Immortal Jellyfish, Watermelon Oceans, and Other Cute Drawings!

Yesterday and today I subbed in my former classroom.  I thought I'd share some sweet drawings done by the a few of the delightful kindergartners and first graders I got to see.  They were "between projects", and with only a half hour, I thought these kids would enjoy a little time to just imagine.  The only rules were NO scribbling and NO blood or weapons.  The pic at the top of the post was a collaboration between two first grade girls.  It is a "good zombie" out to protect people.  One girl made the "zombie" and another made the background, which I believe was a sunset.

 Above, a fast swimmer has flames shooting out to show how fast she is swimming.  On the left is another swimmer, who was wearing a lot of bracelets, which unfortunately went flying off.  All the colorful lines throughout the drawing are the bracelets.

Below, more bracelets.  The girl in the pic is wearing them from her wrists to shoulders!

A lot of the boys in both grades decided to draw trucks, trains, and cars.  The first one below is, according to the 1st grader who drew it, "my truck with my dad's bags of garbage in the back".   I've always been fascinated how boys somehow innately know how to draw vehicles of all sorts.

 

 The 1st grade boy who drew the pic below told me "I know everything there is to know about arachnids". 

And from a kindergartner, somewhere in the ocean below is an "immortal jellyfish".  I loved the stories behind these little drawings!

 And of course, there are always some rainbows and flowers!!

 And happy pretty girls!

Below, the rainbow colored bottom is a "watermelon ocean", according to the Kindergarten artist!

 And another sweet kinder heart. 

 Below, an owl and birds; both kinder pics were made for Mommy.

 A kindergarten family, below.

I don't recall the kinder story behind this pic below, but I believe it was also a pic of her family.  Favorite colors, perhaps?

 And finally, I'll close with this cool 1st grade dude who was really rocking his hairdo!  Gotta love the commitment of anyone willing to have mom do this to his head every morning. 

Imagination

This is kind of a strange art lesson sort of post for me, because I unfortunately don't have any specific images related to it.  So I'll have to wing it, by adding random pics of student art.

Two divergent things led me to write this post today.  First of all, in the Facebook Art Teachers group and on the blogs, I often see lots of product-oriented art lessons, including many directed drawing lessons.  I'm not saying this is a good thing or a bad thing; it's just something I noticed, that got me thinking about some of the lessons that were my favorites over the years.  These lessons were often focused on getting my students to explore their imaginations.

 Then, today, another retired teacher friend and I went to the movies to see Before I Go to Sleep, with Nicole Kidman, and Colin Firth.  Without getting into to the movie plot too deeply, let's just say Ms. Kidman plays an amnesiac who wakes each morning with her memory totally erased.  A therapist gives her a camera to record her thoughts and memories each day, to help her attempt to recover memories.  This plays a pivotal part in the movie plot.  When the movie was over, and my friend and I were sitting in the local diner eating a lovely dinner and discussing the film, I said the movie reminded me of a lesson I used to do with my younger students.  Considering the twists of the movie plot, my friend was totally befuddled about how this thriller could possibly remind me of a lighthearted kindergarten art lesson!  But it did.  Here's the lesson, basically:

With my kiddos circled around me, I told them we were taking a trip, using our imaginations.  We closed our eyes, imagining it was bedtime, and we were tucked in with our coziest blanket and favorite stuffed toy under our arm.  And off we went to sleep.  While we were deep asleep, a little alien spacecraft landed outside our window.  Inside, the friendly aliens were discussing the celebration on their home planet, and how they wanted to bring some visitors to enjoy the fun, but would have them home in time for breakfast and school the next day.  They chose us to go to their celebration, and off we flew through the night.  We were given cameras to take pictures of the festivities, and all the creatures/aliens we met, the planet we visited, the space ship we rode in, and more.  We had a wonderful time, and tired, we were returned home, back to our cozy beds and stuffed animals before morning.  When we woke in the morning, we thought we'd had a crazy dream... until we saw the photos we'd taken!!  (This, of course, is the connection to the movie.)

