illusions with oz.

As a follow up to the line drawings that were inspired by Mister Phil, this week, my 2nds created pieces that put their own, individual spin on an illustration by Olimpia Zagnoli.

We started off by visually identifying anything and everything in her illustration. After that, we talked about how her illustration compared and contrasted with Mr. Phil's pieces. We also noticed that she created a cool optical illusion by playing with the sizes and placement of the hands and cloud filled background. Of course, we then had a bit of fun by experimenting with this in real life, as we "pinched" each other's heads from across the room.

We saw how their were no outlines in Olimpia's work, but that lines were still present all over- made by simply having one color ride against another to create that edge.

When getting ready to create our drawings, I emphasized that we would draw a hand together, so that we could check out the relationship of the hand parts to one another- proportion and placement. Once the hand was drawn, they would bring their voice more into the piece, by using an object they were interested in, as the background pattern element.

As with the Mister Phil inspired drawings, many of the student creations made a lot of us giggle:)

filling like mister phil.

My 2nd graders have started the year by exploring how line can create shapes and patterns in art. To better engage my student artists, I shared the work of English artist Mister Phil. We looked for shapes and patterns in a number of his drawings and also talked about how art does not need to be serious all the time. We all agreed that Mister Phil's work seems a little silly! (And that is okay;) We also noticed how he filled larger implied shapes with  A LOT of shapes and patterns created with lines.

As we started, I reminded my students that we wouldn't be copying Mister Phil's work and we would use it as inspiration to create our own unique drawings.

We started off by experimenting in a couple practice drawings. I demonstrated drawing a large shape very softly in a rectangle. This shape was then filled with shapes and patterns of each student's choosing. I asked my artists to do at least 2 practice drawings. They then decided which one would be more interesting for a final drawing and put a check mark next to that particular sketch.

When they were ready to start on the larger drawing, I encouraged them to draw light until they had it right. I also reminded them that it was okay if their final drawing changed a bit from their original plan. As artists often do, they could revise and enhance their bigger drawings to make them even more successful than their sketches.

Once the pencil work was done, they could choose one color to trace their lines with. When adding color to the final drawings, students could use any colors they wanted and I reminded them that they could press hard and soft to make dark and light colors.

Once my artists were done with their drawings, I asked them to write Mister Phil a question regarding his artistic process. Here are a few of those questions-

"Mr. Phil, why did you become an artist?"

"Mr. Phil, how long does it take you to come up with ideas?"

"Mr. Phil, how did you get so good at drawing?"

"Mr. Phil, will you be my friend?"

"Mr. Phil, do you have a dog?"

quilt up!

Today I had a chance to hang the collaborative paper quilt that 28 classes created last week. The final dimensions are 8' x 24'. Again, it was inspired by Tula Pink's "TriDazzler" quilt.

It's always pretty wild to see how these come together on a vertical surface that a viewer can scan left to right without any distortion in shape.

shine like a diamond.

We are off and running at Zamo!

As usual, I am starting the school year off with a collaborative project that is low stress and high impact. a little background- during the first week I meet with classes for 30 minute mini lessons. This allows me to review art room rules and procedures and to get students creating right away. Kids end up creating for about 20 minutes.

This lesson always emphasizes unity and variety in both art and our school community and beyond. I make a point of introducing textile artists, fabric designers, and quiltmakers with these lessons due to the modular nature of the designs and because I feel that they are often neglected in art education and the art world.

This year, I discovered the work of Tula Pink through instagram and her "TriDazzler" quilt jumped out at me from her feed. I love the repetition of the diamonds and triangles and how the colors repeat in a looser visual way. The main adjustment we made in our approach to Tula's quilt design, was that the center line of the diamond could be rotated either horizontally or vertically.

The prep for this project is pretty simple compared to some others that I have done (looking at you Libs Elliott project and the Latifah Saafir/Sylvia Sutters project;)

I precut a bunch of 6x6" squares that covered the spectrum of colors, plus any tints and shades of those I had available. I then cut a bunch of those squares in half.

Before each class comes in, I place a square & triangle at each seat. As classes move through, I progress through the collection of colors I have to create a loose gradient across the install. I don't have a formula to the progression, it's more of a feel when having colors enter and exit, and re-enter the overall arrangement.

Students glue the triangle onto their diamond.
Students rotate their diamond, so the center line is horizontal.
Students add lines from the top and bottom of the diamond to the center line. They need at least 2.
Students add any colors like like to their smaller triangles, leaving at least one piece the color of the paper on top and bottom.
Students put glue on the back of their diamond.
Students bring their piece to the larger paper quilt and place it on, making the decision to have the center line vertical or horizontal, repsonding to the diamonds already in place.

end of day 1.

end of day 2.

