Busy times, my friends, busy times!

Updates since the last time...

We have been working on getting the school mural up and running, and have finally started on the painting process! A few of my senior level students and I have designed a mural for the school that I am hoping will be ready for unveiling at the Art Show in May. The majority of students from grades 1-12 will have had a hand in the creation of the mural. 

Some pictures of the works in progress...

And Chiaroscuro for Grades 10 and 11. The Students worked on three drawings for this one. "Chiaroscuro" is literally "light/dark", and is a technique developed in the Renaissance to help create a strong sense of the figure in space. 

The first drawing was the draped fabric in two tones on a neutral background paper to represent the mid-tone value. 

The second piece was a set of two drawings that once completed, were woven together. The students first created the chiaroscuro drawings, one with charcoal on white paper, and the sec on with white conte on black paper. 

Then, they cut their drawings in strips, one drawing cut vertically, one cut horizontally so that they could be woven together. We left one of the drawings connected on one side so that they were easier to weave. the second drawing was connected on one side, but each piece was taken off as the weaving progressed. (hopefully you get the idea from the pictures!!)

And as they were weaving, the students chose which areas to emphasize by creating an interesting weaving pattern. And her are some of the results:

The students really seemed to like this project, and they were able to recognize and develop implied dimensional space as well as create areas of emphasis within their work.

And in Kindergarten...

Students were given instructions and "followed along" in the creation of a simple artwork inspired by Klimt. Above are some of their individual interpretations of the instructions.

Grade 1 and 2 students working on Kandinsky inspired circles:

Students were inspired by classical music by Vivaldi- The Four Seasons, and by discussion about colours that we see in each season.

And Middle School Sketchbook Sensations!

These students demonstrated some quite inspiring work in their sketchbooks, developing a variety of ideas and exploring how to use the different media. 

And lastly, the development of positive and negative spaces within a "skeletal" framework for the grade 9 students. 

Students drew the skeleton lightly in pencil, and then went over the edges with watercolour pencil crayon, blending the colour to create a dimensional effect. 

As you can see, the art room has been quite busy in the last month or so, and will continue to be as we gear up for the spring art show and the unveiling of our finished mural. 

Until next time...

Taking a break from the Art Room to participate in a little Science!

We had a special guest come in to work with our HS students to do a pre-launch weather balloon. This launch was a pre-cursor for another launch of a full-sized weather balloon later on in the school year.

It was a pretty frigid day, but the launch went off without a hitch. 

It is important to note that about two hundred years or so ago (I am not exact on timelines for this, sorry) this was something that was unheard of. For students to have the opportunity to participate in something like this show how far the science has come, and the efforts that education makes to ensure that things like this are accessible to learners.

Why is it important? It is important because without the basic knowledge, how do we progress our understanding of the world around us? Without curiosity and a sense of wonder, we would not be where we are today. 

Think of your phones, computers, televisions, etc.  The technology we have today is still in its' infancy in its role in human evolution. As an educator, I am excited to have the opportunity to share this with my students, and work on building curiosity, excitement and a desire to explore!

Range and variety

Well, it was another adventurous week in the art room!

I just started teaching full time about a year ago, and am constantly trying to adjust my expectations based on the student's skill level practicing guided lessons to help them raise their level of understanding of art.

It is not just about getting a project done, but learning and committing themselves to doing it WELL. Some students will tend to race through the process, just wanting to finish as quickly as possible, while others take their time and build on their knowledge and develop good quality skills. Does this mean that only some of them are artists?

I believe that everyone has the ability to create, whatever their area of expertise. What I am trying to do is provide them with some background skills and support so that they will develop the confidence to find their own paths.

That being said, there is something about guided projects that help students to establish a foundation of artistic learning that helps to expand their ability to truly "see" the world around them.

Working with Tesselations is a way to make connections between the world of art and math. In creating these images, the grade 7/8 students have been looking at geometry and how translations can be used to create an interesting work of art. They have been working with their tesselations to create images of animals, monsters, dinosaurs and even tiki statues. We have also been focusing on quality workmanship, and developing a good layering style with pencil crayon. As you can see, there is some good focus and quality work happening.

Grade 1/2 students are learning how to use a variety of media, building up their skills and understanding of how things work as well as how things can work together. By experimenting with oil pastel and liquid tempera, they were able to create these designs, which, according to one of the students, "look like fireworks!" :-)

The grade 10 and 11 students are building their understanding of value and shape, working with pencil and pencil crayon to produce dimensionality within their work. These images are for the guided drawing warm-up, to help get the students into the artistic frame of mind, ready to focus on their major project.

A week of completing projects...

What a whirlwind this week has been!

It has seen the end of semester one report cards, and will soon see the end of...

well, something...I think... :-)

Several student projects were finished this week, and there was some wonderful work created and put up on display. So without further ado, I am going to start with the most recent work, and then travel back in time...over the course of the last few weeks, for

ADVENTURES IN THE ART ROOM!

Here we are today, January 31, 2014. It is Chinese New Year, the year of the horse. So what do you think we do to celebrate the year of the horse?

We make Cherry Blossom Art! (What did you think I was going to say?!?)

