I'm just gonna blow a little steam...

Let me start by saying this.  Please do not be offended by this post.  I am about to express my own personal opinions, and that's all they are.  I don't expect you to agree with me, and that's fine.  Maybe you'll agree with some points; maybe not.  It's all OK!  Wouldn't it would be boring if we all had the same tastes and opinions?  This isn't a rant; it's just me blowing a little steam as I express my opinions on a bunch of random, some art education related topics. I'm just in the mood for getting these pet peeves, things that I am just "over", off my chest and I want to share them.  If you've been reading this blog for a while, you might even notice me saying something I've said before in one or more of these points (such as #5).  If some of the things in my list annoy YOU, that's OK; nothing here is intended as a personal attack and again, I don't expect you to agree with me.  
So here we go:

1) Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. I'm so beyond bored by lesson plans based on the painting, clothing with the trademark swirly sky, you name it.  I am just SO over Starry Night!  (And YES, I have taught Starry Night lessons in the past, but not for a number of years now.)  This isn't a slam about van Gogh.  There's a lot of van Gogh paintings that I think are stunningly gorgeous.  And fun to teach with - the rich texture, the vibrant use of color!!  But Starry Night?  Not my favorite.  First of all, if you've ever seen the real painting, in MoMA in NYC, you know it is very small.  Sort of a disappointment.  But mostly, I feel the painting is overrated and dreadfully overused.  There's just so much better!  Here's one of the many goofy parodies of the painting:

2) While I'm on the case of paintings that are smaller than you hoped, there's also Dali's The Persistence of Memory.  The real painting, also in MoMA, is positively tiny!!  Don't get me wrong; I'm actually a Dali/surrealism fan; it's fun to teach.  But this painting is a grand disappointment compared to other works by Dali and other surrealists. This is me and the painting, I think last winter, at MoMA.

3) Being asked to vote for or "like" artwork by kids I don't know so that they can win prizes on Artsonia or elsewhere.  Sometimes I really don't think the piece I've been asked to "like" is the best one, and it is kind of awkward to be expected to vote for it just because I know you from Facebook or somewhere.  If there's a contest, and you'd like me to vote, fine.  Just don't tell me what to pick.  I'm rebellious, and if you tell me who to vote for, I guarantee that I'll always pick the other guy. 

4) While I'm at it: being asked to play games on Facebook.  Do I ever play games?  Yes: Words with Friends, and Word Streak/Scramble with Friends; I like word games.  But I do not link those games to Facebook in any way.  I'm happy to play them with you if you need someone who will be competitive, but  please don't ask me, on Facebook, to play other silly games.  I have enough to do. 

5) Lessons on using repetitive design and pattern that are called Zentangle lessons.  The word Zentangle doesn't appear in the National Art Standards, or in the Common Core, or in the Elements of Art or Principles of Design.  Zentangle is a prescribed method of drawing repetitive designs using specific techniques and patterns and materials, and has become big business.  Every repetitive design is not a Zentangle.  Do you think that when Laurel Burch filled her fantastic felines with rich pattern and design that she was Zentangling?  Do you think that the incredible artists of Oaxaca who make carved wooden animals and other figures and then paint them with detailed and colorful repetitive pattern have even heard the word "Zentangle"?  Please, folks!  Lessons on pattern and repetitive design are just that!  You may be incorporating various E's and P's, such as line, movement, rhthym, and so on, but you are not necessarily doing a Zentangle every time you fill a shape with smaller shapes and then fill them with repeating patterns.  NO NO NO. (By the way, on the left below is an image of some patterned Laurel Burch cats.  The two other images are of carved pieces hand-painted by the talented Oaxacan artist Agustin Cruz Prudencio.) 

6) Annoying brainless pop music ear worms (music that you can't get out of your head) of songs that you don't like.  The other night I was watching the Jimmy Fallon show and he and Ellen DeGeneres did a lip sync contest, and two of the songs they did (and the two that got stuck in my head for a full day) were the Whip/Nae-Nae song (I don't know the real title) and Bitch Better Have My Money.  WHAT????  What ever happened to songs with lyrics that I wouldn't be embarrassed to sing along to?  Good grief.  Dear younger generation, is this the best that you can come up with??