We spent some time sharing what was in our photos before we started our artwork.  What did the aliens look like?  How many arms? Legs? Eyeballs? Ears?...  What color was the sky?  How many suns or moons?  What did the animals look like?  The food?  The space ship?  And so on.  No answer was wrong.  I gave them paper, and crayons or markers or whatever drawing or painting material I selected that year, and their charge was to draw their photos, and then to share the story of their artwork.  Very few rules (for example: no blood, no weapons; these were NICE aliens.)  I absolutely did NOT show them an exemplar.  I wanted the ideas to be THEIRS. 

 Above, a couple of aliens on school pictures; fun lesson idea courtesy of Mr.  E.

Anyhow - the point of my lesson was not to show everyone how to draw an alien.  The point, of course, was to encourage imaginative thinking. I wanted the kids to learn to trust their own ideas.  There were no wrong ideas.  I did, of course, expect them to use their best effort, and I used open-ended questions as I circulated, to encourage them to explore their imagination and develop their ideas. For kids doing simple line drawings, perhaps I would ask "what color skin does your alien have?  what color is the sky?" and so on...  For kids without  much detail, I would ask questions such as "How does your alien move?  (legs and feet? Or does he have fins?  Or wings?  Or wheels?)"  or "Where was the celebration?  What did it look like?  What kid of food did you eat?  Were there any animals or trees or houses? "  and so on...  Or simply "Can you tell me about your picture?"

Do you  have favorite lessons that encourage imaginative thinking?  I'd love your thoughts on this type of lesson! 

For a few other lessons that encourage imagination, check out my 3rd grade painting/collages of the voyages of Sinbad the Sailor, or perhaps my Not a Box, Not a CD lessons for lower elementary, or maybe my 2nd graders' 'Texture Fauves'.

Three Little Kittens - a morning surprise!

Today started with sweet 2nd grader Vivi coming to my room to show me her creations.

Let me back up. When Vivi came to kindergarten, from Mexico, dressed like a little princess in homemade dresses with lace and bows, she didn't speak a word of English. As a matter of fact, she didn't speak a WORD her whole kindergarten year in art class. I was worried, but she always drew beautiful pictures so I knew there was a child inside the beautiful exterior.

Beautiful, shy, artistic Vivi seems to enjoy art class, but even now, she is still soft-spoken, and rarely initiates any conversation with me. So today's visit was a surprise. My morning began first with a phone call from her teacher, telling me Vivi was on her way to my room to show me kittens she had made from boxes. He called me in case she couldn't/wouldn't actually verbalize why she had come to see me.

Simple and cute, these kittens were made from tiny boxes. I asked her questions, and SHE ANSWERED!! She said that she made them herself and nobody showed her how! Don't you love the little paw sticking up on the kitty on the right?

Below is momma kitty.

And here's the kicker: the two kittens fit INSIDE of momma kitty!

Vivi told me she had two more boxes, pink and purple, and she was going to make a kitty for ME! Her visit got my day off to the best kind of start!

Alex Beard & Monkey See, Monkey Draw

My second graders looked at some artwork by Alex Beard, who is on display in my room along with M.C. Escher, as many of his paintings are sort of tessellations. We read his book Monkey See, Monkey Draw. We did an activity often done by Alex Beard when he works with kids, which is a simple lesson relating to the story. The children traced their hand, and then had to turn it into "something". The only rule: NO TURKEYS.
Michael made this adorable deer.
Thomas is still working to finish coloring his awesome dragon.
Peyton made this great tiger -hmmm it seems to have 5 legs. At least I hope they are all legs...

Some kids made dinosaurs, flowers, trees, and more, but MANY of them, perhaps inspired by Alex Beard's peacock image hanging on my bulletin board, decided to make peacocks.

As a result, I decided we needed to paint some peacocks. We watched a great video of a peacock showing off his feathers, and examined some real peacock feathers close up. We have now begun drawing peacocks for a shimmery painting, with sparkly crayons for resist.

What's on my mind...

This post is not about a waterlily or a turtle on a log. I just wanted to have an image at the top of the blog so I used pics I shot while kayaking in the marsh a couple of days ago.

