Week Four

#WIP

Students really started applying all of the demonstrations we went over last week as they made final sketches before diving into creating the work for this Challenge. The theme this time around is Biography/Autobiography. It has been fun to see the different people students have selected to highlight in this work and the narratives they have shared and created to turn their ideas into concrete works of art for others to see. 

Here are some of the highlights as students make their work this week:

I even got in on the fun and was able to bring in elements of a piece I have been visiting for the last two months and finish it. I enjoy demonstrating my process to students so they can see how I struggle through solutions and work with a variety of media to figure out exactly how and if something is done.

Working side by side with my students is something I just started doing in the past few years (really since I adapted a choice-based or TAB studio). As my students were encouraged to become artists in their own right, I found it was more powerful if I did the same. This helps me practice what I teach and it helps students 

Artist of Interest

This week, we watched the TEDx clip of Austin Kleon's talk, "Steal Like an Artist." I show this to students to encourage them to gather ideas and use them to make new work. I even took part of one class period to do some independent research and writing about artists using Scholastic Art Magazine.

​I love using this resource in my classroom because it is easy to get students to use it and the content is so rich for our subject area. It is always fun to see what students select as being the work they want to write about and why. My hope through doing activities like these is that students will be able to "Steal Like an Artist" and use the ideas offered in ways that make sense in their own work.

Here are some of the responses given:

Movement

The second assignment in our DE Intro to Photo for Non-Majors course is all about capturing movement. Students worked on various methods and means to capture motion with most of the focus being on controlling the aperture and shutter speed. 

Here are some of the highlights from their work with this challenge:

Kathy

Krista

Kennedy

Elise

Do What You Love

February is tough. At least it always seems to be for me.  I wish I could say it was easy because it is so short, but it is not. I think that is why it is a shorter month. And although everything is starting to come to a fever-pitch with competition deadlines and notifications, it is nice to come back from lunch to a note like this on my board. 

I love what I do and am so thankful I get to go it. I cannot imagine anything other than being an Art Teacher to children, even when it gets a bit tough. 

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Share The Love

I love to share what we do in the classroom with others. I talk to my students all of time about how their work is being viewed by teachers from across the country and that they are really the thought-leaders and models for what great Art Education looks like. 

This weekend, the sharing continued as I participated in The Art of Education Online Conference. I shared how I transitioned my classroom to choice and I really cannot imagine a better decision I have ever made in my career.