7) T-Shirts and posters that tell me to "Keep Calm and...".  I do NOT always WANT to stay calm!  I am not a yoga sort of gal.  I like to get excited by stuff!!

8) And since I've mentioned T-shirts, how about this: being expected to want to wear a logo T-shirt to match a bunch of other people in a group of some sort.  Sorry, folks.  I wear T-shirts to the gym, or cleaning the house, or when I'm in the kayak or in the yard.  I do not consider logo T-shirts to be fashion.  And, as an art teacher, I like to be unique in the clothes and jewelry I wear.  I want to be an individual.  Wearing matching T-shirts makes me feel like a kid in day camp or  camp counselor.  Where's my whistle?

9) Still in the T-shirt department - just because a T-shirt has an art print on it, doesn't make it fashion!  Why are so many people so excited to wear a T-shirt with a Keith Haring (or any other artist) work of art printed on the front?  It is STILL JUST A T-SHIRT!!  Now, if you are making something awesome with fabric that has artwork printed on it, that's a different story.  Just please, let go of the T-shirt as a fashion choice!

10) Facebook posts of coloring book pages in the Facebook Art Teacher group.  Listen, if coloring books are your thing, if they are therapeutic for you, I've got absolutely no gripe.  I do know people who adore coloring books for relaxation, and I know adult coloring books are the rage right now.  So go ahead and color!  But sharing your coloring sheets on Instagram or Facebook?  I just don't understand why anyone thinks I'd want to see them, and I don't understand why they are they clogging up the feed, making me miss more useful and interesting posts.  By the way, when I searched for an image to put here, I was pretty stunned at some of the 'edgy' coloring books available for adults.   I chose to post something relatively safe...

11) Lately, again in the Art Teacher Facebook group, I see lots of posts of people asking for links to videos they can show a certain grade level on a certain topic.  I think kids spend WAY TOO MUCH TIME looking at stuff on screens.  I don't understand the need to have a video in order to introduce a new topic.  Kids need less screen time, not more.   

12) And finally, there's this - the way I see people teaching the drawing of cylinders.  It makes me absolutely CRAZY when people draw the tops of cylinders as an almond, with two curved lines ending in points where they meet at the ends, rather than an oval.  It makes the cylinder look like a crushed can.  If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at my quickie illustrations below.  The first shows using ovals to create cylinders, which is correct.  The depth of the oval will depend on where your eye level is.  The second illustration shows a drawing where the top curve and the bottom curve meet in points on either edge, like an almond shape.  This is NOT correct.  I always had students, when learning to draw solid shapes, practice using their entire arm to make ovals.  And we used lots of cylinders and looked at them carefully to see if there were ever points on the ends.  And unless the cylinder was squashed or crushed, there was not. 

13) I have a concern about the many lessons I see posted, incorporating sweet foods to make them fun, such as mixing colors of frosting for cupcakes to teach color theory, or using cupcakes for incentives, and so on.  I have three concerns about this: first, the kid who is gluten-sensitive and can't participate, second, the diabetic child who can't have the sugar, and third, the obese child who doesn't need to be fed candy or cupcakes in art class.  I have a close relationship with someone who has a child that is struggling with obesity, and is trying to maintain a doctor recommended diet, but everywhere he goes, someone is offering an ice cream or a cupcake, it seems.  It's hard for a second grader to have the will power to say no, and even harder if it is part of a class experience.  When I was teaching, I did sometimes reward a class with a "pop-pop" party.  The refreshments, popcorn and fruit ice pops, were chosen specifically to avoid food allergies and diet concerns. 

