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Week Nine

3/20/2018

Automata's

STEAM students started Automata's this week. This is my first time teaching this concept and product. It was fun to see students work on this in pairs and connect their understanding of other subjects with this Engineering concept. Students should be finishing up these works next week. I am very excited with their progress and how they are combining their skills and understanding from a variety of areas to make this work!

Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awardee

It was very exciting to learn that one of our Dual Enrollment students, Lauren Doyle, was awarded the Air Zoo Innovation in Art and Science Award. I am so proud to see this student I first met in my 7th grade Art class grow into her own artist combining her love of Art and Science to create pieces featured above and below. I decided to nominate Lauren when I found out about this opportunity. Her work with electroplating made for a unique opportunity to connect Art with Science and I am so glad she was recognized for making this connection with her work.

Lauren will be recognized at the Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awards dinner in April. We are excited to see what more Lauren does as she finishes our 3D class and starts prepping her portfolio for next year's competition season which will include the Scholastic Art Awards.

Spaces and Places

Students finished their second major themed project this semester using the theme of Space and Place as a jumping off point. Here are some ways they resolved imagery to best explore the concept:

Adam: In this project, I made a canyon landscape out of clay. I made little jagged notches in the clay to give it texture. Also, I chose the materials that I used so that I could challenge myself. Working with clay is not easy. I had to slip and score everything that I put on it. I can compare and contrast this piece to an artist of note. For example, it looks like a Nathan Walsh artwork piece. This is because of the amount of detail I used. To add onto that, I over exaggerated the colors just like in his artwork.

Patty: I decided to draw a mountain with an inspiration of the artist Ansel Adams, because he had a lot of drawings and paintings of nature, in gray scale, so I wanted to draw a mountain, and then use color pastel to add some color to it. The background seemed empty so I added some shade from the outside in.

Alex: For this project I decided to use photography. I used photography to help show how from our point of view, far away, we may not see everything that is in a small place. I would compare my work to the work of Ansel Adams. Like him I used photography to show the space and value in the photographs. My work would be different form his in the fact where I use several pictures and put them into one, and I also take a landscape photo of a smaller landscape to really bring out the texture in the objects I'm photographing.

Jason: I decided to use value pencils because I thought it would be the easiest way to show where the sun is showing and where it is not showing. I pressed harder and used darker pencils where the sun was not showing. I would compare this artwork to Ansel Adams because he only uses pencils in his artwork, which is like mine. In the principles of design, you can see a pattern where the houses get smaller the closer they get to the vanishing points.

Gage: I made this picture on photoshop. I used photo shop because I am good at it. Also I would compare my artwork to David Hockney because it is natural but also abstract and cartoons. I made a tree in the Feld because I like the wilderness.

Noah: We learned about spaces and places and I put in thee use of cold and hot colors the hot colors poped out and the cool colors pushed in and this made a cool affect so what I did was I painted colors on first blue, green, brown, yellow, orange and last but not least black and then I put tape on the paper so I didn't paint on the c0olors I made and I let it dry and I took the tape of and boom, this came out.

Perspective Bootcamp

Students also had a chance to work with perspective this week. Here are some examples of what they did in only a few days!

Chelsea

NAEA in Seattle

I had an awesome time at the National Art Education Association Conference in Seattle to finish the week. I am so thankful to be a part of the NAEA and participate in such a quality organization that offers the best of professional development opportunities for their members. Even better is the opportunity to attend conferences in cities I may not normally visit and experience the art and culture of that area so I can bring it back into my classroom in ways that are both enriching and relevant to my students. In addition, I get the time to connect with others who know my teaching situation best and compare notes.

I will do a more in-depth write-up of my time in Seattle and the things I learned at the conference next week, but here is a short snippet of the experience with images below:

NAEA registration area was so organized this year and it was great to run into people I haven't seen since 2016 in line.

