poppin.

and lockin.

no, not really, but the 3rd graders ARE making some popsicle inspired art this week. We looked at the art of Sean Finocchio and the pop cart, Chiquita, of local pop shop Viva Pops as inspiration.

Sean is an LA based artist at 33 Stewart Avenue and makes art about what he sees in the neighborhoods around him. He likes to take different routes home from work to see new and interesting things. I love that! He likes to capture stuff that has a 70's flavor to it and as a child of that era, that holds a lot of appeal for me:)

Viva Pops is a local popsicle shop owned by Lisa Altmann. They have amazing pops, a cool spray paint mural in their shop, and a cute little cart called Chiquita.

The classes and I look at Sean's painting of a pop cart and the cart of Viva. We talk about what makes both images look 3d... the use of consistent diagonals.

We talk about seeing these types of carts in our neighborhoods and at framers markets. After that i explain that we'll use a pop cart as the focus of our project... and that we'll be using spray paint to help us create our work. At this point the kids tend to go a little bonkers:)

I share a finished example of the project and then I share one that isn't glued together so they can see the steps involved, in reverse.

The first thing we do is fold a 9x9 square into a triangle and then fold it again to quarter it. Then we draw a few, or more popsicles on the triangle. When students cut the shapes out, I ask them to save the cut out pieces so they may use them later. What's left is our stencil, basically a popsicle flavored snowflake:)

Then we go out and spray.

When we come back in, we draw the cart together on a smaller white sheet. Using cylinders and rectangular prisms to make our carts look 3d. When adding color to the carts, I ask students to press hard on one side of shapes and light on the other to make them look even more 3d.

Once the coloring is complete students cut out their carts and place them on their spray painted paper. They also arrange some of the pops they cut out  on top to make the composition even more engaging. I stress placing everything on the paper before starting to glue. This is their rough draft. If they are satisfied with what they have, then they glue everything in place. If not, they move stuff around until they like what they have.

I'm about halfway through the 3rd grade classes this week, the results have been really cool, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the other classes do.

teachers' turn.

On Wednesday the art department presented our annual workshops for our site classroom teachers. Our goal is to make it fun and educational.  It's a great opportunity to get our teachers more comfortable with incorporating visual art into their grade level curriculum. It also provides them a chance to try something they do not have experience with. Our site teachers are such great sports with this. They are enthusiastic and willing to jump in and try something new.

We met everyone in the auditorium to give them an overview of what the art team has been working on (assessments, resource material and extension activities for art lessons, supplemental art report card), and then broke out into 3 different hands on workshops.

Ms. Vance did tunnel books, Ms. Pothier did clay vessels, and I did an implied motion stencil project.

I used a powerpoint to introduce my group to the variety of ways an artist may create motion in art.

Repetition of shape or line
use of direction line
repetition of shape with a change in value
use of multiple frames
body or object position

We looked at examples of motion from a range of materials and styles

Chris Haughton- A Bit Lost

Banksy

Matte Stephens

Giacomo Balla

Scott McCloud- Understanding Comics

Bill Watterson

Chuck Jones

After discussing these examples I introduced how one can use a stencil in an artwork to create motion or to add background elements in an image. A stencil makes it easy to repeat an element several times and then you can incorporate the other motion techniques as well.

When applying their stencils, teachers could use oil pastels, tempera paint, or spray paint. I stated that in order to show they were proficient in creating motion the teachers must use at least 2 different methods to do so.

The project was more open than other workshop projects I have done, so there was an interesting range of images at the end of the lesson.

Thanks goes out to all the teachers who participated in these workshops. We are looking forward to seeing these techniques and elements incorporated into upcoming lessons. No pressure;)

spray paint? sold.

I don't think there is a material out there that can hook kids as quickly as paint in a highly pressurized can.

Allowing them to use it as the final step in projects has proven a highly successful way to get most projects finished on time. (Which makes for quieter recesses and lunches for me because not as many students are coming in to finish then:) )

The 5th graders have been working on mixed media images that have to show unity. As with my most recent 2nd grade project, I did not introduce students to an artist in the project. Some classes used collagraphy and stencils and others used relief printing and stencils to create their mixed media pieces. This was due to the extra time some classes needed to finish their Ryan Kapp landscapes and assessments. The collagraph and stencil lesson took a 1 1/2 class meetings, while the styrofoam relief and stencil took 1 class meeting.

When introducing the project, I discussed what unity is in art and the variety of ways an artist can create it.
In order to make things in an image look like they belong together an artist may use similar colors, similar materials and techniques, similar shapes, or use a common theme. There are more ways to do it, but these were the ones we focused on. For students to show that they were proficient in unity building, they needed to use at least 3 out of the 4 ways.

I gave students a selection of themes they could choose from- implied motion, an outer space scene, a food related image, or a landscape similar to our Ryan Kapp landscapes. This gave students some freedom in choosing what to do, but also provided structure to those students that get a little stressed when they can do anything they want.

After students printed their main image, then they created a stencil for the spray paint portion that would make this a mixed-media lesson. The stencil could be an abstract pattern similar to a snowflake design or it could relate to their image, adding even more unity to the project.

I have really loved the variety of images that the students have created with this lesson. That said, after working with spray paint for 3 consecutive days, me and my brain cells are glad we are done with it for a while.