14) And finally, something I think you should all be able to agree with.  It absolutely kills me how many school districts have art teachers, and art programs, and then have no budget to support them.  It breaks my heart to see the constant posts in the Facebook Art Teacher group about the incredible amount of money people spend from their own pockets to supply their programs.  Everyone is always posting bargains they find at Target or other stores that they are scooping up for their classrooms.  Bargains are great, and certainly when I was teaching, I spent some pocket money to buy oddball things to enhance my lessons and my classroom, but I didn't totally supply my art program out of my own pocket.  No other teachers are expected to do this!  Phys ed teachers don't use their own money to buy the basketballs and other equipment for their programs.  And certainly the academic teachers aren't buying the textbooks for their classes!  It's ridiculous!  I'm blown away by how disrespected (by lack of financial support) so many art teachers are by their districts, rather than being given the resources needed to be successful. 

There.  I've said all I want to, and I'm done.  I'm curious to hear whether I've touched any nerves with this post, whether you agree, or have a totally different perspective on my points.  Let me know!

Teaching Art - the sensitive concept of nudity

This photo has nothing to do with this post (though the caterpillar is certainly naked) but I shot it today and wanted to share.  It is sometimes called a 'parsley worm' but will turn into a black swallowtail butterfly.  It would be great, I think, for teaching pattern and repetition, or for an Eric Carle lesson on the Very Hungry Caterpillar! 

Because of Pinterest, people often view posts I wrote a long time ago.  Today I received a comment on a post from December 2010 titled Surrealism again - 4th grade collages.  In this post I mention the video Get Surreal with Salvador Dali, as I have on several other posts on this blog.  I have shown it many times over the past few years.  The commenter said "I am appalled that you would show that video to fourth graders. It has SEVERAL instances of nudity. I am a teacher, by the way, and I would never expose such young souls to any form of nudity. That is precisely why this country is going down the toilet."  I responded by thanking the writer for his/her comment, and saying that I would address the topic here in a new post.  So here I am.  Though I must take a moment here and say I am flattered.  I  have never been accused of anything quite so profound as the demise of our country.  Wow.  I wonder how my showing a museum-made movie about a famous artist and art movement to 4th graders compares to the performance of Miley Cyrus at last night's VMA awards?  Which one of us is more morally bankrupt?  Do you think Miley learned those moves from watching a movie about a famous artist?  Am I being too snarky here?

So, about that video, referred to in the comment:  Get Surreal with Salvador Dali is an award-winning half-hour video available for free to educators from the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg Florida.  It is an educational video made for kids.  It is narrated by two kids.  By the end of the video the kids will be singing along with the Dali song.  They love this video!  A shorter version of it is also available on YouTube, though I personally use the full-length version.  Yes, I admit it has some brief glimpses of nudity, which I referred to in my original post as 'giggle-worthy', and will describe here.  First of all, at one point there is discussion of a double image in a painting, and there happens to be a part of a woman with her naked breast showing off to the side of the painting, though this part of the image is never discussed.  But the most prevalent nudity in the video is the use of quick clips which show this statue (below) chatting with another piece of artwork as part of the narration of the video.  The drawers open and close as she talks and it is very silly. 

 Before I showed the video to my 4th and 5th graders, I discussed with my students what they would be seeing, in regard to the nudity.  (I also discussed it with my principal, who absolutely gave me the go-ahead to show the video.  Believe me, I did give it the appropriate consideration before showing the movie.)  Anyhow, prior to the movie, I reminded the kids that lots of artwork throughout history has been done based on the human nude, because it is a beautiful source of artistic inspiration, and that if they went to an art museum they would likely see paintings and sculptures based on the human form.  I told them that sometimes when they saw a nude in the Dali video it would be funny and it was OK to giggle, but to control themselves so they didn't miss any of the movie since it moves very quickly and is quite informative, and I expected them to remember and be able to discuss what they had seen.  In truth, the kids laughed more at the flying mustache than at the talking 'chest of drawers'!  But the biggest giggle from the kids, the only place where I actually have had to stop the video briefly, was when the word 'crutch' is spoken with a trill of the letter R.  (crutches are mentioned in the video as a commonly used item for symbolism in Dali's paintings.)  The kids thought the word spoken had been 'crotch', not crutch!  Here's a Dali painting with a crutch.  This painting is one that is discussed in the video. 