#teammiddle presentation at #naea18 is in the books! Love my art tribe! pic.twitter.com/qqHggX2Mix
— Holly Bess Kincaid (@ArtLadyHBK) March 22, 2018

This is my 6th year presenting at NAEA. It was awesome to get our group up and moving in an exercise that demonstrates concepts about color.

Hearing from Nick Cave was a highlight. I am a fan of his work and students learn about him in our objects/artifacts themed unit. It was great to also see his work at the Seattle Art Museum.

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Week Ten

11/11/2017

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Spaces and Places Complete

Students finished their second major challenge theme for the semester with the exploration of the theme "Spaces and Places, Real or Imagined." It was fun to see students go through the design thinking process and making choices about what aspect of the concept they wanted to focus on as well as the media they were going to use to do so.

This week was just another chance for students to try new things, take visual risks, and work towards finding their own unique voice as they investigate ideas that can be found throughout Art history. Here are a few completed works to share:

Cade: For this project I decided to 3D print a modern house. One artist my pace is similar to is Nathan Walsh. It is similar because both Nathan and this piece focus on buildings and architecture. We are also different because he decides to draw these building while I focus on designing and building them. One element I used was color. I used a white color to represent the house because most modern houses are built with white materials. Also I chose a smooth green color to represent the grass surrounding the house. Nathan also uses this in his work because he uses color amazingly. Nathan makes every single shade of color on his buildings seem so natural and reel. One principle I and Nathan use is emphasis. In my work I emphasized on the house in the woods and not as much as the woods around it. Nathan Walsh emphasizes all of the buildings in his art making them seem as real as possible.

Chloe: I can compare my work to Georgia O'Keefe because she centered her skull in the middle of the painting which is similar to mine because I centered the statue of liberty in the middle. I also use the elements and principles of design in my work. For example I used shapes and texture. I used different size triangle as my shapes and then as the background I collaged pieces of map and the map was of New York and this represents my texture. O'Keefe also uses very bold colors just like mine.

Khiem: I compare my art to Nathan Walsh art because he use a lot of line in one of his art and he also follow a certain patter. For example his art have line just like how my yard making a line that connect the memories. Another example is the pattern that i use . The pattern is the piece of paper that scattered around the room it goes from a lot to less and his go to two vanishing point. The reason that I use paper it because I want to remember what I use to do.

Lindsey: In this artwork, I chose to use these materials because I have not used them before together. I used the wire by forming it into the shape of a mountain and then I wrapped the different colors of yarn around the wire until it made a pattern that I liked. These materials helped me to communicate my ideas by showing depth and details rather than just creating an outline of a mountain. This artwork compares with Ansel Adams work because in his images he uses mountains, but it is different from his work because he doesn't have any color in his work. One detail that compares to Ansel's work is that the yarn on it shows depth and in Ansel Adams work he uses shadows that also show depth and add detail.

Oliver: I used a lot of different materials to make a smaller scale version of my living room because this is a space were I spend a lot of my time and I could make a lot of small details. My art work compares to Nathan Walsh's art because it is a 3D art peace of some wear like a my living room. This contrasts to his work because it is made of different materials.

Ashtyn: For this art piece I choose to use Photoshop, because I could not figure out how to put spaces and place on paper without using collage. This art piece is kind of similar to David Hockney because he uses Photoshop in his work. Another way my art work is similar is we both have nature in our work, mine is the Cougar, and the space background.

Ellery: My work relates to the artist Ansel Adams's artwork the most because we both have mountains in our pieces. Our works are different because in his pieces he takes real like photographs, and I use pictures and drawing skills to create my work. Ansel uses color in his work to create a shade, whereas there is some shade in mine but it is mostly just regular shapes. I chose the materials I did because I thought it would be a cool idea to see the contrast between the real thing, and a drawing. I also like the unity that is shown in my work between all of the mountains in the different grounds. In total, this was a fun project.

