what artists do

When I was teaching art on a regular basis, I created some very simple visuals to remind students that art begins with observation, that artists think about what they are going to do before they do it, and that before they start they have to make some choices... about materials, size, format, composition, etc.

My original "posters" were simple, hand-drawn with Mr. Sketch markers (my favorite! and yes, I know they smell, but the colors are outstanding), created quickly on the fly one morning before school started. I displayed them in my classroom and found that I was referring to them quite often during art lessons to remind students to slow down and take care with their creations.

Somewhere along the line I decided to offer them for free in my TeachersPayTeachers store, and they've been picked up by many, but I always meant to update them with new drawings. And then the other day I shifted gears, got an idea, went into my clip art files, and revised them using clip art from my absolutely favorite TeachersPayTeachers clip artist -- A Sketchy Guy.

These days, I occasionally drop in to teacher friends' classrooms to do art lessons with their students. I always write LOOK.... THINK....CHOOSE....DO on the board before starting, but now I'm thinking of just printing these out, having them laminated in a strip, and hanging them up before every art lesson.

I just love the way these look. Wander on over to my TeachersPayTeachers store and pick up a free set for your classroom. And while you're there, visit A Sketchy Guy's TeachersPayTeachers store, too. You might find something you can use in your own classroom!
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what can you do with a heart?

What can you do with any shape, really? One would think it's pretty easy to just decorate a shape... any shape... with lines, patterns, color.... but what I've found lately when substituting is that kids seem to be getting less and less creative at a frighteningly increasing pace. Giving them free reign with a blank piece of paper seems like such a good idea on paper, but I've found that many need a little push of some sort... some examples, some modeling, sometimes even a whole lesson, or at least a mini-lesson, on drawing patterns or borders.

One day in a second grade class, with a little free time to kill, I just thought I'd have students draw a large heart and make it beautiful. The word "decorate" just didn't seem right to me, but it was precisely that word that finally made the difference. I did do a little modeling to begin with, just to give them some ideas, and invited them to use as many colors as they wanted, as many designs as they wanted, and to fill the paper completely.

One of the only requirements was that they had to draw the heart freehand, so we would have a variety of heart shapes, not a set of cookie cutter hearts all the same. I wandered around as they were working, suggesting that they think of patterns they could use, and giving a hint now and then about using bolder colors or perhaps outlining the heart for emphasis.

It was interesting watching them work. While most of the students really got into it and showed some thought in their designs, a few seemed at a complete loss as to what they could do with their heart. When I teach art lessons to kids, I always emphasize how artists usually create a plan, think about what they want to do and choose colors carefully. There are so many times that I see students just slap something together, or don't really look at the space they have to work with. It's very intriguing.

In the end, the results of this activity were interesting. We only worked with crayon on this particular day, but if I had planned it out beforehand I might have had some watercolors available, or some scraps of paper, especially decorative paper, for them to use to enhance their hearts even more. I might have done more modeling (as much as I hate to!) or a short lesson on patterning, or bordering, or ways to combine different types of lines. I guess I just really believed they would do all that all by themselves. They did produce some fun designs, and they had a good time, and maybe that's the best thing.

The most interesting thing of all to me in this whole lesson is that this is the same class that created some beautiful Zentangles just a few weeks before. I fully expected that would carry over to this activity, and it did not, but maybe that's ok too!

art teaches kids

I found this photo on Facebook.
I couldn't have said it better.
There is nothing to add:

being creative... what does it mean?

Near the end of the school year I asked four different classrooms of students, a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth grade, what it meant to be creative. At right is what the second grade class came up with. I think these are pretty good responses from second graders. And I also need to say that I had done lots of art with these students, as I had substituted in this classroom many times and was given free reign for art lessons every time I substituted. They did have many more responses in their discussion, but generally they fit into something already on the chart so we didn't duplicate.

And here are the fourth and fifth grade response charts, from classes where most had attended art classes with me when they were in first or second grade, or both:

Good responses all, but I do have to say that while the second graders were falling all over themselves to get their ideas added to the chart, and the fourth graders were pretty easy with their responses, the fifth graders had to be coaxed and prodded to finally come up with these. Who knows what happened to these students between the time they were creatively making art in second grade and the time they landed in fifth grade. (Well, I do have a theory about that, mostly about too much attention paid to testing data, test prep, test administration, and not enough attention paid to teaching kids to take risks.....)

Unfortunately, I find students, in general, are becoming less and less creative and more and more wanting one right answer, one (easy) strategy, someone to tell them what to do, when and how to start, whether they are right. When I am doing art lessons, I find more and more students having trouble getting ideas and getting started.

So how do we help kids be more creative? 

I always tell students it's okay to look around to see what other people are doing to help get ideas, as long as you don't copy. Use the same color but in a different shape. Use the same shape but a different texture. Use the same shapes but put them in a different arrangement. Create a similar pattern by changing just one thing... a squiggly line instead of a zig-zag line. If you want to try a drawing like the one someone else did, use a different drawing tool. Or a different size paper. Or a different viewpoint.