I've been planning on writing this post since last spring, but instead of putting down the words I've been thinking, I've posted just about everything else this summer -sewing a new art shirt, African animals, blueberry pies...

But today I went to my sparkly shiny classroom to start unpacking colorful art supplies, in anticipation of the opening of school in a few short weeks. And on Friday I'll be reading applications from candidates for the sudden job opening for secondary art teacher in our district, and thinking about what is important to find out when we interview the candidates next week. And I got to thinking I need to say here what has been on my mind. I hope I don't offend any of you; certainly no offense is meant. I just want to get us all thinking about our jobs and what it is that we do and should be doing, so that we can all be the best we can be and encourage our kids to be their personal best as well.

I'm not one for all sorts of professional/philosophical mumbo-jumbo or fancy terminology, so I'm going to be pretty simple here about what I want to say.

I've been regularly reading lots of blogs, and I think as a whole, art teacher bloggers are a pretty amazing bunch. Every day I see something that makes me say "I want to try that!". But I also see things that make me think about what we as art teachers should and shouldn't be doing. I have to step back and remind myself that we all bring very different educational training, experience, and backgrounds to our jobs, as well as we are working in schools and states and even countries that have completely different requirements for art instruction. So maybe I'm too judgemental. Anyhow, after a bunch of avoidance, here comes the real text of this post, which I should call "Templates, and Tracers and Mess, Oh My!"

Here's something that I've noticed - lots of bloggers seem to promote using templates and tracers to make artwork look 'better'. My concern is that this is not teaching kids how to think independently, and instead the template becomes a crutch. When you want them to do it on their own, they say "I can't" and instead want something someone else has drawn to use, to copy, to trace.

I say we should be giving the kids the tools and the confidence to do it on their own. Give them examples to look at, break it down into a way that they can be successful without everyone's artwork looking the same. Give kids lots of opportunities to draw from observation. Have them take turns being models, set up an interesting still life, practice contour line drawings of hands and shoes using felt pens so there's no erasing, etc. Draw with sticks or bamboo dipped into India ink and let mistakes become a part of the drawing. The kids are always pleasantly surprised at what they can do without copying or tracing.

Another thing I've noticed on the blogs are those folks who express fear over doing some lessons/projecs because they are messy or 3-D. In this technology-heavy world, my top priority is giving kids regular hands-on experience with a variety of art materials, both 2 and 3-D. I want them dipping their hands into gooey papier-mache, loading up brushes with thick creamy paint, drawing with a chalk pastel on wet paper and watching it turn into paint, gluing together hunks of cardboard, weaving with fibers, covering their hands with charcoal, and so much more. I want the kids exploring their imaginations and generally stretching their creative muscles, learning to think and figure things out on their own. I want them to be independent thinkers and take ownership of the work they do in art. I want to teach them how to clean up so that everyone wants to take part in cleaning. I can't imagine choosing to teach art if I was afraid of dealing with the mess.

None of this means that I'm one of those teachers that puts out a bunch of materials and says "have fun". That's not teaching. I strive to give the kids the information and tools they need to be confident independent thinkers and problem solvers.

We do learn about artists and multiculturalism. I have an "artist of the month" bulletin board in my room, where I showcase a variety of different artists each year. The photos above are (obviously) from a lesson on Jackson Pollock. The 4th graders loved making these paintings, but we struck a deal ahead of time regarding cleanup. About 1/2 the class time was set aside for cleaning! And the kids were happy to do it and worked enthusiastically and respectfully. The paintings were a real hit when I displayed them in the hallway.

I'm afraid I've gone on longer than I intended, and I'm not really sure I've made my point. I do know that certification requirements, professional development requirements, and standards vary from state to state, and maybe this colors my perspective on what art ed should be.

Anyhow, please weigh in with your opinions, and don't be afraid to tell me I'm all wet. I won't be offended! And if I've made you think, that's always a good thing, right? Maybe some of your insights will help me when I head into the art teacher interviews next week. Can't wait to see what the candidates bring and who my new colleague/teammate will be!

Thanks for listening!