Tag: Art Education

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We Are a Part of Something Greater

What better way to collaborate then with an art project, so we started the school year off with a class mural.

I had each class vote on an image that would represent their class, and then I created that image using masking tape over a square board. Students then chose a color to represent themselves and stamped their hands over the board.

When the paint dried, I peeled it away to reveal a white outline of the image they chose. Students then signed their names within the white lines.  This represents our classes choice to work together as a team, and remember we are apart of something greater.

This reminder is not only for the art room, but for life. When we remember our perspectives are only one of many, we can work together towards a greater goal.

<3 Migwetch and Gii’zaagi’in

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Art Art Class Divine I Am Education Existence Most Popular

Giving up Approval for Authenticity

So this is my eleventh year teaching art at Ridgely Middle School.
I can hardly remember what it felt like to be a new teacher… a bit worried, stressed, and anxious….

About how the students would respond, if they would understand the process, and if they would be as excited as me about it all…

About my performance and how my administration would evaluate me, and see me as a teacher. Would I be good enough?

Eleven years later…

I can say I am definitely more confident in my teaching, and in my students abilities to learn.  This comes from a combination of time spent in the classroom, trial and error, a supportive team of teachers in my building as well as an amazing Visual Arts office in my county, and from a total mindset shift.

Obviously as a new teacher, one has NO IDEA what they are truly in for.
Especially in the day in age where we were transitioning from analog to digital.

I started teaching in 2008…
When we still used TV’s and DVD/VHS players.
When we wrote objectives as “The students will…”
When we used Easy Grade Pro and had to put our grades in ourselves.
When there was one desktop computer and students had to go to the computer lab to look up references.

Life has changed so much…
We have morning announcements streaming in real time on the computer
We now write objectives as “I can and I will…”
We use Schoology and all of our grades are kept online and transferred for us.
Every student has their own computer!

The mindset shift is not only from analog to digital, but from thinking about how I should be teaching… to teaching from the authenticity of who I am. Incorporating my own personal journey and passions into my classroom have really changed the whole atmosphere. The students are more comfortable and excited to come to class since I have started teaching authentically instead of teaching from expectations.

I love seeing and being apart of the shift in our public education system. Baltimore County Public Schools is one of the forerunners for leading our students into 21st century digital creative authentic learning.

Now I no longer worry about how my students or administration will respond to my instruction, as I know I am facilitating a safe and powerful space for my students to creatively learn and express themselves authentically. I am teaching them to live authentically … and that is the best lesson anyone in this world could learn.

Here is to my eleventh year teaching and to all the learning, growth, and fun that will come this year!

Migwetch and Gi’zaagi’in
<3

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Art Art Class Education

Last full week

This past week was the last full week of school for us… two more days next week. It really doesn’t feel like summer. The weather in PA/MD has been unusually cooler than summer time weather. 

My students finished their self portrait projects and they look fantastic!! I am thrilled with the quality and unique character of each portrait. They really brought the year home with this project. 

I asked for feedback from them on the class structure this year. We had a station based classroom with theme projects. Choice based art education. This was my first year fully implementing a choice based class. When I asked them what they thought about the class most loved it, but some had a hard time with such open-endedness. There was always a handful of students who just couldn’t get into themselves enough to figure out what they wanted to do. Having choice for them made the projects a lot more difficult. I would never have expected that to be the case… I mean if a teacher told me I could do whatever I wanted, how ever I wanted (in the small guidelines given) I would’ve been ecstatic! But I realized this year that it’s actually difficult for some middle school students because they don’t know what they want, or have never been given the opportunity to explore and experiment enough to find out what they want and like. 

So next year I will have a few more options and a little more structure in the studio and theme projects. I will spend more time teaching what artistic behaviors are, and allowing them time to explore themselves through these behaviors. In the beginning of the year I will focus more on how artists think in order to make a shift in their mindset on art and being an artist. 

I also noticed this year I spent a lot of time reminding the students of the classroom rules: Be respectful, responsible, grateful, honest and kind. Next year I will incorporate these rules into the artistic behaviors and really stress the importance of these through constantly connecting each thing we do in class and as artists to how we can treat the studio and each other better. 

I am so looking forward to next year already and summer hasn’t even started yet!! 

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Art Class Most Popular Wine and Painting Party

Facilitating Creativity

A lot has happened in the past month, so much I haven’t had time to keep up with writing about it all!

I taught two faculty paint nights as team building workshops! Both went extremely well and everyone left feeling like an artist! First we painted a lighthouse, because Ridgely is a Baltimore County Lighthouse School, we each hung our paintings up in our classrooms. The second party we painted cherry blossom trees, which were more for our houses.