Change just one thing and go from there.

Just be different!

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snowmen with personality

In a second grade class where my job was to teach art all morning, I read the book The Biggest, Best Snowman Ever. After a short discussion about the story, I told the students they were going to make a torn paper collage of a snowman so big that the only thing they'd be able to see was part of the face. Then I proceeded to have them show me some facial expressions.... happy.... sad.... angry.... surprised.... shocked.... thoughtful.... etc.... and I drew some quick expressions on the board, the way they might look on a snowman's face (with "coal" eyes and mouth).

I showed students how to tear out the side of a snowman's head out of white paper, leaving the corner intact, and then gluing it onto a blue paper so that the corners lined up. Then I asked them to create a snowman face with a "carrot" nose and "coal" for eyes and the mouth... and to be sure to show some kind of interesting facial expression on their snowman.

I suggested that they tear out all the parts first and arrange them how they like them before they glue anything down. Most of the students followed these directions. Not all, but most. The hardest part of this collage activity is the initial tearing of the head shape. I showed students how to measure a finger length from the top left corner of the paper, and a finger length from the bottom right corner of the paper, put dots at those points, then tear a head shape that begins and ends at those dots. Just a couple of students still had trouble getting a workable head shape; for those students, I drew a very faint pencil line for the head shape and had them tear on the line.

This is a simple activity, using only 9x12 construction paper and glue, that requires some fine motor coordination, some eye-hand coordination, a little patience, and a little creativity and imagination. As students worked, I wandered around and asked what facial expression they were creating on their snowman. For hats, I had students just look for any color construction paper from the scrap bin. One student chose the same blue as the background for the hat, so I had him switch that out so we could actually see the hat.

When the snowmen faces were done, we lined them up on the white board tray and looked at each one individually. They definitely did show a wide variety of facial expressions!

Before they began their snowman faces, I had students create different facial expressions and drew them on the white board to show how changing the size of the eyes, the shape of the mouth, and direction of the eyebrows could give the snowman some personality.  

P.S. This lesson is available in my TeachersPayTeachers store. :-)

chagall-inspired drawings

Here is a fun and easy drawing activity that requires practically no prep and which encourages students to get outside the box and unleash some fanciful creativity. The drawing part is done with a Sharpie or a black crayon on white drawing or construction paper.

I usually do this lesson with third or fourth grade students, and occasionally with second grade. It begins with a "looking at art" discussion of work by Marc Chagall. I always use I and the Village and another painting for this part. I have students tell me what they notice; I chart the responses that are "objective" ("I see the Eiffel Tower") and talk about the responses that are "subjective" ("It's weird.") I also ask for words that describe Chagall's work, and here again there is the objective vs. subjective issue. "Fanciful" works, while "weird" does not. "Creative" works while "pretty" does not. At some point, I introduce the words surreal and surrealist with a rudimentary definition: not realistic, but with real things.


The "art-making" part requires some listening, as students draw what they are asked to draw, one item at a time, while also occasionally reorienting their paper. For example, I usually start with directions to draw the profile of a face at the edge of the paper. I reference the green face in Chagall's I and the Village so they know what a profile is. When that's done, I ask them to turn their paper in a different direction and draw any kind of animal, but make part of the animal go "off the paper"... and again, I reference "I and the Village" and show how the horse's head is the only part of the horse that shows.

I continue to give directions for drawing, one item at a time, always turning the paper after each drawing. They are asked to draw things like a person, another person a different size, three buildings, some trees, a house, a road, mountains, a bird, another animal inside one of the drawings, a shape (circle, triangle, etc) "behind" the other drawings, etc. I generally make this up as I go along, using Chagall's work as my own reference for ideas. As I observe their drawing process, I will make suggestions to overlap drawings, watch how they use their space, to draw in the largest empty area, etc., to help them learn to use positive and negative space.

When the drawings are complex and dense, I stop (there will always be a few students whose drawings are very small no matter what I say, so their papers will have a lot of white space. Oh well) and ask them to color in most of the picture however they want, and to leave some parts white. I suggest that they do some shading, and insist that they use bright colors. Over time, I have learned to ban black, brown, and gray for this assignment. Just because. I do have them look at the colors that Chagall used, and see how bright they are.

When their compositions are complete, they are mounted on black construction paper and students write about their work using the title "My Surreal Art" .... because thinking about their own art work is just as important as talking about someone else's!

This Marc Chagall lesson is one of three art lessons included in Abstract Art For Kids, available for purchase at my TeacherPayTeachers store. The lesson bundle also includes a math-connected drawing activity inspired by Wasily Kandinsky, and a collage activity inspired by Henri Matisse.

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pentangles

Recently I began running into these things called Zentangles every once in a while, which look suspiciously like the doodles in the margins of all my college notebooks. I began to remember how it would be easier for me to concentrate on lectures if, between note-taking, I was doodling. Just a fact of life for the visual among us.....