I still have 2 days to go. I am out of space to assemble the full install on my tile floor. There are 14 classes that will take part in this over the next two days. My plan is to add one more section of length to make it 22' long and one more section of height along the whole thing to make it 9' tall. The final install will go on the back wall of our auditorium, so that we have have a dynamic piece of art up by the second week of school.

I can't wait to see this whole piece assembled on the wall. It's always interesting to see these come together and it's particularly cool to see it in different ways- the diamonds up close during the activity, on an angle while up on a ladder above my floor, to the finished piece to take in while standing back from it.

Our kids are always stoked to participate and watch it grow, too. Depending on the size of your school, you could have everyone take part. 

If you're an art teacher and want to try this- go for it! Just be kind and cite your sources:)

almost there.

Bring on the kids!

My room is as clean as it's going to get and I'm ready to kick off the year with another collaborative project inspired by contemporary textile designs. 

Before that, though, I'll be spending the weekend beach camping:)

Have a great weekend everyone!

 Tech corner.

 Prepping for the opening week collaborative.

Reading choices.

a long time ago...

I have been away from blogging for a long time! Our Zamo students were super creative over that stretch. Digital art experiences, collaborative learning opportunities, a mural was made, our 30th annual Celebration of Art took place... and I didn't document those activities at all here:( I did continue to share happenings on the Shine Brite Zamorano fb and instagram pages, so if you are curious what was going on at Zamo all that time, you can check out those social media sources.

Today teachers are officially back at work at our school sites. My room was deep cleaned over the summer and that has encouraged me to purge a lot of items that had not been used in quite awhile. My room feels brighter and lighter. Most of my cleaning is done and now it's time to set up my new color printer and 3d printer. Wish me luck- I can use new fangled technology alright, but I'm not the best at installing it;)

I'm also prepping materials for our annual first week large scale collaborative art installation.

Stay tuned...

murals with maya.

So, I was planning on having my 2nds experiment with shape and cut paper collage this week... and then I went to a makerspace session at naea17 in nyc last week and changed my mind.

I watched how a morphi representative took a 3d solid she designed in that app and dropped it into a image from google earth to serve as a virtual sculpture. Boom! I loved that idea. Now, I am not fluent enough in morphi to teach it to my kids yet, but I immediately realized I could do something similar with the assembly app with my students.

Last year I had a number of grade levels experiment with the assembly app and found that there was a lot of student success and high engagement while working.

So, this week, my 2nds have been looking at the work of artist Maya Hayuk for shape and mural concept inspiration and then working with a partner to play and explore the app while they create a virtual mural for our school community. When looking at Maya's work I have emphasized her use of layered, overlapped geometric shapes. I don't expect the kids to copy her work, but I do want them to focus on geometric shapes and layering. We also have noticed that some of her murals have a strong sense of symmetry while others do not. I want students to be able to recognize this principle in their designs as well.

I have created a short video how-to for the app that I share with the students as we prepare for using the app in class and we view this in a couple chunks after looking at Maya's work. (i'll post that soon:)

I really encourage play with this project. Since it's a digital collage, they can erase shapes and delete parts they aren't digging with the touch of the screen. Assembly is a very user friendly app- it's quite easy to add shapes, flip and rotate them, change sizes and colors.

I went around on Monday with a bunch of ipads and took photos of several blank walls on campus. Students select one of these to serve as the background of their assembly creation. Then, the teams of two start to experiment. Once they have a satisfying composition, they save it and continue to play. They can choose a different wall and go, or simply clear the shapes and work with the same wall.

I have been transferring the images to my mac and then emailing them to the classroom teachers, so they can look at them on their smart boards back in class. I will be printing a bunch of the images out to include in our annual student exhibit that will take place in a couple of months.

There are many choices for students to make with this project. I do have a few rules- no natural shapes, include overlapping shapes, and all of the design must be on the wall. This last one is key because a muralist can not paint on the sky in real life.

My students connect with murals because our campus is covered with them and because we had a local muralist create one on campus earlier this year and they got to see the whole process. I think this project is a great way for them to think about designing with a purpose. In this case it was making something that would turn their playground environment into something more beautiful and enjoyable.

I was only intending these designs to remain digital, but after seeing some of the results, I do believe I need to find the time to make at least a couple of these actually happen on our campus!