 

I also taught a dream catcher workshop at my friends yoga studio Life in Balance. There were 12 people in attendance and each created their own unique dream catcher!

 

There was also a birthday painting party! Lots of middle school girls painting circle designs, or any designs they desired! Each piece turned out awesome, and the girls had a blast!

 

There has been lots of painting going on!

<3

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7 Deadly Sins: Mixed Media

Michael Bell and David Modler presented a hands on workshop at the NAEA convention in Chicago that was the highlight of my convention experience.

The workshop began with each participant in a group of 4, there were 7 groups…this would work perfectly for any classroom.  Each group received a laminated card with one of the seven deadly sins. We were asked to keep the word a secret from the other groups, as we would be guessing at the end who had which word.

To begin we were asked to brainstorm anything that came to mind when we thought of this word…this would help us start to feel the word which made it easier to visually represent the word. The group I was in had the word Greed.

Once we had finished brainstorming, each of the group members took turns making marks while being blindfolded for 3 minutes. The first two people used vine charcoal and only made geometric shapes, while the third person was able to choose any material they wanted while making lines, and the fourth person created texture with any material of their choice.

After we each blindly made marks to express our word, we discussed what we wanted to do with what we had to make it feel and look more like greed. We started brainstorming the symbolism of our lines shapes and colors, and began adding more definition to our design. Each group member had a minute without being blindfolded to add to the work what they felt showed our word. We then began to work together to finalize our piece…

The results of each group were truly unique and individual but each group really captured the energy of their word. I knew quickly this was something I had to try with my students!

When I returned to school on Monday, I had revised the activity to be age appropriate for middle school students and instead of using the 7 deadly sins, we represented the emotions Love, Happiness, Peace, Excitement, Anger, Hate, and Loneliness.

My students did an AMAZING job visually representing each word, and they all enjoyed themselves. A few students in each class asked if we could do it again! Not only were they able to show each emotion using only colors, lines and shapes…they were also able to talk about how it represented their word!

This would be a fun activity to do with teachers as well, perhaps for a professional development activity. Teachers could use the 21st century learning skills as their prompt.

Collaborating to create one piece of art could sometimes be seen as a challenge, one person might have a hard time letting go of their concepts and ideas. Blindfolding each group member worked to help everyone let go of their expectations and to be in the moment, while taking turns created a space for change. Spontaneity helps a person to let go and be present in the now.   This was a perfect example of a theme directed intuitive art making process.

<3 Thank you Michael and David!

 

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Art Class Existence Most Popular

LEAD! #NAEA16

The National Art Education Association held its annual art convention in Chicago this year! A big change from last year’s convention in New Orleans.

The convention asked us to Lead, and Share our vision for Art Education. This was a powerful convention, full of STEAM, Arts Integration and Holistic learning. We proclaimed our importance as Art Educators to the universe with Jean Houston. She was truly the most inspirational speaker I’ve had the honor of hearing. I see her vision clearly, and she is a wonderful model for creating a shift in our world.

Each session I attended was jam packed! It was great having the NAEA app to keep my schedule organized and to see resources the presenters shared.  Such a 21st century way of communicating and sharing.

At the artisan gallery I sold my dreamcatchers and some quote paintings. It was a wonderful evening meeting art educators from around the world! One of my dream catchers is living in Panama now!

Laura and Matt Grundler at #K12ArtChat and Susan Reily, who is a HUGE arts integration advocate,at EdCloset hosted a wonderful twitter meetup! It was wonderful seeing and meeting everyone I twitter chat with in real life:

Nic Hahn … the energy behind MiniMatisse
Tim Needles…Vine and Art Educator guru
Chris Sweeney… master of the MakeyMakey
Joy Shultz… an amazing teaching artist who uses choice based learning
Cassie Stephens… Art educator fashionista blogger

On Saturday I attended a hands on art workshop presented by Michael Bell and David Modler, of the Journal Junkies, The 7 Deadly Sins: Mixed Media Collaboration. All I can say is, amazing. It was by far the best workshop I’ve ever attended at a convention. I really enjoyed how Michael and David’s energy flowed and interacted with the participants! It was interactive and engaging… If you ever get the chance to attend a workshop or session by either of these teaching artists, I would definitely recommend attending.

I have been honored to represent our school at the National Art Education Association Convention for 3 years now, and every year it is an amazing learning and networking experience.

 

<3 Thank you everyone for such great resources, ideas, memories and friendship!