I started thinking that this would be fun to do as an art lesson with kids. All the Zentangles I saw were simply black on white, with lots of repetitive lines, dots, squiggles, etc, to fill up space in a seemingly random way. Would it be relaxing for kids, or would it be frustrating? How would I present it?

My idea was to introduce it with no talking. I gathered kids together.... this was a second grade.... and put up a sheet of 9x12 white paper on the wall and started with one long, sweeping, curving line. I added more lines next to it, several grouped together, then started off in another direction. I kept "adding to" with groups of dots, or little zig-zags, or whatever. Then I stopped.

"What was I doing?" I asked them, and among their responses, I started writing down some key items.... "drawing lines".... "drawing dots".... "doing the same thing again and again"... etc..... until I had some guidelines on the board next to my demonstration paper. Then I gave them directions:

Start with one long line across the paper. Make sure it goes off the edges. Add five more lines right next to it. Then, either make more of those lines or go in a new direction. Here's the rule:  You need to really, really think about what you are doing and you have to repeat each line, dot, shape, or design at least five times.

Five times.  So now I had another idea:  As students finished, I had them choose one colored pencil to color in five spaces, anywhere on the paper, all with the same color. And I renamed them Pentangles. :-)

Here's the best part:  This class is notoriously chatty. Yak yak yak all day long. During this activity, you could practically hear a pin drop! Usually during art time there is a noticeable amount of chatter, conversation, etc., but this activity just inherently seemed to turn the classroom into a whole group of little mindful people, all concentrating on their own designs.

We mounted the finished product on colored construction paper, and they are awesome!

make time for art

Another school year starts, and I look ahead to creating art with kids when substituting in my friends' classrooms. It's great fun to watch students be creative, to help them see that there is more than one right answer to an art-making challenge and to see them learn that creativity means letting go a bit and taking some risks.

I also love just giving them some time to use their imaginations and express themselves.

Sadly, I hear more and more teachers say they don't have time for art.
And I can help!

Making Time For Art is a free download in my store at TeachersPayTeachers. This resource offers suggestions and ideas for finding and making time for art. It includes:

• ideas for integrating art into other subject matter
• a basic list of art materials to have on hand
• ideas for teaching students to think and act like artists.

Making art is important for all students, and it's especially important for those who learn best with hands-on experiences and those who learn visually. Art experience is instrumental when students need to illustrate a story or poem, create a graph or chart, or use pictures or other graphics to supplement or support their writings.

Need a place to start

Start With Art includes five comprehensive, open-ended art lessons that introduce young students to the elements of design and allow them to work with a variety of simple, common materials. Each lesson takes about an hour, including an introduction and a "talking about art" session where students analyze the success of their own art work.

These art lessons are written with "non-art-oriented" teachers in mind, with detailed directions, photos of students art work for reference, and ideas for integrating across curriculum. Start With Art is also available in my store on TeachersPayTeachers,

I know that there IS time for art in every classroom, if a teacher uses time creatively and understands that visual literacy is just as important as other kinds of literacy.

Creating art with kids ..... enjoy it!

harold and the purple crayon, revisited

Last year, I had my Kindergarten students draw "purple pictures" after reading aloud Harold and the Purple Crayon. It was fun, but this year I decided to focus more on imagination and have the students do purple collages. I started by asking students if anyone knew what it meant to use your imagination. A few students had ideas like having an imaginary friend, or pretending. I then asked a second question: If I asked you to use your imagination, what part of your body would you use? Most students pointed to their heads, which told me that they knew what it meant to use their imaginations although most were unable to articulate what it meant. So far so good. After this little introduction, I read the story aloud, letting the students make comments about Harold's use of his imagination on his little purple excursion.

After the story, I explained to students that they were going to use their imaginations to create purple collages. I demonstrated cutting long strips from a 6x9 piece of purple construction paper, which I placed onto a piece of drawing paper taped to the white board. (The students were intrigued by the fact that my pieces of paper were sticking to this paper, so I explained that I had made it sticky with some spray glue.) I showed students that there were cardboard squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles out on the tables, and modeled tracing a circle on the corner of the purple paper. I put all the cut pieces on the sticky paper and proceeded to move them around, letting students comment on what they thought my pictures looked like.

Students were able to choose either regular purple or magenta for their collages, and white or black paper for the background. I asked them to cut some long skinny purple lines first, then to trace and cut some purple shapes. I encouraged them to place all their pieces on the background and move them around to see what they could make before doing any gluing. As students finished their collages, I had them get white drawing paper and a purple crayon and asked them to draw the pictures they had just made.



For discussion and sharing, I held up the collages one at a time and had each student tell, in a complete sentence, what he or she had made. This gave me the opportunity to introduce the word "design" for those who had not attempted to create a picture of an object. Some students had very simple responses, like "I made a house," or "I made a bird," while others included many details in their sentences: "I made a person in a sleeping bag, camping." Whether their collages showed objects they could name or designs with no subject matter, I congratulated them for using their imaginations... just like Harold.
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