Category:

New Orleans and Knots

3/31/2015

I had a great time in New Orleans. It was quite an honor to be recognized for the work I do with students when I was awarded the 2015 Western Region Middle Level Educator of the Year.

In addition to attending great sessions, I also was a part of four presentations while at the conference.

It has been an exciting end of last week and start of this as my students finished up projects and I spent some time away at the 2015 National Art Education Association Convention in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was so honored to get recognized for the work I do in my classroom, share ideas with other art teachers, and learn so much to help me become even better in my own practice.

While I was away, my students worked on a finishing up their Celtic Inspired Knots. We learned about symmetry, color, and some Art History in this lesson, as well as how to blend watercolors, colored pencils, and create line designs in Sharpie. I am so proud of them and here are some of their images made:

Practice Sheets:

Lily

Students worked on their drawing, value, and watercolor skills for this project by creating practice sheets to experiment on before applying their discoveries to their final large papers.

Students explored how white colored pencil can be used to blend colors evenly and how there are so many ways to apply watercolor to the paper. It was fun to see the varied results as they played.

Nichole

Traditional Media Knots:

After practicing various ways of applying the different media to their practice sheets, students worked on filling their knots with the varied techniques. I used to have specific requirements about where to put color and how, but I recently have lifted those and students are free to do as they wish. The results are spontaneous and beautiful:

Owen

Jordan

Digital Knots

We tied this project up with a final exploration of knots in the digital realm. Students used SumoPaint and the symmetry tool to create the colorful creations below:

Cody

Mason

Where's Mrs. C? And Other Interesting Stuff

10/21/2014

Thursday and Friday and Monday was spent away from my students. When this happens, I feel bad, but I was hard at work each day working on educational issues important to my field.

Thursday and Friday was spent in Lansing. For the past two years, I have been working with a team of Visual Arts Educators in the State of Michigan on the Michigan Arts Education Instruction and Assessment Project. This project is offered to Arts teachers as a solution for implementing and developing high quality programs and assessing those programs and students within. I am very proud of the work I have been able to do, although it does require some time away from my students to work in Lansing with the other teachers and project management involved.

MAEIA Visual Arts Promotion from Jason ODonnell on Vimeo.

On Monday, I had the honor to present to Student Teachers at the Fire Up! conference at Aquinas College. It was really fun to share the amazing things my students do with the power of technology and how we integrate our learning in many ways and break down classroom walls to engage globally. Here is a picture of one of the groups I had the pleasure to present to on Monday (and as you can see, they were a fun bunch):

Even though I was away, students have been hard at work making loads of art. My 7th graders have finished two major projects in the past few days and my 8th graders are starting to wrap up their Environment/Space/Place projects. Here are some pictures of what has been accomplished since last time:

7th grade Space Projects

Ian Sands (a High School teacher in NC) posted this tutorial a while back and it has been an amazing resource for my students and I in learning new ways to use basic Photoshop tools. Thanks again, Ian - I owe you another scone at NAEA in March. You can see a full gallery of results on Artsonia, but here are few:

Nate's image works with overlapping planets to show deep space.

Arminda's image works with different gradients in the planets to show light and shadow.

7th grade Knots

Students have been working on these colorful knots for the past week or so. they have learned about line, symmetry, color, and various application techniques of colored pencil, watercolor, and Sharpie. It was fun to see the results as students made choices about how to construct their design, color it, and add finishing details.

Jordyn M.

Cari S.

8th grade process pictures

Each of the following students is working with similar subject matter (home, interior/exterior space), but attacking the visual representation in very diverse ways. It has been fun to see how students interpret this assignment and the plans they have made in their sketchbooks be realized in their work.

Blake is constructing a wire sculpture of his home as seen from Google Streetview. he is constructing it out of wire and including details like windows and doors.

Kollan is creating an interior room of a house with leather hard slabs of clay. This has been a more challenging project, but I am excited to see it complete with items populating the space.

Anna was inspired by a work at ArtPrize called "Michigan in Motion" for this work. She is going to create an illusion through the application of perspective to make this object that sticks out, look like it is going back into space - MAGIC!

Nolan is using a more traditional drawing method to recreate his front door using one-point perspective. He is applying value with different graphite pencils to help give depth to the shadows and make it more believable.

I am getting really excited and a little nervous as we finish up this theme; nervous because I am worried about time and some students waiting until the last minute to get their work in and excited to see if this all turns out as amazing as I know it can be! I will post some finished examples tomorrow and as they start to roll in from students.

Making Messes and Discoveries

10/14/2014

One of the best parts of teaching Art, especially at the middle school, is the amount of time dedicated to discovery. Students worked through media today to figure out what could happen when different scenarios arose. Here are the results from another day of work.

7th grade students primarily worked with paint to start this week as we filled in the space of their knots. I showed them basic methods and color theory before challenging them to explore color and media in their own way. The results have been exciting, as you can see from close up images below.

8th grade students are still working on their environmental works today.

The image to the right was created through the use of a print block that was carved out.