The grade 1-2 classroom came in today and created some lovely work with pastel, sumi ink and tempera paint.

They created the background with a blend of three colours of chalk pastels, for which they chose their own colour pallets, though we tried to keep them closely related. After that was done, we dropped some sumo ink onto a spot at the bottom of the paper, and they used straws to blow it along. They had a great deal of fun with this, and commented that it "really does look like trees!" The finishing touch was when they got to dip their fingers into the pink paint and create fingertip "blossoms" on their cherry tree. It was a bit of a whirlwind to be able to get things finished, dry and up on the wall by the end of the day, but we did it!



Going back...to last week...

The grade 5-6 group were working on developing their understanding of analagous colour schemes and concentric circles. The results, I am sure you will agree, are vibrant and have a strong sense of movement within.

The students were developing skills with a compass to create concentric circles. We had created a centre point on a square piece of paper. some students drew their central circle close to that centre point, others chose to have it in a different area or a bit off to the side. See if you can tell which ones were closest to the centre! :-)

After the creation of the circles, students then chose and analogous colour scheme, and worked with 3-5 colours of pencil crayons and an intense colouring style to colour in their circles. Once they had been coloured in, they went over their original circles with a fine permanent marker. They looked great!

But we took it further and then cut the paper into four even squares, which we then played with by turning them in a few different directions and trying a few layouts. After some consultation with students and checking for opinions of other teachers, the two up-two down layout was established! They are now ready for viewing in our haollowed hallways!

      

And going back a bit further...


Further....

...Further....


Ok, Maybe not that far! :-)

The grade 9 class created some fairly intense work, starting with creating a tonal range of a single colour, starting with a centre of white and then working outwards from there, adding a bit more colour each time until they had filled the page with colour...

and then...

We printed over it!

The students carved a printing plate from styrfoam...yes, these were made with styrofoam printing plates, with each plate printed multiple times...oh, the time and patience...and here are a couple of the results...

The students all worked very hard and were quite intense on creating a quality finished piece...Having created this on an approximately 24x36 inch format, I am thinking...next time...maybe a bit smaller...What do you think?

Cheers!

Ms. Teh

Just a few pictures of some student work...

Well, I will probably be trying to do a few posts this week, seeing as I have a lot of catching up to do. :-)

My students have been working hard this past semester, and it has been quite the challenge to keep up with everything. We have been focusing quite a bit on developing printmaking skills, and I have some pictures to share.

These are some samples of work from my grade 5/6 class for the printmaking unit. We discussed a number of aspects of printmaking, one of which was the aspect of tiling in Islamic Art. In this discussion, we talked a bit about radial symmetry and how you can use one design repeated multiple times to create a single image. I gave them a choice of creating one single image, or an image that they could "tile". These two students decided to create their tiles. As it is winter and we were using blue ink, we decided to create a winter themed motif. For those of you who are interested in printmaking, all we used were foam trays for the carving, though we did use actual printers ink for this part of the project, rather than acrylic paints. I prefer the printers' inks because they have more body, and we had better results than with acrylics. 

I have finished with printmaking with the younger grades this year, but will be doing more with my older students in the coming months. I am quite excited to see what they will be able to come up with.

I will be posting more from my other students, just as soon as I am able to get all of the images properly oriented for publishing... :-)

Keep the creativity alive! 

It has been a while...

...and I am working on some goal setting for myself, which includes trying to blog at least once a month, if not more! There is just so much to do, and I am trying to keep up with all of the great things that are happening at my school.

First, an update...

Currently, I am on semester break, and working furiously to finish report card comments for my Sr. High students. It has been a whirlwind semester of Art, Fashion, Technology and C.A.L.M.

With as much fun as I had last semester, I am looking forward to a bit more focus on Art Education this semester. I have taken some time to plan activities for as many students as possible, from K-12, even though my formal teaching is scheduled for the grade 5-12 students. It is always wonderful to see what the students are able to do, and explore the differences between skills and abilities.

In a more concerted effort to develop this blog into a learning platform for myself and (hopefully) others, I will be focusing a bit more on projects that I am developing with my students. That being said, there will be more images of student work and some discussion of take aways from my practice. As I am still quite new to this, I ask for understanding and patience.

Looking forward to more learning..!

My first year...

The students had their last day of school this week, and it has been a busy year...let me fill you in a bit...

I started the year off as a substitute teacher for a number of different private/charter schools. It was a great challenge working with a variety of students, as I was working with special needs, gifted, arts immersion, traditional learning and main stream students.

In February, I was hired on contract to do High School Art and work with a couple of special needs students. It has been a wonderful semester, and I have quite enjoyed the students that I have been able to work with.

For the fall, I will be facing a number of new challenges, continuing in my role teaching HS Art, and also adding middle school art as well. Additionally, I will be working with middle school students in technology studies and module learning as well as Career and Life Management, Communication Studies, and possibly Fashion Studies as well. Needless to say, it will be a busy summer preparing for all of the diverse courses I will be teaching. I am always looking for interesting ideas, and will be looking for inspiration in a variety of areas. :-)

Wish me luck!