Classroom Spaces

Classroom Spaces, a set on Flickr.

Essential Questions

My sample, student samples, and Georgia O'Keefe

Happy New Year everyone.  I have not introduced the 8 habits formally in my classroom.  But I am gradually adding the language to my students vocabulary.  For example here are photos of my white board which I use in a very organic way adding things as each project progresses.  I have always pushed my students to persist in their work and in this project, for example, a student was going to give up when  5 minutes more would complete the project. This was a student that planned her project thoroughly with several sketches and was very excited about her own ideas to capture the poinsettia. I convinced her she would be quite unhappy when she looked at the final piece and it didn't live up to what she envisioned. 

For the reflection on this project of poinsettia paintings I labeled each question with the habit it addressed.  Next I plan on putting up some posters in the classroom. 

At our last meeting I was heartened to hear the term "artist teacher"  I think it is so important for our students to see that we are passionate about our own personal art making - as hard as it is to find time to do so.  Here is a board I put together for my Studio class.  They are in the process of making large gridded self-portraits using oil pastels.  Last year I made 2 different samples - one with a mirror that I documented as I progressed so they could see the changes and mistakes I made.  The other is an unfinished gridded self-portrait that I have been using for demonstration.   The other two are student samples.

 See you all Wednesday.

Roger Brown Studio and Home

I had the incredible opportunity to visit and stay at the Roger Brown home and studio over the break. My friend invited me into this mind-expanding space. I didn't know who Roger Brown was before visiting the house.

Once I saw his work in catalogues at the house I recognized his distinctive Chicago Imagist style. 

His house contains a vast collection of outsider artwork, his own paintings/sculptures and beautiful African and Mexican arts pieces. I felt like I was living an intensive American arts experience, seeing how the artist lived, collected, and painted.

Roger's partner George Veronda designed the main house, studio and guest house. It's reminiscent of the Farnsworth house with enormous glass walls and modernist architecture. I had to put on my Studio Thinking cap and see just how an artist like Roger Brown envisioned. 

Brilliant colors and shading made his paintings pop in light.

It was a little tricky navigating the artwork with kids in the house. Living in the Roger Brown house made me think how we are all curating our own lives. Do our students know they are curating their own collection? 

My immediate response after living in this house for two and half days was to come home and make art. How do classroom spaces function as inspiration for students?

Welcome to our Newest Member

The Studio Thinking and American Art project would like to welcome Linda Comminos from Manley Career Academy to our learning community. She was recently featured on the MSNBC Morning Joe "Innovators in the Classroom" segment. Click here to check it out.

LPHS Garden Mosaic

Under the supervision of my colleague Eric Hill in conjunction with a professional mosaic artist, the Lincoln Park HS Art Club is working on a 50 foot tile mosaic that will be installed in the new outdoor auditorium/garden area located north west of the main entrance of our school. The Art Club has completed cutting and laying tile into about 20 feet of the overall design, which consists of several sections. The design represents all aspects of LPHS: Academics, The Arts, Sports, Lion Pride, and Chicago/Lincoln Park Neighborhood. Due to the large scale of the mosaic, other groups are joining the Art Club in the process of creating the mosaic including the "Little Lincoln" Elementary School Art Club and my Mixed Media elective art students.

I have divided my Mixed Media students into small break-out groups that will take part in creating the mosaic during two week intervals. We designed this collaboration to give more students the opportunity to take part in the process of making a large-scale, collaborative mosaic as well as becoming a part of a permanent public work of art on the LPHS campus.

My Mixed Media students earned credit for participation in two ways: being present consistently during their two-week session (with the exception of excused absences and/or approved school field trips) and completion and submission of our reflection handout on all eight Studio Habits of Mind in relationship to the mosaic creation process. Although my students were not directly involved in creating the content, imagery and/or layout for the mosaic, they each could easily identify with Express in the mosaic as they could relate to the way that life at LPHS was designed and depicted by their peers in the Art Club.

