Art History: Prehistoric Art

This year, I am excited to say that I have an Art History course that I am able to offer students college credit through SUNY Potsdam, the institution I attended and earned my degrees through.  While I originally had 3 students in it (which I thought was amazing, considering history is a tough sell at my district), a math class was moved during the summer and I lost two students, leaving me with one student.  Either way, it's still great, we are getting some bonding time, and I'm making art along with her!

We are using the Annotated Mona Lisa as a textbook for this class, and we began with Prehistoric Art.  In an attempt to make this class not just lecture (and I'm glad I decided on this because it would be really hard to lecture every day to ONE student), we are incorporating a historical art project every few cultures.  As part of the project requirements, my student can create whatever she wants, as long as she displays the characteristics of that culture AND uses an artistic technique by the culture, such as making her own brushes and paints, or using a paint technique or a material specific to that culture.

We started with prehistoric art, of course, and when we got to the project, she decided (and I thought it was a GREAT idea) to make a diorama for each culture!  So, as we progress through the year, she will have a pretty awesome, 3-D timeline made!  Along with each project, I ask her to write a two page essay that discusses her project in terms of the techniques and materials she used, how those might reflect the ancient culture, and how her project and decisions as a whole represents that culture.  In a college art history class, you usually have to write some sort of term paper, usually 10 pages minimum (at least I had to!).  The cooperating professor approved my plan of multiple 2 page essays, and as we progress through the year, I will teach her how to properly cite using the Chicago format of footnotes/end notes.

We used tissue paper, hot glue, and then Liquitex Spray Paint (which is INSANELY AWESOME!) to create the caves.  We also made our own egg yolk tempera, which we will utilize again for our Egyptian dioramas, except that we will have to make some gold paint!

My current student taking the class is a senior and is potentially going to college for art, whether she majors or minors in it.  She loves writing, so I've sort of tailored this class with her in mind.  Here is her first completed project and her first short essay, written completely by her without an edits from me:

          The Prehistoric Era dates back to about 35,000 BC and is one of the first eras known to create artwork. Artworks were created during this time mostly to adorn the body or to decorate.  The artwork created by people during this time period can be defined as cave paintings and small sculptures.  The artists, mostly female, would make all their own materials, such as the paint created from charcoal, clay, water, blood, and even urine.  The paintbrushes would also be handmade, from materials such as twigs, human hair, and grass.  Sculptures would be made of ivory, bone, stone and antlers.  This time period had a long lasting effect on artists and people around the world, as this was the beginning of the world of art.

         For this project, I chose to create a diorama to represent a cave filled with cave paintings, a fire, paints, and a cave woman.  I spray painted the diorama to look identical to a cave, and also built tissue paper up along the left side to give the cave a more realistic appearance.  I added texture to the inner part of the cave to show a rough, rock-like texture on the floor and walls.  Next, with the help of my teacher, I made my own paint from pigments, water and egg yolks.  This process was very interesting and I loved the experience.  I used these paints to decorate the inner walls of the cave, painting such things as wild animals, hunters, and hand prints. The idea for the wall paintings came from the notes I had taken in class, and are accurate depictions of what would have been present on cave walls.  I also added a human figure, a cave woman, to the diorama.  She is dressed in a leather "dress", which would have been created from an animal hide hunted, most likely, by the men.  I chose to add a woman over adding a man because most cave painters would be women, which we know because of the small hand prints visible on the walls.  The hand prints were used as a "signature" for the artwork, and can be found throughout many caves.  I created a fire displayed on the inside of the cave because the paintings were normally found deep inside the caves, where it would have been colder.  I also added some of the paint I made into small shells, since these were used to hold paint during this time period.

         Overall, I found this project to be a great experience and I really enjoyed it.  I believe my diorama accurately represents a cave woman and the wall paintings.  The overall process was unique because I've never made my own paint before, which I found to be interesting.  I also like that I added several identifiable factors into my diorama, which helped to show that it's based in the Paleolithic Era.

My diorama I made with my student.  :)  Not nearly as good as hers!

Sculpture Elective: Stop-Animation / Claymation

My sculpture class has been up to some extremely in-depth projects lately.  We recently completed some stop-animation projects that took FOREVER to complete...but they were totally worth it! Students designed their productions from start to finish, planning the characters, backdrop, props, camera angles, and story-line.  They worked in groups as small as 2 and as large as 5, with one person acting as the "director".

The students sculpted their figures using aluminum wire as a skeleton.  They wrapped tin foil around the skeletons to create more bulk on the body, and then used Crayola modeling clay to cover the body.  Modeling clay doesn't dry out, so it's perfect for this project!