When showing work of  famous artists to my students, I have always eliminated anything that I thought potentially inappropriate.  I clipped together pages of books that included nudes so that the kids could not see them.  But sometimes the human body found its way into art projects in ways that were unavoidable. For example, when my 6th graders built these sculptures of  'people in motion' (this was not a surrealism project), it was important to be as accurate as possible to create a realistic look.  So 'boobies' were added as needed with little wads of newspaper and tape, hips were shaped, and so on.  And aren't the results super? 

basic armature structure

adding plaster bandage

  

 And of course, adding paint and embellishment

Anyhow...  I did consider introducing the artist Niki de Saint Phalle to my students, and using her work as inspiration for some projects, and while I adore her work, I decided against it because I was concerned someone might be offended by the overabundance of large colorful breasts.  Here's a sample of her amazing, colorful, joyous work.

And I even edited some nudes out of the children's art books of Mike Venezia.   But lets face it, the truth is, when we get out of the shower, we are all nude, are we not?  So I'm back to the comment written by my reader, about my 'exposing such young souls to any sort of nudity'.  I don't think what I showed them was really that damaging or provocative, or even previously unseen.  What do YOU think is or is not appropriate for art class, and at what age?  Would you show this particular video?  I'd love your opinions, whether or not you agree with mine.  By the way, here are a couple of collages done by my 4th graders based on a  project they saw presented in the Get Surreal video. 

And now I'll end this post, with another nude from nature, shot during a recent kayaking sojourn.

I call this 'Turtle Ballet'

4th graders Get Surreal!

These are the first completed surreal collages made by my 4th graders.
They saw the 1/2 hour video "Get Surreal", produced by the Salvador Dali Museum in Florida. It is available for FREE to educators and is a fun, engaging, and informative production. The kids love the flying mustache! I strongly recommend this video.

The video discusses these characteristics of Surrealism: Dislocation (putting things where they are not usually found), Juxtaposition (putting things next to each other that don't usually belong together), Metamorphosis (changing something into something else), and Symbolism.

Each student was given a 9"x 12" piece of black oaktag. I have a box full of landscape and other images from calendars that they used to create their background environment. The rule was that the black tagboard had to be covered completely, so they often had to piece together images for their background.

I have boxes of old magazines: National Geographic Traveler, Adirondack Life, Ranger Rick, and assorted home and ladies magazines. Students were each given a gallon size Ziploc bag, and all images they clipped were stored in the bag along with their oaktag. I did not put out glue until everyone had plenty of time to collect an assortment of images to use.

We discussed how SILLY is OK, but offensive is not. They were not allowed to use images of underwear, alcohol, or weapons, and could not put things together that would upset or offend someone. We discussed what is appropriate for school, and the kids were so funny, tearing out and discarding images, especially from the ladies magazines, that referenced stuff they thought was "inappropriate". They were quite zealous about this!

I've done this project several times before, and I thought this year's students selected the oddest assortment of images ever. There was so much great stuff there, and they just passed it by for strange little things. But anyhow - I'll show you more when the rest are done next week.

Second graders grow mustaches!!

It's Salvador Dali and his mustache!!

I'd love to take credit for this goofy & adorable idea, but I can't. I first saw this lesson posted by Anne at Use Your Coloured Pencils back in the fall. Her 5th and 6th grade students had created portraits of Dali and his famous mustache, but I did my version with my 2nd grade students.

We used a black oil pastel (with no pre-drawing with pencil). When done, the students cut the portraits out, glued them on a construction paper color of their choice, and made a mustache with a black pipe cleaner. I hot-glued the mustaches on when the students were ready. Last week, the second graders had practiced creating a variety of facial expressions using an oil pastel and the 'biggie' paints, so they were ready to draw Dali's expressive face!