Perspective Drawing Challenge

While I was away at MAEA last week, students worked on finishing their perspective drawings using a variety of tutorials and options posted on our Schoology page. I divided types of drawing exercises into beginner, intermediate, and advanced choices that they could select and create their own works from. With the help of the wide range of videos posted on The Circle Line School's YouTube page, my students were able to complete this challenge while I was away. This week, they finally posted the works to Artsonia. Here are a few to share:

Makenzie

Alex

Kalynn

Reese

Ellie

Can I do this for real?

Earlier in the spaces and places project, I had a student start to create a cardboard arcade machine. They went home, talked with their dad, and came to school the next day asking me if they could make a real one at home and bring it in. I did not see why I should say no to such a request, so I gave it the green light and asked for the piece to bring it in when it was finished.

I wasn't sure what to expect as this student shared updates about the progress over the week, but it was awesome to see the end result when he brought it in on Friday. Not only did it look amazing, but it worked and students were able to play it.

It was fun to see so much energy around a work of art and I hope that his willingness to try something a little beyond the normal approach to a project will show others that doing so is not only okay, it is celebrated.

This is a great start to the second marking period. I look forward to seeing how we finish the term, especially as we start to gear up for competition season.

Stay tuned as we start to share more and more works getting ready for competition.

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Week Seven

3/1/2017

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Challenges and Bootcamps

This week was all about building skills as students tackled two challenges/bootcamps that they may or may not use in their upcoming work. I like weeks like this because it allows students to take a step back from worrying about a perfect finished work and instead work through tutorials that help them gain skills and understanding of how certain materials work.

The first challenge this week was with Photoshop. Students were given a choice between beginner, intermediate, and advanced options before selecting which they would do. Each had some kind of video guide to help them, which was good since this was a first experience with Photoshop for many.

Here are some of the outcomes:

Beginner

Ethan

Sarah

Intermediate

Sophia

Nate

Advanced

Drew

After finishing up with Photoshop, students went through a similar practice with small drawings using perspective. Again, they got to chose from a wide variety of resources. I have begun to call this one a bootcamp because students struggle with the challenge that can come from using perspective. Somehow referring to it as a bootcamp gets them to look beyond the struggle and come out the other side trying their best to make the work happen.

Here are some results:

These works will be a nice transition into our next theme which deals with answering the question: "Where are you going? Where have you been?"

The Power of Art Conference

I am so thrilled to have this opportunity next month to learn and share with teachers from across the country in our Nation's capitol. I will make sure to share what I learn on here and elsewhere online. I have to give a huge shout out to my students who helped me earn this spot.

As a part of the application, I had to share a lesson with students examples. Because of the amazing creative and hard-working students I have, I was able to select many samples of how my lesson worked with students. I am pretty sure this is why I was selected and I am so thankful to the great work my students have done and continue to do.

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Week Eight

10/29/2016

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New Week, New Challenge

This week students started a new challenge entitled "Where are you going? Where have you been?" In doing so, we started brainstorming why places are important to us - both the places we have been and the ones we would like to visit before planning thumbnail sketches of possible solutions to the challenge.

This week also marked the Annual Michigan Art Education Association Conference and I knew I was going to be gone for Thursday and Friday. I did not want students to get started on their work for this challenge without me being there, so I decided to take a process that another teacher uses in her classroom and breakout a Perspective Drawing Bootcamp Challenge.

I used to teach perspective at the front of my classroom, step-by-step. Instead of doing it that way this year, I used a handful of videos from Circle Line Art School and posted them in various difficulty levels for students to complete on Schoology and submit when completed to Artsonia.

On Wednesday students were given the resources, along with a basic overview of how to give the illusion of space on a 2D surface using a variety of tricks (included color, which was also covered this week through a mixing demonstration/activity). Students were then encouraged to practice in their sketchbooks before applying it to their final paper.