Next, they had to design their backdrop and props.  I allowed the students to use anything from the classroom, including cardboard, foam, modeling clay, glitter, paint, oil pastels, tissue paper, etc.  I had an iPad, Kindle Fire HDX, and my Canon Rebel camera on hand for students to take photographs with.  We uploaded them into Windows Movie Maker, added an appropriate title page and credits page, and then shortened all of the photos to be approximately .3 seconds in length.

I love how these students incorporated the words with their project.  

These students made two different sets for their project...outside of the cave, and then inside the cave!

  

Sculpture: Altered Books

The first project my sculpture class completed was an altered book project.  I should students a bunch of examples of altered books that have been cut, folded, painted, drawn on, etc.  They received a project sheet with the basic guidelines and the rubric.  Currently my elective has 16 students in it!!!  I'm trying to keep the Common Core stuff to a minimum (gasp!) so that I can keep my enrollment up.  After all, this is an elective class that students are choosing to take instead of a study hall...I've got to give them props somehow!  

Here is the project page and rubric students received:

And here are the finished products!  A few students struggled with this...particularly the ones who added the class two weeks into school and then tried to rush to get caught up.  I'm hoping they will redeem themselves on the next project we've started...paper mache taxidermy!  I'll share progress photos soon!

Some students wanted to paint their sculptures.  I brought out spray bottles and liquid watercolor paint for them to spray.

This student meticulously cut out the piano from her pages using a template and then painted it with acrylic.

More watercolor...

This person used some copper foil to add to his book.  Unfortunately, he went a little overboard with the origami bird.  Originally it was done in paper and was colored purple with marker...it looked much better then.

Art 7: George Segal Inspired Hand Casts

I am SOOOO excited to share these!  They have taken FOREVER to complete, mainly due to the fact that my 7th graders were very rude and mean to my substitute while I was out for a week, and thus had to face the consequences of a weeks worth of writing assignments.  Needless to say, it appears that most of them learned their lesson and for the most part, they have been relatively sane since then!

This was the final project in my sculpture unit for 7th grade.  It has been a big hit and has even made my Studio class jealous!  After we did the wire sculptures, I broke the students up into groups and had them research a sculpture artists.  They had three class periods to research and compile notes to share with the rest of the class.  They then had two days to present their findings.  Once that research project was complete and students had been quizzed on the artists (which they actually did very well on!), we started this George Segal inspired project.

It took three art periods for the students to cast each other's hands in the plaster.  I used Plastkraft plaster strips...which are very similar to the Blick version here on their website.  (I had almost 10 boxes of the Plastkraft stuff when I started teaching...I think it was ordered through Boces and haven't been able to find a link to the exact stuff I'm using.)  We took one entire art period to cut up a box of plaster into three different sized strips...large ones to cover their arms, medium ones for the wrist and hand, and small strips to wrap around the fingers.  Next, they were split into groups of three.  Two students covered another's arm and hand.  As a safety precaution and to prevent plaster burns, the model was required to wear a plastic glove and then wrapped their arm and wrist in saran wrap.

Students had 15 minutes to cover their model.

The model had to let the plaster set for 15 minutes.

While the plaster set, the others started cleaning tables.

In the last 10 minutes of class, I went around to the models and cut a slit in their casts so that they could spread the arm and slide themselves out.

The models then patched up the cut with more plaster and then were on their way.

***A word of advice...only let students do two layers of plaster on the model's arm...any more and it is nearly impossible to cut through the plaster to get the cast off!  I actually had to use a small saw on one student because it was SO thick!

Once all the casts were off, I asked the students to look at their casts and to figure out what the shape of it reminded them of.  They then had to paint their cast to turn it into something else.  In the sculpture packet, which can be found on the SmartTeacher website here, I included a planning page where students had to answer a series of questions about what colors they were going to use to get the planning juices flowing.  (The packet also includes the rubric I used to grade the project...it's located on the last page.)

Before we started painting, I had them cover the plaster casts in gesso.  That took one period.  Then, I had them paint a base color on their hand casts...that took another period.  Finally, students took on average, another three periods to paint their casts.  Some got really creative and added to their casts, while others took a very non-creative, easy way out.  Usually I don't share the projects that I'm a little disappointed in, but I'm going to share all of the finished casts I have received so far so that you can see the range of what I received.  For the most part, I am extremely happy with about 80% of the projects.  Students who normally struggle in my class really enjoyed this project and stepped up big time!  Unfortunately, all of the photos I took of the in-between processes (creating the hand casts, priming them, etc.) magically disappeared off of my phone.  I had some pretty cool shots of the students with their hands all in casts and I've lost them! :(

The Galaxy

A snail!

Spiderman

A storm...

Shark!!! I LOVED this one!  This is one of those struggling students who did awesome on this project!

I was a little skeptical when this person started painting clouds and rainbows...not my cup of tea, but when she started adding the quotes, I thought it worked a little better.  The only thing that would have made this better was if the quotes were her own!