I am very impressed with how quickly the students are picking up the techniques, how much they are enjoying the experience and how thoughtful their reflections on Understand the Art World are even though they are taking part in only a small portion of the overall process

Lincoln Park High School Pecha Kucha

Here is the presentation of Beth's work and her students' Studio Habit reflections from our last workshop.

Pecha Kucha from Kennedy HS

Here is the Slide Show presentation Jen led us through at our last meeting.

Hello

I am so excited to be part of this blog. I am hoping to blog often and have student input. As of now, I am without a computer at home, which is really putting me behind on my work load. However, I will prevail. Happy to be here!

Documentation from last week's workshop

At our last workshop on December 7th, several project teachers brought samples of their Studio Thinking tools and templates to share. Having student work samples to review generated great conversation. Thanks for sharing!

Follow Up December 7th meeting

I want to publicly thank the Elementary group, Nancy, Stephanie and Liz S. for sharing their practice, student work and assessments with me. I thought it was a valuable experience.

Diwali Bowls- Incorporating Studio Habits

I am now focusing my lesson plans and my own thinking to reflect using the vocabulary and practice we are adapting through this project. After we completed the line lessons we moved to a Social Sciences-based lesson which incorporated Understanding the Art World by showing the students video clips about the Indian celebration of Diwali along with a power point slide show highlighting Diwali art, artists and designs. The students Envisioned their designs using pencil sketches in small sketchbooks and Persisted by transferring designs into small pinch-pot bowls they had made in week 1 of the project. They Developed their Craft using clay (model magic), pencils/paper, sharpie marker and water-based marker. We shared our bowls and are working on critiquing skills for a Reflection piece of Studio Habits of Mind.

Lines- Culminating Projects

Last month I posted the introduction to the Lines project which encouraged students to explore art elements, lines- in particular. They Developed their Craft by exploring lines with different media including markers and pencils culminating in printmaking using ballpoint pen styluses and drawing into styrofoam master plates. The students ranging in grade level from Kindergarten to Third Grade used their Science topics: K-birds, 1-trees, 2- clouds and 3- moon as the themes of their drawings/prints. They Observed nature and Understood the Art World by looking at the artworks of other artists. They also Envisioned by sketching their ideas first and Persisted through to printing and hanging their finished products for a public display of artwork for Report Card Pick Up day.

Studio Habits of Mind -- Incorporating All 8 Habits

Beginning Print Making for my first graders was their first look into developing a craft they may want to focus on during the school year or in other art classes.

First, I had the students come up with their own design for a tree. Once they came up with their idea, we worked for a week on contour drawings and ways they can use contrast to emphasize the depths of their prints.

 

Next, students drew their images onto foam sheets and cut them out to create the stencil. The stencil (or shapes they created) were adhered to the front of a paper plate. Students next choose the color they wanted for their tree and rolled the brayer through the ink. They then transferred the ink onto the paper plate using the brayer. After inking the stencil, the students place a piece of paper over the stencil and press down with a leaf press to make sure ink fully saturates the paper.

After leaf pressing, the students pull off the paper which now contains the image from the stencil they created.

Through this art project, which encompassed two studio classes I was able to incorporate the 8 SHOM into this lesson plan:

Develop Craft : learning new tools such as a Brayer, foam sheets, and ink.

Engage and Persist: to create a tree that fit the space of the paper plate, understanding size and composition.

Envision: understand the placement of the shapes.

Express: every tree was unique and they all conveyed different forms of movement.

Observing: looking at the roundness of the paper plate, and incorporating the environment of nature in the art piece.

Reflect: discussion and critiques after the art work was complete, having the student interact with their piece and others around them.

Stretch and Explore: created an ice breaker and had students move around the class like tree,moving their arms back and fourth over their head.

Understanding the Art World: students were introduced to Vincent van Gogh and Ansel Adams.