It was great because there were a lot of choices students could select and be self-directed on (I also included some hand outs for students in case the internet was quirky). I love going to conferences because I get a chance to share with other teachers and learn new techniques for making and teaching art. I also love it because it gives me a chance to see what my students can do when I am not in the room.

Here are some finished examples of the various levels students completed:

Avery H.: I would compare this art to my dot. I have improved from my skills and used more materials. My lines are straighter and there is more detail in my art. Even though the colors in my dot are more elaborate and different but there is more value in my name.

Zach L.: I chose to make my perspective drawing of a birds eye view of New York, because I have always wanted to visit there. I love the tall sky scrapers and people everywhere, so I decided to copy that image down that I had in my head, onto paper. Also, I filled in the white spaces with black, so it would make an illusion of the buildings becoming higher, and popping out from the page.

Damien A.: I used the principles of perspective in my art with the road and the house. My vanishing point is at the end of the road, and I made the porch, roof, windows, and door by connecting the lines to my vanishing point. This connects with some of my other art because in other art I use a lot of shading, and it was no different with this art. you can see the most of it on the back of the pine trees and the house.

MAEA

I will not be able to explain EVERYTHING I learned at the conference, so I will just list some highlights:

Traverse City

The annual conference for Michigan Art Teachers was held in beautiful Traverse City this year. It was also peak color this weekend, which made our stay that much more scenic!

Trying New Techniques and Materials

I learned a bunch of new techniques and used some new products, too. My favorites were learning how to draw with copper point (as demonstrated by Carrie Jeruzal, this year's MI Middle Level TOY) and positive/negative ceramic prints.

Sharing Ideas

I had a great time sharing resources. I presented about STEAM with the STEM teacher at my school, Jamie Dennett. I also presented on my own about mono printing with Gelli Arts.

Learning from Experts

The conference was filled with great speakers, including our keynotes. I enjoyed hearing about the future of Visual Arts education from Dennis Inhulsen, Wordless news from Maria Fabrizio, and TAB from Katherine Douglas.

Celebrating the Visual Arts

It was also fun to see so many of my colleagues and students from across the state be celebrated. I also enjoyed my time at the Dennos Museum, viewing and learning about various artists.

It was a great week, filled with a lot of learning for both students and me. Next week is the end of the marking period, which means we are a quarter of the way through!

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Hallways

5/7/2015

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Students worked on more perspective this week as we ventured out into the halls to capture what we encounter every school day. It was fun to see students revisit this concept in a new way and then digitize it in Photoshop. Below are some of the results and the full gallery can be see on our Artsonia page.

Blake L.

Carter H.

Jeff S.

Brynn K.

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Spaced Out

4/24/2015

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Being that is was Earth Day this week, 7th grade students delved into their own planetary wonderings by creating the spacescapes seen below. This is a fun and quick Photoshop exploration, thanks to the help of Ian Sands.

Ethan

Hannah

Matt

Brynn

Jessica

Students also explored the illusion of space through 1 and 2-point perspective drawing. Here are some examples of names created:

Students also finished up their Sooper Art entries, which I will be dropping off today!

Emily: Everything living, whether it's a bug or a human, dies and then decays. Animals decompose into the ground, and eventually become apart of the environment. Not only that, but in the bible it talks about how the earth and the plants and animals were created, and from that came humans. In the circle of life or from evolution or however else we humans came to be, we are all apart of nature and our natural environments. So, if that's true, then shouldn't we try to keep our environment clean and preserve nature? Shouldn't we protect our environment, if it is one of the things that is so involved in the human race, that we will all come to rest in when we die?

Jewel: This artwork definitely fits in with the theme of environment because it shows how our environment is being harmed, what it will become and how soon, we won't even be able to live here any more.

Katie: My art fits with the idea of the environment because if we don't take care of it then it will be destroyed. Thats what the left eye represents. the right one tells us that there is beauty in all of the world and it can be found in all places.

