and wonderful.
Yesterday, I experimented with two upper elementary students to make drawing tools out of things we found laying around. Some of the most useful tools were:
feathers, their plumes uses as brushes/stamps, their quills used as pens
beads glued to string and dragged across paper
hot chocolate as ink
long dowels attached to just about anything
burlap dipped in ink
paper rolled in tubes and used as brushes
our feet!
I’m still going strong on my drawing-a-day challenge, and will post some new images soon to prove it! My students and colleagues are doing a great job keeping up on their own challenges too, I feel quite proud.
Sarah Haskell has just arrived at Kingsley to begin her Artist-In-Residence weaving for the month of February. The students at the preschool building went wild for the new loom and the colorful materials we’ll be using. It’s always exciting to see very young students dive into an array of bright, textured mixed media materials… despite the minor chaos that ensues. I enjoyed making little clothespin people with the elementary students and watching the details they chose to add. One student gave her clothespin person a mohawk made of felt, another made a shirtless boy with a fishing pole, and one even made a scooter out of pipe cleaners and shirt buttons for her clothespin person to ride.
I started a time-lapse video of the whole process, and will be slowly compiling two movies, one for the preschool building and one for the elementary building. We’ll see if I’ve got enough gigs on my laptop to continue this for the next two and a half weeks! If I can pull it off, it should be a lot of fun to watch, although I won’t be able to share it on the web, for the privacy of my lovely students.
I love to paint self-portraits, obsessively, as a form of introspection, a way to express what I want the world to see, almost a dissection of my face. Great, you say, so what’s the problem?
As an art teacher the subject has to seep it’s way into what I teach sooner or later, and can have mixed results. Most notably, it is difficult to draw the face, and HARDER to make it look like someone in particular. I struggle with getting a likeness of my face that I’ve been drawing for over 20 years. How do I share this love of self-portraiture with students who can be unsure of their abilities, and more importantly, how can I give them a successful experience when some students would rather not look at themselves in the first place?
Self-portraiture is inextricably linked with our egos and how we feel about ourselves, so the lesson becomes more about self-acceptance than mere proportions, observation and drawing techniques. I begin to share what I think are my own flaws with the students, laying it all out on the carpet in front of them and then I twist it around into a positive.
When I taught an 8th grade self-portraiture class, a student could not begin. He had become overwhelmed by staring at the acne he saw in his reflection. I sat down next to him and I wiped off the concealer on my face. “Everyone has pimples” I said. And he began working.
As teachers, I hope we’re all showing our students our proverbial pimples. They need to see them once in a while.
I’ve been approached by one of my colleagues to participate in a mummification experiment in conjunction with their unit on “Early Man”. They’re planning to mummify a chicken, a process which, unsurprisingly, is quite easy to find online in great detail. There are galleries full of mummified roasters and oven stuffers, even a few cornish game hens done up in the style of Egyptian royalty.
We are planning to first mummify the chickens and then create elaborately decorated sarcophagi to send them off in a manner befitting their regal nature. I’m hoping to sneak in a lesson on the Egyptian writing/numerical system to add stories to the decoration as well.
It’s disgusting and intriguing at the same time, which I love. This project is right up my alley.
This is a group of finished gargoyles made by the second grade, and I still cannot get over how amusing they are! I’ve taken them out over and over the past few days and just giggled.
More remarkable, is that some of the most grotesque of the gargoyles were made by the students who are very soft-spoken and sweet tempered. This makes me wonder what’s going on under that serene demeanor! Kids are complicated creatures.
I am very excited about the feedback I’ve been getting from parents, colleagues, and students about the one drawing a day challenge!
Many more people than I had hoped are participating! While I won’t be posting all the sketches I make this month in a timely manner, it definitely keeps me honest knowing that the people around me are all working towards the same goal, and may ask to take a peek at my sketchbook at any given moment!
Here’s to a month of sketching and to securing a regular habit!