But to 'get in the mood' we began by growing our own mustaches! I gave each student a 3"x 9" piece of black tag-board, and they quickly cut out crazy mustaches and taped them on, keeping them on while they worked. They were a real hit! Some of the students used their scraps to create funky eyebrows as well. Even the teaching assistant who comes to art with his 1:1 student made a twirly mustache to wear over his real (and much shorter) real mustache in art!

These mustaches below are samples of those that have been 'grown' by my second graders. Sorry the first batch is sideways. (Oh well; tilt your head or your computer. Thank you, blogger!)

Yes, it's me below (having a bad hair day but a good mustache day!) with two real characters.
By the way, since many of my readers have been 'pinning' stuff from my blog to their Pinterest boards, I'd prefer that you choose to pin just the artwork or the hideous photo of me, and not the photos of my sweet students. I realize I don't actually have the power to prevent you from pinning them, but I thought I'd at least make the request and hope you will respect my wishes. Thanks.

One of the second grade classes shows off their newly grown mustaches! Note that many of them are trying to bug out their eyes, Dali-style!

It was a LOT to get done in a 40 minute art class, and honestly both my 2nd grade classes ran overtime but we all got done. THANK YOU THANK YOU to my wonderful awesome spectacular fabulous 2nd grade teachers for their willingness to wait for their kiddos and to help with lining the kids up quickly for a photo. And another thanks to the very patient 4th grade teacher and her students who were waiting patiently for their art class time while we cleaned up the mustache trimmings all over the floor! I know elementary classroom teachers' prep time is precious, so I appreciate that this lovely teacher was cheerful and non-complaining.

And the minute the artwork went up in the hallway, people (kids AND adults) were smiling when they walked by! FUN, FUN!

More Surrealism - 2nd grade landscapes and clocks

The inspiration for this lesson came from a lesson posted here:

http://linesdotsanddoodles.blogspot.com/2010/01/dali-clocks-1st-grade.html

My 2nd graders looked at and discussed Dali's Persistence of Memory. Then we created our own distorted clocks on watercolor paper, outlined with Sharpie and painted with watercolors.

Next we created a simple landscape with 3 wavy lines, and painted by double-dipping 2 colors on our brushes. Then we used a Q-tip to paint some black trees and fences, using size and placement to show depth.

Finally, we cut out our clocks and glued them down, with a little bit of curve.

a few more surreal collages

Surrealism again - 4th grade collages

This is my second surrealism/Dali post tonight! Hopefully next week I can post the surreal lockers made by my 6th graders, 2nd grade landscapes with dripping clocks, and if we finish them, 5th grade surreal hallways.

My 4th graders made these surreal collages after viewing and discussing the DVD Get Surreal with Salvador Dali. As I've mentioned before, educators can get this movie for FREE (does it get any better than that?) from the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. The kids totally loved this movie - it's wacky, with a fun song, young adorable narrators, an animated moustache, and some giggle-worthy glimpses of nudity (imagine a statue of Venus that doubles as a "chest" of drawers). And it does a great job of explaining various vocabulary words: surrealism, juxtapostion, dislocation, tranformation, levitation, and even muse and bust. Kids will learn about Dali's fear of grasshoppers, and much, much more!

This collage project, using only magazine images, is introduced in the movie. We cut up old magazines: Ranger Rick, National Geographic Traveler, Adirondack Life, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, and more.

I gave each student an 8-1/2 x 11" piece of oaktag, and a Ziploc bag big enough for the paper. The students stored the images they "collected" in this bag, and no gluing was allowed until they had plenty of images cut and placed in their bags.

The rules were simple: take no more than 2 magazines at once, return magazines neatly to the proper box, select some large images to cover entire paper so no white space shows, and cut smaller images carefully to remove all background.

Also: no blood, gore, violent images, tobacco, alcohol,or underwear, and no combining of images in a way that might offend or hurt feelings.