Steal Like an Artist
This week has us finally getting into the thick of the first art-making challenge theme: Biography/Autobiography. Students were introduced to five artists who use this concept in their work to document themselves and the people around them before developing their own ideas about how they wanted to interpret the theme for their own work.
Before getting too far along in the planning, I felt it was important to discuss with students how to generate ideas, build off of what already exists, and how to transform concepts that work into something more personal to work for themselves. A great way to do this, was to have a look at Austin Kleon's talk below.
Before getting too far along in the planning, I felt it was important to discuss with students how to generate ideas, build off of what already exists, and how to transform concepts that work into something more personal to work for themselves. A great way to do this, was to have a look at Austin Kleon's talk below.
Students were initially surprised that I would advocate stealing anything. But after watching his talk, students discussed what it means to "Steal like an Artist" and how to use that mindset as a key to unlock existing potential solutions in new and unique ways by learning from what has worked in the past in order to make something new. I like the idea of leveraging past solutions to make new ones and it is something I hope to push my students on as we work through this first challenge and the ones that follow.
A Week of Demos and Planning
Since the switch to a more process-based approach, it has been tough to get new students to understand the importance and patience of going through various demonstrations, idea generating processes, and even playing (which seems like something all kids would want to do automatically) before starting their final works. By the time they have come into my classroom, they are so used to diving into a step-by-step, teacher-driven outcome from all of their classes that they are not quite sure how to handle the freedom associated with choosing their own solutions to a broad theme or idea.
That is why we spend at least one week of each challenge going through demonstrations, using our sketchbooks as a playground to experiment with media, before finally diving into a solution that will reflect the final product. This week was spent doing blind contour portraits, using pencils, markers, watercolor, printmaking, and clay as well as going through thumbnail sketches to find possible solutions for their works.
Here is a peek into some of the work we did and some of the progress students have made so far on this first challenge:
That is why we spend at least one week of each challenge going through demonstrations, using our sketchbooks as a playground to experiment with media, before finally diving into a solution that will reflect the final product. This week was spent doing blind contour portraits, using pencils, markers, watercolor, printmaking, and clay as well as going through thumbnail sketches to find possible solutions for their works.
Here is a peek into some of the work we did and some of the progress students have made so far on this first challenge:
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