Ethan: So, this is a image that is supposed to show the beauty of nature and how pretty things that aren't polluted can look, I decided to do this, because: one, I love to draw trees, and two, it was something new, that I hadn't really done much of before, like the sun, and the grass shadow, and water reflections. I feel that this fits in the competition because it's (as I said before) supposed to show the beauty that non-polluted nature can have/show.

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7th grade happenings

11/29/2014

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Since I am mostly teaching 8th graders this semester, I have not spent much time blogging about what 7th grade students have been creating during our one class together (next semester will be the opposite of this semester). So, as to not forget about the great work these guys are doing, here is an overview of the ways in which we explored perspective for the last project.

I have been teaching perspective for a while now. It can be a tough concept to teach at times because it is very rule-based and I always tell my students that in order to be successful at it, you kind of have to turn your brain off and accept that you are limited to the rules of drawing either vertical, horizontal, or orthogonal lines. I also try and reinforce those concepts using more than one kind of method. So, here are some of the works we did while playing around with the concept of perspective, but you can always view the full gallery here.

Hallway Drawings

When we do this drawing exercise, I have students go into the hall to pick their point of view. Beforehand we go through various ways to use perspective by creating a generic hallway. Here are the results of putting that practice to work:

Colton B - area by Mrs. Gustafson's room

Caiden B. - area by the gym and cafeteria

Jordyn M. - area by Mrs. Stevenson's room

Name Drawings

Students were also asked to use perspective to draw their name. Here are some of the results.

Photoshop Hallways

The last way students were asked to explore perspective is through digital means. They used images I had taken of the various hallways and using the pen and brush tools in Photoshop, they outlined the vertical, horizontal, and orthogonal lines. They then used various fill tools to complete the pieces.

Joey S.

Eli G.

Phat P.

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Where's Mrs. C? And Other Interesting Stuff

10/21/2014

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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.

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Sketching and Planning

10/6/2014

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One of the points of emphasis I am trying to spend more time on in art this year is the amount of time needed to think about and plan art. When you look at a finished piece it is easy to get wrapped up on the product and notice how the finished work looks as a whole. It is harder to see that the artist probably took photos, made sketches, experimented with media, and went through a lot of research before enacting their plan.

Today was spent working through the Design Thinking Process as students documented ideas through words and sketches in their sketchbooks. We also made sure to do a gallery walk and review what others are doing, find common themes/images/trends, and peer critique to get a fresh perspective. Tomorrow we will start working on enacting our ideas through various media.

We reviewed perspective last week as a way to document and explore the concept of environment and space; Kollan decided to create this sketch to explore how to transform the space with value and light.

As a part of working out ideas in the sketchbook, students worked in smaller peer editing groups to critique each other's ideas and find the best solutions.

7th grade students are moving into creating knots on paper, so we used today to draw some knots from observation first.

Students then used their imagination to create a more complicated, overlapping knot design.

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kids in the hall

3/6/2013

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Students are working in the hall throughout the day - 7th and 8th graders are drawing their hallways and my After School Art students are working on the post-it note inspired mural of Mr. King.

We have really great spaces for working outside of the classroom, so it is nice when we are able to take advantage of it in these projects!

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<<Previous

Week Nine

Automata's

Air Zoo Hall of Fame Awardee

Spaces and Places

Perspective Bootcamp

NAEA in Seattle

Week Ten

Spaces and Places Complete

Perspective Drawing Challenge

Can I do this for real?

Week Seven

Challenges and Bootcamps

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

The Power of Art Conference

Week Eight

New Week, New Challenge

MAEA

Traverse City

Trying New Techniques and Materials

Sharing Ideas

Learning from Experts

Celebrating the Visual Arts

Hallways

Spaced Out

7th grade happenings

Hallway Drawings

Name Drawings

Photoshop Hallways

Where's Mrs. C? And Other Interesting Stuff

7th grade Space Projects

7th grade Knots

8th grade process pictures

Sketching and Planning

kids in the hall

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Janine Campbell

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