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Finding The Story

A few Fridays ago I was given the opportunity to take my GT art students to Hampton National Historic Site to see plays that were being put on by students at The Baltimore School for the Arts. Sophomores at the school are asked to develop a project that shows history through drama. These students used the Hampton National Historic Site for historic research and inspiration to create plays based on the theme “Find your Park.”

 

 

My 8th grade students enjoyed watching the plays, and hearing from the students afterwards about everything that went into completing their project. The quality of the story line, character profiles and costumes made this an amazing event to attend. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful experience with Ridgely Middle School.

 

 

 

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Art Class Existence Most Popular Revealing Treasures in your Own Backyard

Painting with Paul session 1

A few teachers attended the first ever teacher workshop at Hampton National Historic Site. At this workshop, teachers were given a tour of the mansion and grounds, an adaptable lesson plan, as well as a presentation from our first ever artist in residence, Paul Moscatt. After the workshop we decided as an extra bonus, teachers would have two sessions with our artist in residence, to learn some techniques as artists which we can inturn share with our students.

The first painting day with Paul was on January 31st, 2016. Three of the teachers were in attendance, and created three beautiful paintings of a costume model in order to help us with our narrative ideas for our Hampton inspired paintings. These paintings will be submitted into the HHI juried student/teacher art exhibit in April!

When we first arrived at Paul’s studio it was like I was in a movie. The elevator in this older warehouse transformed into an amazing LLC. Cork Building that artists of multiple styles call home.

Paul is gracious host, providing us with coffee and coconut chocolate bars in the morning when we arrived.  We talked for a little while about his studio space, and his ambitious and artistic daughter. He even had prosciutto ham bread with olives for lunch!

Painting model Deviana was such a pleasure. The atmosphere of the studio, along with Paul’s ability to teach new techniques in a manner that gets an artist excited about painting. He has a genuine enthusiasm for the act of painting that is contagious.

Thank you, Paul, for a wonderful day of learning and painting! Looking forward to our next paint session on February 28th, 2016.

 

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Expo Experts!

Mantle of the Expert:

Artist can research art supplies, and create sales characters and displays.

Artist will present found information, along with an activity during a class expo.

character application

Art Expo Material Notes

We spent about one whole week researching and preparing our displays and characters. The expo was held on American Education Week. Students and materials were divided between 2 days to present. When students weren’t presenting, they were attending the expo as guest artists looking for a new art material. Students used Ridgely bucks to purchase some materials from the vendors, and at the end the vendor with the most bucks one a gift card to Michaels.

After the expo we had to go over each board and activity again making sure each student received feedback from their peers on the notes packet.  If you’re interested in hearing more about this lesson please feel free to leave me a comment!

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Halfway through…

The second quarter has come to an end, that means we are halfway through the school year already. It’s hard to believe!

Second quarter was full of fun! Students created so many amazing things, using their skills and imagination.

8th grade gt students completed their mantle of the expert art presentations which were amazing.

 

They also created many amazing sketchbook assignments, practicing their drawing skills. Student chose at least 3 personal objects to draw from observation, realistically using shading to create form. Then they were able to create a background for their work.

 

8th, 7th, and 6th grade art students worked on Letting their Imaginations fly, for the PTA Reflections contest. Looking forward to finding out if any of them won awards for their work!

 

 

After flying around for a while, students landed to focus on shading and observational drawing in order to assist them in their upcoming still life drawing.

 

The art department hung a student show at the Towson Deli, like we do every December. It is so wonderful being out in our community, sharing the amazing things our students are doing.

 

Students also created Anti-Drug Posters for the State’s Attorney’s office contest. The task was to create posters to share the affects of drug and alcohol abuse. We will found in February if anyone received an award!

 

Outside of the Art studio, a lot happened at RMS! Teachers and students got together for an amazing canned food drive before thanksgiving, raising over 5,000lbs of food for those in need in our local community! In doing so two teachers got pied in the face as a result of a contest to see which homeroom could bring in the most food!

 

There was American Education Week, where students Raised their hands for SUCCESS! Each student created a hand that represented 3 goals they wanted to be successful at this year. Students and parents both created hands that were displayed in the halls.

 

And last but definitely not last, students at Ridgely teamed up to bring christmas to younger less fortunate students in our school system. Every year the SGA holds a Holiday Benefit party for about 25 kids from one elementary school in Baltimore County. It’s a beautiful thing seeing our students give so much of their love and time to these children. Seeing their faces light up when they arrive and are greeted by 100+ middle school students who are all there for them. There were stations for the students to rotate through… craft making, face painting, snacks and story time (with me!), Santa visit, and dance time. After each station, students then went back to their groups and opened their gifts!

 

So far the year has been amazing, I am really looking forward to the second half of the year!