I encouraged the student to create the slab print before moving onto more traditional means of printmaking with ink.

The student below was inspired by Fiddle Oak, the teenaged Photoshop sensation. He took pictures of his classmates and decided to use the power of Photoshop to shrink them down like the movie, "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids."

I think the bottom image says it all for today - you know it has been a good day in the Art room when your hands end up looking like this. It means you were in the mess and a part of the making. No sitting on the sidelines when it comes to making discoveries or art - you must get your hands dirty at some point.

Knots of Fun

10/11/2014

7th grade students worked on knots this week in many ways. We will be finishing up this work next week with paint and some reading as we look to the Celts and their use of line and shape in their work.

First we made knots and loops with string and drew from observation.

Then we created symmetrical knots by using overlapping lines and mirroring them across horizontal and vertical lines of symmetry.

We used the power of the sun to transfer our designs onto nicer drawing paper.

And applied various color pencil techniques to fill in the space. Next week will be spent adding watercolor and other designs.

Students finished out the week with a quick digital project to help reinforce concepts being covered this week and compare processes between methods.

Surrounded by Scholastics

10/7/2014

Students moved from their sketchbooks and into the Scholastic Art Magazine Archives to research and interpret work cataloged there for their viewing pleasure. I cannot fully express how thankful I am for this resource as a result of the funding from our last DonorsChoose project! It was great to share the online content with students today and watch them search through the archives to find artists that spoke to their interests and then share that with the class via our Artist of the Week Schoology Discussion board. I am so thankful to those who helped make this resource available to my students! Students are also starting to think about The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and seeing past winners showcased in the magazines is very inspiring to those hoping to achieve winning works this year.

Check out the progress of Emma's Cootie Catcher Dress that she is working on for this year's Scholastic Art Award's competition. I think she has a great chance of achieving recognition in the Fashion Design category. This will be the first time I have ever entered student work in this category during the 8 years of entering this competition!

7th grade students also worked on their Artist of the Week posts using Scholastic Art Magazine. Once done, they completed their knots by turning their designs into a symmetrical image after transferring the first quadrant onto the other three across the horizontal and vertical lines of symmetry. We will use these papers to transfer the image onto a heavier weighted paper and add color starting tomorrow!

physical and pictorial knots

2/10/2014

8th grade students started working (and some even finished) their contour wire drawings, using images from magazines as their subject. We looked at work by Alexander Calder at the end of class and explored his use of wire to create various works over his lifetime. Students had a great time working with the new wire and tools purchased as a result of a Kids in Need Foundation grant through the Office Depot.

7th grade students worked on their Celtic Knots today as we reviewed the concepts of symmetry and color. We also practiced various colored pencil techniques before students finished their transfers onto larger paper.

Lots of Knots

10/6/2013

7th grade students learned about theBook of Kells and Celtic Knots for this project before creating their own symmetrical knot both with traditional and digital media. The above slide show explains the process we used to create these symmetrical designs with colored pencil, paint, and sharpie. Below are video examples of finished works students created using this method and also Sumopaint.

You can see ore examples on our Artsonia gallery at www.artsonia.com/schools/byron1.

starting knots and other stuff

1/31/2013

Students uploaded their work to Moodle today, finishing up their beginning projects dealing with abstraction/line/games as we got into the swing of what Art class is going to be all about this semester. You can see the new additions to the Modified Blind Contour and Exquisite Corpse galleries on Artsonia.

Moving along to our next project, 7th grade students were using the window to help transfer their beginning design inspired by Celtic Knots. They are creating a symmetrical design that will be transferred and filled in with a variety of colors and materials. We watched the last minute from "The Secret of Kells" to reference some of the imagery of the book (many of the students said they were going to rent the film when they got home) and we also looked at a variety of ways the Celts created never-ending lanes with overlaying pathways. Students will read more on this topic next week using Scholastic Art Magazine.

8th grade students practiced their abilities with blind contour drawing as they drew a variety of things before selecting one to enlarge onto watercolor paper with glue. We will be using watercolor with these next and then explore the concept of value once it dries.

But all of those plans might have to wait until next week... depending on how much it snows tonight. :)

Warm and Cool Wrap Up

9/25/2012

I used the extra lines I made it 3d instead. I really liked this project. It was really fun to paint. It was really fun to make it 3d. I learned that celtic knots came from Ireland. --Artist Statement by Nate S.

7th and 8th grade students finished up their warm and cool projects today. Tomorrow all students will finish uploading their work to Moodle so I can put it on our online gallery.

It is always fun to see the creative ways students make each assignment their own and demonstrate their understanding of a topic. I find it especially helpful when they include artist statements to show me what they learned and thought along the way. Not every project is everyone's favorite, but no matter what, every student is learning something in the process.

I liked drawing it with glue after we drew them blinded. I learned that there are millions of possibilities when it comes to abstract drawing. What surprised me was how cool it turned out in the end. -- Artist Statement by Tanner D.

starting something new

2/6/2012

7th grade students started their Celtic Knot designs today and worked with line and symmetry to complete their design.