A platypus...though I thought it was going to be a mallard duck...turns out this is from a cartoon...which I always tell them they aren't allowed to copy from...tsk tsk tsk!  (Especially Sponge Bob...yuck!)

Basketball player, a turkey and a fox.  On the fox, we used fishing line to make the whiskers.

This one could have been a lot more successful...she started without a plan and was going to just cover the whole thing in cheesy yellow stars.  I said, "What about a night vs. day?" This is as far as she took it...

A tree, flower, house, and the last one on the top row was one I was not happy with...the student didn't have a plan and didn't execute what he did very well.

The bottom row starts out with a locker, an obvious hand, a snake in the grass and an Easter egg design.  The snake one isn't bad, but the rest obviously had no plan and didn't care very much about their execution of the project.

A bunny and a tree.  

The middle one here is interesting in terms of the colors and design...it's from a student who plays a lot of video games.  The rest, again, had no plan.  The top left is supposed to be camouflage....a decision made on the last day when the student painted over everything she had done already after spending every period chatting and gossiping...ooooooh 7th graders...

Studio Art 3-D Media Unit

Ok, so here is my first catch-up post for my Studio Art class.  When I left for my maternity leave, they were working on their pop art prints, which they matted when I returned.  After that project, which finished off the 2-D art unit, they started a sculpture unit with my substitute.

For the first sculpture project, they learned about George Segal and created these body cast sculptures using saran wrap and packaging tape. I've seen these sculptures before on Pinterest as well as done by one of the sculpture classes when I was in college.  I knew they would probably enjoy making them and that it would be a great group project for them to be involved in.  The unfortunate thing, if you ever want to attempt this project, is that you use A LOT of packaging tape!  Lucky for me, the students were able to finish these projects because I won a gift card from the Classroom Project challenge for my post about spending money for my art room!  Some of the materials I ordered for my high school room included a bulk box of packaging tape so that students could finish these sculptures upon my return.  I think each sculpture, when done correctly and made stiff enough to stand on its own, takes at least five rolls of tape.

The Thinker, placed in the cafeteria.  This one was the most sturdy sculpture and needed no help, aside from the stool it was meant to be propped on, to stand up.

Cheerleader placed outside the high school gym.  She used to stand on her own but her legs were a little weak.  This group went above and beyond using colored masking tape to add embellishments to their sculpture.

This one was a sculpture that held books (made out of paper) and was placed in the library.

This guy drooped a little bit after a while, but he was a basketball player, placed near the high school gym.  He had an orange balloon inside the ball but eventually the air deflated inside of it.

Students were graded based on teamwork, having a full bodied sculpture, the composition, craftsmanship, creativity and installation of the sculpture.  Students received two grades: one from me and one from their group mates as well.  They were required to ask permission to place their sculpture somewhere appropriately in the school.  Unfortunately, some students asked teachers to place them in their classrooms and even though the teachers said yes, they didn't necessarily have room to keep them displayed.  These four sculptures (out of 8 total) were placed in an appropriate public place in the school (which was the goal) to which the sculpture was made for.

The second project students completed in this unit was an abstract wire sculpture.  My substitute took full control over this project.  In the future, I think I would like to give them a little more information about painting these...I had originally envisioned them to be painted in a surrealism style, but these are still pretty cool looking!  They are wire hangers manipulated and covered with nylons, then painted with tempera paint.  Some students glued theirs to a cardboard base.

Currently my Studio students are onto our 4th unit, which is a ceramics unit.  My next post will share what we have accomplished so far!

Volcanoes!

My maternity leave started on Monday this week...no baby yet as my due date is next Friday, but I was definitely ready to be done with school...and a little more at ease with leaving after my maternity sub was hired and followed me around all last week.  Phew!  (For the sake of ease, I'm going to call my sub Miss Y.)

I've got a few posts that I'm working on to share projects that were finished up (or in the process of being finished) Friday when I left school.  One of the projects that my substitute started right away was with the K-3 12:1:1 class.  They had been BUGGING me to no end to do a volcano project, so I mentioned this to my sub and she decided to build volcanoes with them.  (I'm actually quite jealous that she gets to do this project with them!)

I had originally thought to use toilet paper tubes in the center, but Miss Y decided to use water bottles instead...that way they could actually use them to make them erupt!  I was there for this first day, and I can't wait to see how they turn out when I return!

We gave each student a piece of cardboard as a base and Miss Y hot glued the water bottles to the center.  We had the students crumple up newspaper and tape it around the water bottle to build up the mountain of the volcano.  Finally, the students used Plasticraft plaster strips to dip into water and cover the newspaper.

Next class the students will be painting these.  Can't wait to see how they turn out!